Former DNI Ratcliffe says Biden admin buying 'dangerous' Chinese drones that were banned by Trump

Over the weekend, former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe told Fox News' Maria Bartiromo that the Biden administration's apparent proclivity for purchasing Chinese drones is "dangerous for national security."

The Trump-era DNI told the host that it is a major issue that the current administration, through the FBI and Secret Service, has continue to acquire drones from Chinese firm DJI. Among other concerns, DJI was flagged by the Trump administration as a Chinese business with which Americans should be barred from doing business.

The concern among Trump administration officials and GOP members of the legislative branch is that the Chinese Communist Party uses data acquired through the DJI drones to access sensitive information about a range of U.S. subject areas. In the past, police departments have purchased the DJI drones, leaving them vulnerable to data breaches and information hacks by the CCP.

Whereas the Trump administration, according to Ratcliffe, "advanced a policy where we wouldn't use that Chinese technology," the continued purchase of Chinese technology that the government has every reason to believe is being used against American interests "is consistent with the Biden administration's taking a softer approach" toward China. 

"This makes very little sense," added Ratcliffe, but "the Department of Justice gets what it focuses on," and at the moment, DOJ "thinks American parents are terrorists," he said, referring to an order issued by Attorney General Merrick Garland last week, in which he instructed the FBI to mobilize against American parents protesting the implementation of Critical Race Theory in their children's classrooms. A letter to President Joe Biden from the teachers' union asked the administration to label these distraught parents 'domestic terrorists.'