Covert Operations Training for N. Korea Nuclear Sites?

 Image result for Iranian Yono-class

 

As Iran attempted to launch a cruise missile from a submarine in the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday, the test failed, two U.S. officials told Fox News.

An Iranian Yono-class “midget” submarine conducted the missile launch. North Korea and Iran are the only two countries in the world that operate this type of submarine.

In February, Iran claimed to have successfully tested a submarine-launched missile. It was not immediately clear if Tuesday’s test was the first time Iran had attempted to launch a missile underwater from a submarine.

CHINA has called for all of its citizens to return from North Korea immediately as a US citizen is detained for allegedly trying to overthrow the country’s regime.

The Korea Times reports that the Chinese embassy in North Korea began advising Korean-Chinese residents to return to China.

A Korean-Chinese citizen told Radio Free Asia he was advised to ‘stay a while’ in China, and stated: ‘The embassy has never given such a warning. I was worried and left the country in a hurry.’

But he said most Chinese citizens in North Korea had opted not to heed the warning. More here.

US Commandos Set to Counter North Korean Nuclear Sites

Neutralizing Pyongyang’s nuclear, chemical arms warfighting priority, SOCOM commander says

Gertz: U.S. special operations forces are set to conduct operations against North Korean nuclear, missile, and other weapons of mass destruction sites in any future conflict, the commander of Special Operations Command told Congress Tuesday.

Army Gen. Raymond A. Thomas stated in testimony to a House subcommittee that Army, Navy, and Air Force commandos are based both permanently and in rotations on the Korean peninsula in case conflict breaks out.

The special operations training and preparation is a warfighting priority, Thomas said in prepared testimony. There are currently around 8,000 special operations troops deployed in more than 80 countries.

“We are actively pursuing a training path to ensure readiness for the entire range of contingency operations in which [special operations forces], to include our exquisite [countering weapons of mass destruction] capabilities, may play a critical role,” he told the subcommittee on emerging threats.

“We are looking comprehensively at our force structure and capabilities on the peninsula and across the region to maximize our support to U.S. [Pacific Command] and [U.S. Forces Korea]. This is my warfighting priority for planning and support.”

Disclosure of the commander’s comments comes as tensions remain high on the peninsula. President Trump has vowed to deal harshly with North Korea should another underground nuclear test be carried out. Test preparations have been identified in recent weeks, U.S. officials have said.

Trump said on Sunday that China appears to be pressuring North Korea but that he would be upset if North Korea carries out another nuclear test.

“If he does a nuclear test, I will not be happy,” he said on CBS Face the Nation. Asked if his unhappiness would translate into a U.S. military response, Trump said: “I don’t know. I mean, we’ll see.”

Gen. Thomas’ testimony did not include details of what missions the commandos would carry out.

A spokesman for the Special Operations Command referred questions about potential operations in Korea to the Pacific Command.

Special forces troops would be responsible for locating and destroying North Korean nuclear weapons and missile delivery systems, such as mobile missiles. They also would seek to prevent the movement of the weapons out of the country during a conflict.

Additionally, special operations commandos could be used for operations to kill North Korean leaders, such as supreme leader Kim Jong Un and other senior regime figures.

Special operations missions are said by military experts to include intelligence gathering on the location of nuclear and chemical weapons sites for targeting by bombers. They also are likely to include direct action assaults on facilities to sabotage the weapons, or to prevent the weapons from being stolen, or set off at the sites by the North Koreans.

A defense official said U.S. commandos in the past have trained for covert operations against several types of nuclear facilities, including reactors and research centers. Scale models of some North Korean weapons facilities have been built in the United States for practice operations by commandos.

The most secret direct action operations would be carried out by special units, such as the Navy’s Seal Team Six or the Army’s Delta Force.

Thomas said the command in January took over the role of coordinating Pentagon efforts to counter weapons of mass destruction from the Strategic Command. The mission includes stopping the spread of weapons of mass destruction and dealing with the aftermath of such weapons’ use.

North Korea is believed to have around 20 nuclear devices and is developing nuclear warheads small enough to be carried on long-range missiles. It also has stockpiles of chemical weapons and biological warfare agents.

Many of North Korea’s nuclear facilities are believed to be located underground in fortified locations spread around the country.

The last rotation of special operations forces to South Korea took place in February when parts of the 1st Special Forces Group (Airborne) and the 75th Ranger Regiment joined South Korean troops for training.

The training took place in mountainous parts of South Korea in a bid to simulate the rough terrain commandos would experience during operations in North Korea. Other training took place on the seas.

Gen. Thomas, in his testimony, identified North Korea as one of five “current and enduring” military threats outlined in a new military strategy produced by Marine Corps Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The four other threats are terrorism, Russia, Iran, and China.

Asked about the new strategy, a Joint Chiefs of Staff spokesman said the latest national military strategy is secret. “A classified [National Military Strategy] will make it more difficult for adversaries to develop counter-strategies and also enables the chairman to give the best military advice to the president and secretary of defense,” Navy Capt. Greg Hicks said.

The command “has recently focused more intently on the emerging threat that is of growing concern to us as well as most of our DoD teammates—the nuclear threat of an increasingly rogue North Korea,” Thomas said.

“Although previously viewed as a regional threat, North Korea’s relentless pursuit of nuclear weapons and intercontinental ballistic missiles, facilitated by a trans-regional network of commercial, military, and political connections, make it a threat with global implications,” the four-star general added.

South Korea’s special operations forces are said to be highly trained but lack the advanced equipment used by American commandos, such as stealth helicopters and aircraft as well as other high technology and advanced weaponry.

A Pentagon report on North Korea’s military published in February 2016 states that North Korea continues to advance its nuclear program.

The North Koreans announced in September 2015 that the nuclear facilities at Yongbyon including a uranium enrichment plant and a reactor that were upgraded for the purpose of building nuclear forces, the report said.

Pacific Command commander Adm. Harry Harris said in congressional testimony last week that North Korea is an immediate threat to the security of the United States and the Asia Pacific region.

“With every test, Kim Jong Un moves closer to his stated goal of a preemptive nuclear strike capability against American cities, and he’s not afraid to fail in public,” Harris said.

Navy Restricted on FON, S. China Sea

The United States Navy has yet to send a ship within 12 miles of any disputed islands in the South China Sea under President Donald Trump.

Although Trump said during his presidential campaign that former President Barack Obama had been weak defending international waters from China, he has yet to increase Navy patrols in the region to cut off the country’s access to the artificial islands.

Image result for china disputed islands BusinessInsider

In an interview with The New York Times in March of last year, Trump said those islands built by China were “a military fortress, the likes of which perhaps the world has not seen.”

“Amazing, actually,” he added. “They do that at will because they have no respect for our president and they have no respect for our country.”

Freedom of navigation operations, known as Fonops, have not increased under Trump despite “all of the language, combined with the fact that the Republican foreign policy establishment had been critical of Obama for not carrying out enough Fonops, means there was a wide expectation that Trump would put down a marker early,” Kissinger Institute director Robert Daly told the Times.

“And that hasn’t happened.”

Upon entering office, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson called China’s island-building “akin to Russia’s taking of Crimea,” and that Trump’s administration was “going to have to send China a clear signal that, first, the island-building stops” and, “second, your access to those islands also is not going to be allowed.”

Anonymous Defense Department officials told the Times that Pacific Command asked for a naval excursion inside 12 nautical miles of Scarborough Shoal to show Beijing that island-building is a red line.

The officials added that this appeared in-line with the Trump administration’s wishes, though they also said that Defense Secretary James Mattis and Pentagon officials are reviewing the effects of these excursions on national security policy.

*** Image result for china disputed islands  Freedom of Navigation Fact Sheet found here.

China’s claim to nearly 90 percent of the South China Sea based on “historical discovery” — a claim largely invalidated by an international tribunal that China ignored last year — has led to boat ramming, arrests and other low-level clashes between China and neighboring nations.

International officials and analysts have voiced repeated concerns that overreaction by any one party could result in a conflict that threatens peace in the region and the global economy.

“We have rebuilt China, and yet they will go in the South China Sea and build a military fortress the likes of which perhaps the world has not seen,” Trump said during a campaign interview last year. “Amazing, actually. They do that, and they do that at will because they have no respect for our president and they have no respect for our country.”

The Navy routinely sends its ships, most often those based with the 7th Fleet in Japan, on regular patrols through the South China Sea’s international waters. However, the White House didn’t approve FON operations, which challenge violations of international norms, for nearly three years in the South China Sea.

In October 2015, the USS Lassen transited within 12 miles of Subi Reef amid Chinese objections. As of 2012, Subi Reef was naturally sea bottom and therefore does not generate territorial waters under international law, despite Chinese claims.

Subi Reef is now roughly the size of Pearl Harbor, according to satellite imagery posted by the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative.

The Navy conducted more FON operations in 2016, with the last coming in October.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson signaled a policy tougher than the Obama administration’s was on the way during his January confirmation hearing.

Lawmakers asked Tillerson what should be done about China’s artificial islands, which include runways long enough for its military aircraft, radar, deep harbors and self-propelled artillery. More here.

Trump, Peace Deal with Palestinians, Easy

So far there has been no read out if Trump asked or rather demanded that the Palestinian authority to stop paying families of terrorists.

The PA, which receives millions in funding from U.S. taxpayers, spends roughly 8 percent of its annual budget, some $300 million a year, on salaries for terrorists who are imprisoned in Israel as well as the families of terrorists who attacked the Jewish state.

Mahmood Abbas, the head of the Palestinian Authority met with President Trump at the White House. Abbas brought the following people with him:

So who are these people?

Well Usama Qawasmeh in April of last year said that the West sponsors Islamic extremism and that 9/11 was no coincidence.

Saeb Erikat was one of the negotiators of the Oslo Accords and said there will never be peace if Trump moves the embassy to Jerusalem.

Ziad Abu Amr is an author, negotiator and foreign minister in charge of economics for Gaza. By the way, he was educated at Georgetown.

Hosso Zomlot is the Palestinian ambassador to the United States and continues to broadcast Israel as an occupier while declaring a two state solution is an international responsibility.

Ahmad Assaf, in 2011 said: ‘if armed resistance can accomplish the goals of the Palestinian people, we will not hesitate even for a second.’

***

So there was a working lunch at the Trump White House.

Working lunch with discussions of economic and trade opportunities?

“I’m committed to working with Israel and the Palestinians to reach an agreement,” Trump said. “I will do whatever is necessary to facilitate the agreement.”

Acknowledging an Israeli-Palestinian accord is seen as the “toughest deal to make,” Trump told Abbas, “Perhaps we can prove them wrong” – before heading into a meeting with the Palestinian Authority president.

Abbas told Trump moments earlier, “Mr. President, with you we have hope.”

The peace process has been stalled since 2014 when former Secretary of State John Kerry’s effort to lead the sides into peace talks collapsed. Since then, there have been no serious attempts to get negotiations restarted. The Obama administration spent its last months in office attempting to preserve conditions for an eventual resumption.

“We hope this will be a new beginning,” Abbas told Palestinians at a meeting in Washington on the eve of the talks.

During remarks alongside Trump at the White House, Abbas – through a translator – stressed that his people want a Palestinian state with the capital of East Jerusalem and borders along the pre-1967 lines.

Israel rejects the 1967 lines as a possible border, saying it would impose grave security risks.

Trump stressed that there can be no lasting peace unless Palestinian leaders speak in a unified voice against “incitement … to violence and hate.”

He also was expected to press Abbas to end payments to families of Palestinians killed or held in Israeli jails, which critics decry as payments for terrorism. Republicans lawmakers have urged a halt to such payments.

While Abbas will be challenged on the payments, officials said Trump will reiterate his belief that Israeli settlement construction on land claimed by the Palestinians does not advance peace prospects.

In his Wednesday comments, Abbas also criticized ideas for a “one state” peace agreement, saying it could mean “racial discrimination” or an apartheid-like system.

In a February news conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump broke with longtime U.S. policy by raising the one-state idea and withholding clear support for an independent Palestine, though officials quickly stressed he would support any arrangement agreed by the two sides.

Another contentious issue: Trump’s campaign promise to move the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. The symbolic relocation would essentially recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. Abbas and other Arab leaders have said doing so would inflame already simmering tensions.

Since taking office, Trump has backed away from the pledge while saying he’s still discussing it. On Tuesday, Vice President Mike Pence said the White House was giving “serious consideration” to the idea. More here.

Has the Best Already Happened in this Trump White House?

During the campaign, so many friends and acquaintances said the only reason to vote for Trump was the Supreme Court….we needed someone like Gorsuch. We got him, so have we seen the best we are going to get out of this White House in the next 4 years? Sure, we have been delighted about several executive orders, some which have positively changed the outlook and business attitude across the country and for many industries. But are those signatures enough and is it governing?

Much has been in the news in recent days about the omnibus bill where the Republicans and conservatives did not get ask for or receive any dollars from the campaign and Trump pledge list….wait until September we are told. So, the ‘art of the deal’ comes in September?

Anyway….is there some other obscure liberal standard and connections at this Trump White House we are not watching or giving enough attention to? My answer is YES. I am not seeing any swamp being drained, are you? Read on. This post is merely fair warning….keep watch.

I would ask all you readers to please check out Jared and Ivanka….they are quite troubling….

During the campaign season much was in the media that we are supposed to hate on Goldman Sachs and George Soros…okay fine…. so are they both acceptable today just because of Donald Trump? Hello?

*** Here is an item of real concern…..

Now, according to news reports, Ivanka Trump, while a federal employee, is soliciting donations for a new fund from foreigners. This comes on top of instances in which she sat with heads of state (from Japan and China) at a time that her business was doing deals in their countries.
Mike Allen, co-founder and executive editor of AXIOS Media and former chief political reporter for Politico, reported: “Ivanka Trump told me yesterday from Berlin that she has begun building a massive fund that will benefit female entrepreneurs around the globe. Both countries and companies will contribute to create a pool of capital to economically empower women. … Canadians, Germans and a few Middle Eastern countries have already made quiet commitments, as have several corporations, a source said.” The OGE guidelines specifically state: “Executive branch employees are subject to restrictions on the gifts that they may accept from sources outside the government. Unless an exception applies, executive branch employees may not accept gifts that are given because of their official positions or that come from certain interested sources.” More here.

*** Image result for jared and ivanka white house Link

Jared Kushner disclosure form left out stake in tech startup Cadre

Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and senior adviser, didn’t identify on his government financial disclosure form that he is currently a part-owner of a real-estate finance startup and has a number of loans from banks on properties he co-owns, according to securities filings.

Kushner’s stake in Cadre—a tech startup that pairs investors with big real-estate projects—means the senior White House official is currently a business partner of Goldman Sachs Group Inc. GS, +0.12% and billionaires including George Soros and Peter Thiel, according to people close to the company.

The Cadre stake is one of many interests—and ties to large financial institutions—that Kushner didn’t identify on his disclosure form, according to a Wall Street Journal review of securities and other filings. Others include loans totaling at least $1 billion, from more than 20 lenders, to properties and companies part-owned by Kushner, the Journal found. He has also provided personal guarantees on more than $300 million of the debt, according to the analysis.

An expanded version of this report appears at WSJ.com.

Need something more on Ivanka now? Okay…no one bothered to check ethics law or with the Ethics Office.

Anyone remember Jamie Gorelick?

Attorney Jamie Gorelick had just finished vetting potential Cabinet secretaries for Hillary Clinton — and raising money for the failed 2016 Democratic nominee — when Jared Kushner called her last year, seeking legal counsel.

Gorelick, who served as deputy attorney general under President Bill Clinton and a former member of the 9/11 Commission, was recommended to Kushner by former News Corp. executive Joel Klein, who now serves as chief strategy officer at Oscar, the health insurance company co-founded by Kushner’s younger brother, Josh. Klein told Jared Kushner he needed a real lawyer to sort through nepotism and conflict-of-interest concerns that could bar him from working in the White House for his father-in-law, President Donald Trump.

“He said that Jared was a good person, and that he thought he would be a good influence on the administration,” Gorelick said in an interview Thursday afternoon, sitting in a sunny conference room at her law firm, Wilmer Hale.

Gorelick, widely rumored to have been Hillary Clinton’s front-runner for attorney general, hesitated before agreeing to represent someone who served as the de facto campaign manager for a candidate who encouraged chants of “Lock Her Up” at rallies.

“At the time, I was grieving for Hillary Clinton,” she said. “This was not the transition I was contemplating working on — at all. And I didn’t know Jared Kushner. And I did think twice about it.”

Since signing on with Kushner, Gorelick has been in the spotlight for lending credibility to his efforts to comply with federal ethics laws — as well as those of his wife, Ivanka, also a Gorelick client.

It has been an uncomfortable position for a dyed-in-the-wool Democrat to assume, and Gorelick has been shocked by the vitriol that has been hurled in her direction.

“Hey Jamie Gorelick, you’ve just poured that ‘Complicit’ perfume on yourself. #Ivanka,” top Democratic consultant Hilary Rosen, also a former Clinton surrogate and a partner at SKDKnickerbocker, tweeted, in reference to a “Saturday Night Live” sketch about an Ivanka Trump-branded scent called “Complicit.”

Gorelick sees herself as part of a time-honored Washington tradition of well-respected lawyers representing clients from the opposite party. Two of President Bill Clinton’s chiefs of staff, Mack McLarty and Erskine Bowles, turned to Arthur Culvahouse, former White House counsel under Ronald Reagan, to oversee their ethics arrangements, as did members of President Barack Obama’s administration.

In hiring Gorelick, Ivanka Trump and Kushner — two expats from Midtown Manhattan, who are part of an administration trying to upend all of Washington’s norms — are simply following that old D.C. playbook, buying themselves the patina of a former Clinton Justice department official vouching for their good names.

But Gorelick is testing whether that norm still holds true in Trump’s Washington. Many former Clinton diehards have branded themselves as “the resistance” and view any effort to work with advisers close to the president as an obscene attempt to “normalize” a politically abnormal president. For this liberal crowd, Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner — branded as the moderates of Trump’s world — are viewed as extensions of the president, just operating under more glamorous, and therefore dangerous, facades.

Earlier this week, Gorelick vouched for Ivanka Trump’s ability to work as a de facto full-time White House adviser — complete with a security clearance, a West Wing office, and a government-issued phone — without formally becoming a government employee. Under the unprecedented arrangement, the first daughter will only voluntarily submit herself to ethics laws, without taking an oath of office that would subject her to disclosure and other requirements.

Gorelick also maintains that it would be impossible for Ivanka Trump to sell her eponymous fashion and jewelry line, because the buyer would be able to use her name — acknowledging there’s no way to create a setup for the first daughter that would be free of conflict of interest.

“The swirl of money and conflicts is unprecedented and their arrangements are not curing it,” said Robert Weissman, president of the nonprofit Public Citizen. “That Ivanka Trump has branded her company with her name is a complicating factor, and it should be, for her, not for the American people. Looking at [Gorelick’s] comments saying it doesn’t work for Ivanka to sell off the company — well, then maybe it doesn’t work for her to be in government.”

Even inside the Republican Party, the bipartisan spirit of the Washington power lawyer scene is being tested. “Some of my Republican friends who are ‘Never Trumpers’ are not particularly happy that I wound up doing the vice-presidential vetting,” Culvahouse conceded. “But the question is: Do you want him to fail, or do you want good people to get in? Is President Trump better served with Kushner and Ivanka serving with him in the White House? Absolutely he is.”  More here.

 

 

 

College Education is in a Tailspin, Foreign Made?

November of 2016, this site published a related article: Foreign Spies on our College Campuses

***

Retired Col. Larry Sellin, PhD wrote in part under the title “Replace and Repeal Universities“:

Academic political intolerance or Totalitarianism 101 is both deliberate and as old as the Russian Revolution.

It is based on an essay “Repressive Tolerance” written in 1965 by Herbert Marcuse, an adherent of the Soviet-controlled Frankfurt School, which was the cultural arm of the Communist International founded to undermine western Judeo-Christian democracy from within.

Fred Bauer, in his article “The Left and ‘Discriminating Tolerance,'” captures Marcuse’s inverted logic and identifies the origin of the political intolerance presently practiced at U.S. academic institutions:

“Marcuse argued that, because of the radical repressiveness of Western society, a tolerance for all viewpoints actually contributed to social oppression. A pervasive network of assumptions and biases implicitly privileges the viewpoint of the powerful, so that seemingly ‘equal’ presentations of opposite opinions actually end up benefiting the viewpoint of the powerful. He offered the example of a magazine running a piece criticizing the FBI along with one praising the FBI. Fair and balanced? Not so fast, Marcuse said: ‘the chances are that the positive [story] wins because the image of [the FBI] is deeply engraved in the mind of the people.’ Because of social programming, the inhabitants of a given society automatically favor certain values. The ideological playing field’s lack of levelness means that seemingly equal presentations of ideas are not really equal.” Full article here.

*** Yes this is proven and bad enough, but there is more.

On April 13-15, the King Fahd Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Arkansas held a symposium on so-called “honor violence,” as exemplified by honor killings, forced marriage, and other such delightful acts.

The Center, as its website informs us, “was founded with a $20 million endowment from the Saudi government in the mid-1990s.  An initial endowment of $2 million, dedicated toward language, literary translation and publication was followed by a much larger $18 million gift designed to spark the foundation of a comprehensive Middle East Studies program at the undergraduate and graduate levels.” Read more here.

Okay, then we have this one:

The FBI raided the school 4…..FOUR years ago!

In an exclusive investigation, Fox News reports:

Based just four miles from the Pentagon in northern Virginia is an innocuous-sounding online school for “management and technology” – which a Fox News investigation reveals has been at the center of multiple federal probes about its leadership’s alleged ties to the Chinese military and whether thousands of records from U.S. service members were compromised.

The University of Management and Technology in Rosslyn, Va., which opened in 1998, touts a campus in Beijing and “partnerships” with universities around the world. The U.S. taxpayer-funded school claims to have had 5,000 graduates in the last five years and to be “especially proud of our students stationed in US military bases around the globe.”

However, there is another side to the school’s leadership that drew the attention of the FBI, the Justice Department, the Pentagon, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) since at least 2012 — and perhaps as early as 2009.

In December 2012, the FBI made two very public raids of UMT and the northern Virginia home of university president Yanping Chen Frame and its academic dean, her husband J. Davidson Frame. Documents reviewed by Fox News show it was a counter-intelligence case, known as a “200d,” one of the most highly sensitive categories for a federal probe.

Photos, exclusively obtained by Fox News, appear to show Chen as a young officer in the People’s Liberation Army, the military wing of China’s communist party. Another photo shows Frame saluting his wife, Chen, who is holding a uniform. Three independent experts said it was a Chinese military colonel’s uniform.

Yet since those FBI raids, UMT has continued to collect more than $6 million from Defense Department tuition assistance programs as well as the Department of Veterans Affairs through the post-9/11 GI bill.

“It’s a bad deal for the soldiers, and it’s a bad deal for the taxpayer,” Stephen Rhoads, a military veteran turned whistleblower who says he worked with the FBI on the case, told Fox News in an exclusive interview. “Nobody’s getting what they paid for.”

Rhoads said he worked at UMT recruiting vets when the FBI approached him in 2012 regarding the federal investigation. Emails and other documents reviewed by Fox News corroborate key elements of Rhoads’ story.

“One of the first sentences she [Chen] ever threw out — after she found out I was an Army officer, was, ‘Well … I was a colonel in the army,’” Rhoads explained. “During our first face-to-face encounter, absolutely … she did not deny it.”

Rhoads said he thought Chen meant the U.S. Army, and asked whether she trained in Texas. “She laughed and said, ‘Oh, no, I was in the Chinese army, you know.’”

Chen, 64, came to the United States in 1987 from Beijing on a non-immigrant visa with her daughter Lele Wang. The Chinese government funded Chen’s research at George Washington University where she received a Ph.D. in Public Policy in 1999, the year after UMT was created.

While Rhoads says Chen was upfront about her Chinese military experience, he claimed she hid those ties on immigration applications. Fox News reviewed Chen’s immigration records where she consistently denied ties to the Chinese or any foreign military. When asked, “Have you ever been a member of, or in any way affiliated with, the communist party or any other totalitarian regime?” Chen checked “no.” She would later become a naturalized U.S. citizen.

While there are no U.S. laws preventing a naturalized citizen from running a school like UMT, the Fox News investigation found that Chen’s ties to the Chinese military appear to run deep.

Three outside experts consulted by Fox News confirmed the authenticity of the Chinese uniforms in the photos of Chen and Frame.

“If somebody was wearing that uniform, I would say that there’s a very great likelihood that they were in the People’s Liberation Army,” Dennis Blasko, a leading Chinese military expert said, referring to the photo of what appears to be Chen in uniform.

Asked about the photo of Frame saluting his wife, Blasko observed, “This is a P.L.A. officer’s uniform — active duty — from between 1987 and 2007 … And from the epaulettes, we can see this — three stars and two red stripes would be a full colonel.”

Blasko emphasized that P.L.A. insignia can only be purchased with the permission of the Chinese military, and “you would have to have a certificate from your unit to buy [it.]”

Blasko, a West Point graduate who worked as a military attache in China, wrote “The Chinese Army Today: Tradition and Transformation for the 21st Century,” one of the definitive books about the Chinese military.

In her George Washington University dissertation, Chen thanks her father, a P.L.A. general, who directed arms and technology development. “My father, General Chen Bin, gave me the inspiration to pursue this area of study,” Chen wrote. “As former Chairman of COSTIND (1982-87), he was an important player in supporting and directing the (Chinese) space program.”

In her 2012 FBI interview, Chen denied she ever was a colonel in the P.L.A., emphasizing she had worked as a doctor in the Chinese space program. Chen said it was a “civilian agency.” The interview summary suggests federal agents challenged Chen’s characterization. Outside experts told Fox News the Chinese civilian and military space programs are intertwined.

While Chen’s immigration application is more than a decade old, and past the five-year statute of limitations, there may be a “continuation” of fraud, according to Ray Fournier who worked with the State Department’s office of diplomatic security for more than 20 years. Fournier, an expert on visa and passport fraud, worked for the Joint Terrorism Task Force in San Diego, where his investigative work led to an arrest warrant for the American-born cleric Anwar Awlaki, who was later killed by the CIA.

Fournier said, “If she has marked ‘no’ on the petition, but if in fact, the answer is yes … then we have a false statement. And where that comes into play, most assuredly, is in the arena of passport fraud. It is this application.” With each renewal of Chen’s U.S. passport, Fournier said, investigators should determine whether the falsehood was repeated. “These are issues of inadmissibility,” he said.

While going through the immigration process, Chen was also launching what would become a multi-million-dollar online academy. But that academy’s work would eventually attract the attention of federal investigators, who questioned whether students’ records were remotely accessed from China.

Before the 2012 raid, Chen’s daughter Lele Wang who also works at UMT, told the FBI that “‘Contractors’ in the UMT Beijing Office have [administrator] privileges” to access the student database.

Rhoads said UMT recruited service members who provided their military history when they enrolled. “It got uploaded into an O-drive, they called it … their personal military bio, you know, where they were trained, how they were trained, how long, that could be remotely accessed.”

Rhoads said Chen had a particular interest in Ohio’s Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, which is a research and technology hub.

And there was more. “She wanted me to go out to these remote reserve and National Guard centers, you know … in small-town America and start gettin’ U.S. soldiers from those centers. Get their information, basically. Who’s out there in the woods? How many units we got?”

Rhoads recalled to Fox News that he was instructed by the FBI to tell Chen that he was going to testify before a Virginia grand jury. “They wanted to, I guess see how … she would react.”

At the time, Rhoads said Chen had no idea he was working with the bureau.

He said, “Well, at this point, she didn’t know I was working for them at all. And she’s like, ‘Oh, you don’t tell them anything. We don’t know each other. You don’t … know what you don’t know,’ was her buzz phrase. ‘You don’t — you don’t know I was a colonel in the P.L.A. They’ll never have proof to say that’.”

Emails obtained by Fox News show Rhoads and at least one FBI agent alerted the Defense Department, but another Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) was signed in 2014 through 2019 allowing UMT to collect millions in federal taxpayer aid.

An FBI agent in one email exchange wrote, “I let my management and the AUSAs [assistant U.S. attorneys] know about her renewal with DoD. Incredible.”

Asked about the renewal, as well as whether DoD personnel were warned and additional steps were taken to vet UMT, the DoD chief for Voluntary Education Assistance, Dawn Bilodeau, referred questions to Pentagon spokesperson Laura Ochoa. In an email, Ochoa said, “In light of reports regarding University of Management and Technology (UMT), the Department is reviewing the DoD MOU signed between the institution and the DoD for compliance.”

No one has been charged with any crime in connection with the investigation. Sources told Fox News that Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia James P. Gilllis got the case, but there was a disagreement with the FBI over how to proceed, based on the case law and the extent to which sources and methods would be revealed.

Neither the FBI nor a spokesman for Gillis would comment to Fox News but separately, a spokesman for NCIS said they cannot comment on an “ongoing investigation.” A FOIA request filed by Fox News Senior Executive Producer Pamela Browne confirmed an NCIS investigative file for UMT.

Fox News made repeated requests by phone and via email for interviews with Yanping Chen and J. Davidson Frame. After Chen’s daughter said they were too busy to prepare and traveling out of town, Fox News went to their offices in Rosslyn, Va.

A school representative, who would not identify himself, confirmed Chen and Frame were in the office that day, but after learning Fox News was at the front desk, the couple refused to come out. Fox News’ questions covered how UMT was run, Chen’s suspected military ties, whether service members’ records are secure, and how millions in taxpayer dollars are spent.

Fox News also sent a series of questions to the Chinese embassy in Washington, D.C., but there was no immediate response.

According to UMT, nearly 20,000 students have studied there, while 10,710 have earned degrees.