IC Oversight & Policy — 2026-07-16

HPSCI Holds Open Hearing on State-Level Counterintelligence as Crawford Warns Next 9/11 May Be Pre-Positioned in CI Domain

BLUFCrawford's open-hearing pivot and four-state roundtable series are laying the legislative foundation for a formal state-level counterintelligence mission that fusion centers currently lack statutory authority to perform.

House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Rick Crawford opened a full committee open hearing on Wednesday at 2:00 PM ET in HVC-210 to examine state-level counterintelligence efforts, an open format the panel does not often use 12. Witnesses included National Fusion Center Association President and Northern California Regional Intelligence Center Director Mike Sena, Alabama Fusion Center Director Jay Moseley, Northern Virginia Regional Intelligence Center Director Amy Lay, Nebraska state senator Eliot Bostar, and Florida state representative Daniel Alvarez 12. In his opening statement, Crawford cited former FBI Director Wray's testimony that the Bureau was opening a new China-related counterintelligence case every twelve hours with over 5,000 active cases nationwide, and referenced the 2023 arrests of two men operating a Chinese Ministry of Public Security outpost in Manhattan 1. Crawford said the committee has held four state-level counterintelligence roundtables, most recently last week in Huntsville, Alabama, preceded by sessions in Florida, Pennsylvania, and Arkansas 1. The Epoch Times carried a live secondary broadcast of the hearing 3.

Analysis
HPSCI's open-format hearing, unusual for the panel, elevates state fusion centers from information-sharing nodes to primary detection assets as federal agencies acknowledge caseload saturation, and Crawford's framing of pre-positioned capabilities suggests the committee is building a public record to justify new state-level CI authorities or funding. That record-building may be aimed as much at expanded committee resources as at a genuinely new threat assessment. Read against the Schiff-Curtis transnational repression bill introduced the same week, whose prosecutorial reach targets the foreign intelligence activity Crawford's four-state roundtable series has documented, the hearing signals converging legislative momentum toward codifying state-federal CI coordination. Sourcing rests entirely on HPSCI's own press office, with the Epoch Times broadcast amplifying rather than independently verifying committee content.

3 sources

Chairman Crawford Opens Full Committee Hearing to Examine States on the Frontlines of Counterintelligence - House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence
Crawford Announces Open Full Committee Hearing to Examine States on the Frontlines of Counterintelligence - House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence
LIVE NOW: House Intelligence Hearing Examines State Counterintelligence Efforts - The Epoch Times (EpochTV)