Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced Thursday that coders residing in Communist China would no longer be allowed to make changes to critical Department of Defense systems.
The use of Chinese Nationals to service Department of Defense cloud environments is over. pic.twitter.com/jZdcHwKho2
— Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth (@SecDef) August 27, 2025
Last month, the Department of Defense was made aware of an Obama-Biden era legacy program called "digital escorts." For nearly a decade, Microsoft has used Chinese coders, remotely supervised by U. S. contractors, to support sensitive DOD cloud systems. The program was designed to comply with contracting rules, but it exposed the department to unacceptable risk. If you're thinking America First and common sense this doesn't pass either of those tests. So I initiated an immediate review of this vulnerability, and I want to report our initial finding.
The use of Chinese nationals to service Department of Defense cloud environments — it’s over. We’ve issued a formal letter of concern to Microsoft, documenting this breach of trust, and we’re requiring a third-party audit of Microsoft’s digital escort program, including the code and submissions by Chinese nationals. This audit will be free of charge for U.S. taxpayers. I’m also tasking the Department of Defense experts with a separate investigation of the digital escort program and the Chinese Microsoft employees that were involved in it. These investigations will help us determine the impact of this digital escort workaround. Did they put anything in the code that we didn’t know about? We’re going to find out.
Additionally, all Department of Defense software vendors will identify and terminate any Chinese involvement in DOD systems. It blows my mind that I'm even saying these things. It's such common sense that we ever allowed it to happen. That's why we're attacking it so hard. We expect vendors doing business with the Department of Defense to put U.S. national security ahead of profit maximization.
I'm committed, like the President is, to ensuring that our national security networks are secure.
Again, it's America First, and it's common sense. This never should've happened in the first place, but once we found out about it, we've attacked it aggressively from the beginning, and we're going to follow all the way through the tape to make sure that this is addressed.
So DOD is working in conjunction, as well as the rest of our partners in the federal government to ensure all U.S. networks are protected.
God bless.
Last month, RedState reported on how Microsoft has developed the "digital escorts" concept to enable non-U.S. citizens to work on critical cloud computing systems while being digitally escorted by Americans who may or may not have understood the code updates applied to systems by Chinese living in China. See Tom Cotton Wants to Know Why Microsoft Uses Chinese Engineers to Maintain Defense Systems and So Do We – RedState.
While the speed with which Secretary Hegseth moved is commendable, I think this may be a contender for the 'Too Little, Too Late' Award.
First and foremost, this deficiency was exposed by the leftist website ProPublica. It isn't easy to fathom how this program survived during the first Trump term and through the fairly relentless purging of Obama-Biden influences by Hegseth. The implication here is that Microsoft's "digital escort" program was known to quite a few high-ranking officers and civilians who perhaps had post-retirement jobs lined up with Microsoft or Microsoft-adjacent companies. Blowing the whistle would ruin those opportunities. This probe will not be complete without the people who allowed it to happen and continue to happen being held to account.
Second, Microsoft must be held accountable for this breach of trust. Rather than doing the right thing, Microsoft developed a Rube Goldberg system that even they didn't believe was legitimate to circumvent the requirement for our classified systems to be maintained by U.S. citizens with the appropriate skills and clearances. In a just world, whoever at Microsoft came up with the idea would spend the rest of their life in prison. Their cellmate would be whoever in DOD decided to go along with it.
Third, nothing as lucrative as the "digital escort" system is only present in one company. You can bet every other major IT vendor in the federal government is using it.
Fourth, it isn't only Chinese. China may be the public focus of the investigation, but it is safe to say that many more Indians are involved than Chinese. I really hope the bar to Chinese workers extends to all non-citizens.
Fifth, it is also a safe bet that a non-trivial number of Microsoft (and other) employees involved in systems maintenance are H1B visa holders.
Lastly, if some, or more likely all, of the Chinese vendors were acting maliciously, it means that a large number of the systems our nation relies upon are hopelessly corrupted and compromised. The taxpayer should not have to foot the bill for unscrewing this disaster.
This is a disgrace. It must be corrected, and it cannot be allowed to go unpunished.
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