Lawmakers send bipartisan letter to Google asking it to end partnership with Huawei

Google's got mail.

Lawmakers from the Senate and House sent a letter today to Google boss Sundar Pichai asking him to reconsider the company's relationship with Chinese smartphone company Huawei.

The letter argued that the relationship posed a serious national security threat. "Chinese telecommunications companies, such as Huawei, have extensive ties with the Chinese Communist Party," reads the letter that has bipartisan signatures.

"The concerns of the Intelligence Community are well founded: recent reports indicate that a former U.S. intelligence officer charged with spying for the Chinese government used Huawei technology to communicate with his handlers."

Although the message seemed steeped in good intentions, Google and the federal government have had a taut relationship this past month.

Google just severed its partnership with the Pentagon to create AI for the military. And shortly thereafter, various members of Congress began investigating the company's ties with Huawei.

This is possibly a side effect of the United States and China slapping tariffs on each other, but the dispatch's kicker at the end revealed that they simply remained salty about Google extricating itself from their agreement.

"We urge you to reconsider Google's partnership with Huawei, particularly since your company recently refused to renew a key research partnership, Project Maven, with the Department of Defense," the lawmakers wrote in the second to last paragraph.

"While we regret that Google did not want to continue a long and fruitful tradition of collaboration between the military and technology companies, we are even more disappointed that Google apparently is more willing to support the Chinese Communist Party than the U.S. military."

Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas who serves on the Senate Intelligence Committee is the lead signature of the letter, followed by Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, Rep. Michael Conaway of Texas, Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, and Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger of California.