The interim president of the University of Michigan told Congress on Thursday that his institution never conducted an audit of its research programs after five Chinese nationals tied to the school were caught near a sensitive military installation at night, then charged with lying to federal investigators and destroying evidence.
Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., pressed interim president Domenico Grasso during a Capitol Hill hearing on whether the university had taken any steps to determine if intellectual property or federally funded research had been compromised. His answer was blunt: no audit was done, because the students "were not researchers."
The exchange, reported by Fox News Digital, laid bare a gap that should concern every taxpayer who funds university research: a major public institution saw five of its students accused of espionage-related activity near a U.S. military base, and its leadership decided the matter didn't warrant a closer look at what else those students, or anyone connected to them, might have accessed on campus.
The incident dates to August 2023. Five Chinese nationals enrolled at the University of Michigan through a dual-degree program with Shanghai Jiao Tong University made a late-night trip to Camp Grayling, a Michigan Army National Guard base, during the "Northern Strike" live-fire exercise. National Review reported that the exercise included Taiwanese troops, a detail that makes the presence of Chinese nationals near the perimeter far more alarming than a wrong turn.
An FBI affidavit stated the men were found "while standing in close proximity to numerous military vehicles, tents, and classified communications equipment" near a live-fire drill. Investigators later discovered images of military vehicles on an external hard drive belonging to one of the five, according to Just The News.
When confronted, the group offered shifting stories. One told authorities, "We are media," the Washington Times reported, citing FBI documents. Others claimed they had come to watch a meteor shower or "see shooting stars."
None of those explanations held up. Federal authorities later cited WeChat messages, on the platform Stefanik described as "CCP-controlled", in which the men discussed deleting photos from their phones and cameras and coordinating their accounts so their stories would match if questioned again.
The five were eventually indicted on federal charges of conspiracy, lying to investigators, and destroying evidence. They were not charged with trespassing or espionage at the base itself, AP News reported, but with misleading federal agents and attempting to conceal what they had done that night.
None of the five are currently in U.S. custody. Gina Balaya, spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Detroit, said: "Should they come into contact with U.S. authorities, they will be arrested and face these charges."
That means the men who allegedly bypassed no-trespassing barriers, photographed military equipment during a live-fire exercise involving allied forces, lied about it, and then conspired to scrub the evidence are beyond the immediate reach of American law enforcement. And the university where they studied decided no further investigation was necessary.
Stefanik opened her questioning of Grasso by laying out the timeline. She noted that Michigan ended its partnership with Shanghai Jiao Tong University last year, but only after congressional pressure forced the issue.
"Last year, facing congressional pressure, Michigan ended its partnership with Shanghai Jiao Tong University after five Chinese students were caught spying at night and taking illegal photos of U.S. military drills and equipment on the remote Michigan installation Camp Grayling."
She then described the cover-up:
"These students lied and misled U.S. law enforcement about their motives and later conspired on the CCP-controlled messaging app WeChat to clear their phones and cameras of photos and evidence."
Then came the direct question: "Has the university conducted a full audit to determine what intellectual property or federally funded research was compromised?"
Grasso's response was to minimize. He told Stefanik that "we are unaware of any research that was compromised by these individual students" and noted that Camp Grayling was "miles and miles away from campus."
Stefanik was not deflected. "I understand Camp Grayling is off campus, but was there an audit conducted?"
Grasso then made the admission that defines this exchange: "Well, they were not researchers. They were undergraduate students. So, we did not do an audit."
He added that the students "did not have any access to any of our research." But when pressed further, Grasso conceded a revealing point, that the university does "not know what all of our researchers are involved in."
Think about that for a moment. The university's defense is that undergraduates couldn't have compromised research because they weren't researchers. But the same university admits it doesn't have full visibility into what its own researchers are doing. And it chose not to look.
Stefanik urged the university to conduct a full audit "to make sure that no research, that they didn't take any nefarious acts there." Grasso, to his credit, acknowledged the university needs to improve. He told Stefanik the school has been strengthening background checks and said it must "partner more closely with our federal intelligence community to make sure that these students are vetted before they're allowed to get visas to enter our country as well."
That statement shifts part of the burden to the federal government, and it's not entirely wrong. Visa vetting is a federal responsibility. But it does not explain why a university that hosts billions in federally funded research would shrug off an espionage incident involving its own students without so much as an internal review.
The case fits a pattern that extends well beyond Ann Arbor. A recent watchdog report identified Chinese academics at Cornell, Purdue, and Los Alamos with ties to CCP talent recruitment programs, a reminder that the espionage threat is not confined to one campus or one incident. Former counterintelligence official Bill Evanina told Just The News that when asked whether some people coming from China to work on such projects would spy for the CCP, his answer was "100 percent."
Former Ambassador Joseph Cella framed the stakes more broadly:
"It shows the massive gaps in our national security and the urgent need for, on a whole of society and whole of government, including the states, to be on the proper footing commensurate to counter these espionage threats."
Shanghai Jiao Tong University, the partner institution Michigan finally cut ties with, was identified in a congressional report as having ties to China's military and defense-related research. The five defendants were products of that dual-degree pipeline. And yet Michigan's leadership treated the Camp Grayling incident as a one-off, something that happened far from campus, involving students too junior to matter.
Representative John Moolenaar put it plainly: "American universities must realize they are a target for espionage and protect the critical taxpayer-funded research they do."
The federal criminal complaint detailed how the five men allegedly bypassed no-trespassing barriers, carried cameras near sensitive military activity, gave false explanations, and then coordinated a cover-up through WeChat. The FBI found photos of military vehicles, inconsistent statements, and messages about deleting evidence.
This was not a group of tourists who wandered off the road. The indictment describes deliberate action and organized concealment. And the university's response, no audit, no review, no accounting of what these students may have accessed during their time on one of America's premier research campuses, is the institutional equivalent of looking the other way.
The broader question is whether elite universities have the institutional will to police their own vulnerabilities. The Pentagon has already begun pulling military officers from Princeton, Columbia, Yale, and other elite universities, and has severed military education programs with Harvard while signaling a review of all Ivy League ties. Those moves reflect a growing recognition in Washington that the relationship between the federal government and top universities cannot run on trust alone, not when the counterintelligence stakes are this high.
Michigan's interim president told Congress the university is improving its background checks. That's a start. But background checks happen before someone arrives on campus. The question Stefanik asked, and that Grasso could not satisfactorily answer, is what happens after something goes wrong.
Five students tied to a Chinese university with military links were caught near classified equipment during a live-fire exercise. They lied. They destroyed evidence. They fled the country. And the University of Michigan decided it didn't need to check whether anything else was compromised.
When the institution entrusted with safeguarding taxpayer-funded research won't even look, the rest of us are left to wonder what it's afraid to find.
