A Google executive on Tuesday denied allegations that the company works with the Chinese military, one day after President TrumpDonald John TrumpEsper sidesteps question on whether he aligns more with Mattis or Trump Warren embraces Thiel label: ‘Good’ As tensions escalate, US must intensify pressure on Iran and the IAEA MORE said that his administration would investigate claims of improper ties between China and Google. 

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Karan Bhatia, Google’s vice president of global government affairs and public policy, emphasized during a Senate hearing that Google has little business in China and denied the company has any ties to its military.

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Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, asked Bhatia if Google has found “any evidence of infiltration of your management or your private data by Chinese intelligence.”

“Absolutely not, senator,” Bhatia said.

He said the company has never consulted with China about any of Google’s contracts with the U.S. government and denied allegations that it has turned a blind eye to a leak of its “private data” to Chinese intelligence.

“Absolutely not,” Bhatia maintained. “We take extremely seriously the threat of any penetration of our systems.”

Bhatia testified before the Senate Judiciary subcommittee chaired by Sen. Ted CruzRafael (Ted) Edward CruzThe Hill’s Morning Report – Presented by JUUL Labs – House to vote to condemn Trump tweet Cruz in 2016 said ‘something fundamentally wrong’ with Christians who back Trump: book Hillicon Valley: Twitter says Trump ‘go back’ tweet didn’t violate rules | Unions back protests targeting Amazon ‘Prime Day’ | Mnuchin voices ‘serious concerns’ about Facebook crypto project | Congress mobilizes on cyber threats to electric grid MORE (R-Texas), which centered mostly around allegations that Google routinely censors conservative voices.

The allegations about ties between Google and China surfaced this week after Peter Thiel, a prominent conservative and Trump adviser who sits on Facebook’s board, said the government should open investigations into Google’s relationship with the Chinese military.

Sen. Josh HawleyJoshua (Josh) David HawleyAmazon offering shoppers to track websites they visit Critics slam billion Facebook fine as weak Exclusive: Hawley targets higher ed monopolies with new legislation MORE (Mo.), a prominent Republican tech critic, during the Tuesday hearing also pressed Bhatia over Google’s controversial Project Dragonfly, a search engine the company was creating for China that was going to abide by some of the Chinese government’s censorship demands.

Bhatia told Hawley the project had been “terminated.”

Google shut down its censored Chinese search engine in 2010 amid enormous pressure to stop doing business in the authoritarian country. Then, last year, the company faced widespread protests over Project Dragonfly, which critics said could have aided China in its state surveillance efforts, including the targeting of minorities, human rights advocates and students.

The plans for Project Dragonfly were derided by a variety of internal and external figures, including Vice President Pence.

“We have no current plans to go into the Chinese search market,” Bhatia said, but he declined to pledge that Google never would.

“What we’re willing to commit to … is that any decisions, or effort to go back into the Chinese search market, we would take only in consultation with stakeholders,” Bhatia said.