EXCLUSIVE — Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Rep. John Moolenaar (R-MI) are pressing NASA on why the agency seemingly funded “bilateral collaboration with Chinese entities” through its research grants, according to a letter obtained exclusively by the Washington Examiner.
The pair of congressmen honed in on the research of Stanford University professor Wendy Mao. Mao, according to a congressional analysis of academic publications, received federal support for 31 research projects she carried out alongside affiliates of the Center for High Pressure Science and Technology Advanced Research, an entity that has appeared on the Bureau of Industry and Security Entity List since 2020 and whose parent organization has been on the list since 1997.
The list, published by the Department of Commerce, catalogues entities believed to be involved “in activities contrary to the national security or foreign policy interests of the United States” as well as those at risk of becoming adversarial to America. HPSTAR is affiliated with China’s nuclear weapons program, according to the Commerce Department. Mao herself concurrently held a position at HPSTAR, which her father founded, while conducting federally funded research.
Mao’s ties to Chinese state research entities were documented by the Stanford Review in December 2025.
In one of Mao’s publications, she collaborated with a researcher from the University of Science and Technology of China, a state-run institution, while receiving funding from NASA. Over the course of this research, Mao and her co-authors utilized the Chinese state university’s supercomputing center as well as U.S. government facilities, which Grassley and Moolenaar said constitutes “a direct or material reliance on PRC state infrastructure.”
“The publication lists only Stanford and Chinese co-authors yet explicitly acknowledges NASA funding, which — absent an FBI-certified congressional waiver — raises questions about potential violations of the Wolf Amendment,” the lawmakers wrote of the research.
The Wolf Amendment is a federal law that bans bilateral cooperation between NASA-funded researchers and Chinese entities.
Domestic researchers can obtain FBI waivers to circumvent the Wolf Amendment in certain circumstances.
Grassley and Moolenaar, in a second letter obtained by the Washington Examiner, asked the FBI if Mao had submitted a Wolf Amendment waiver request for her work. The duo also sought information on the number of waiver requests filed since fiscal 2015, the outcomes and details of those requests, whether the FBI has briefed NASA on possible Wolf Amendment violations, and whether the FBI tracks the outcomes of Wolf Amendment-related referrals.
China hawks have long viewed academic collaboration between American and Chinese researchers as a possible vector through which sensitive technology could find its way into the hands of the CCP.
Previously, the House Select Committee on China, which is chaired by Moolenaar, released a report alongside the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence identifying roughly 4,350 research papers funded or supported by federal grants that involved research relationships with Chinese entities, highlighting the widespread cooperation with Chinese entities in federally funded research.
On the other side of the equation, a September 2025 Washington Examiner investigation found that top-tier academic journals such as Nature, Science, the New England Journal of Medicine, and the Lancet had all published reams of research funded by the Chinese Communist Party that was subsequently used by domestic activists.
Other Washington Examiner investigations have uncovered dozens of partnerships between American universities and Chinese military-linked entities, the presence of equipment manufactured by an espionage-linked Chinese corporation at NIH-funded labs and major research installations, as well as the extent to which alumni of the Chinese Students and Scholars Association, a CCP-controlled group, have secured top positions within sensitive American industries.
CCP-FUNDED RESEARCH HAS FLOODED ACADEMIC JOURNALS
In connection with their investigation, Grassley and Moolenaar are requesting a trove of information from NASA. Among their requests are records related to Mao’s work, information about whether NASA sought a Wolf Amendment waiver for the research, comprehensive data on the agency’s research grants, and answers to how NASA has navigated the issues related to the Wolf Amendment.
“It is well established that our university systems serve as soft targets in China’s quest to acquire U.S. knowledge, research, and intellectual property, which is often funded by our taxpayers,” the two lawmakers wrote in their letters to the FBI and NASA.