WaPo: Rubio Recast CIA Report in Huang Spy Scandal Memo

Secretary of State Marco Rubio personally oversaw the classified memo at the heart of the Jensen Huang spy scandal, and built it by recasting a CIA report "in his own more assertive terms," the Washington Post reported, citing a person familiar with the matter. CIA officials are "not yet convinced that the intelligence collection on Huang to date, including intercepted communications, proves she was knowingly funneling information back to Beijing," per the Post.

The memo circulated among cleared national security officials in the spring, ahead of Trump's May state visit to China. It stemmed from electronic surveillance targeting Chinese businesswoman Alice Huang, and counterintelligence agencies concluded that China's Ministry of State Security had recruited Alice Huang as an operative. Some officials at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence have framed that characterization as "not entirely accurate and over-torqued."

Details of the affair had been known to top officials, including Rubio and CIA Director John Ratcliffe, since last year.

The memo's circulation was described to the Post as "a huge victory" for a bipartisan group of officials, lawmakers and think-tank analysts who had spent years trying to curb Huang's influence over Trump's China policy. Rubio and other advisers persuaded Trump not to allow exports of Nvidia's Blackwell chip to China. CNN separately reported that US intelligence is not sure whether Alice Huang spied on Nvidia for China, though it noted the uncertainty does not mean she wasn't a risk.

The alert lands amid a dense week of Nvidia-China coverage on our chips tracker, including a Semafor report on Nvidia counsel Tim Teter invoking Trump's name in chip-export license disputes.