U.S. national security experts of all political stripes agree: Chinese tech behemoth ZTE is a threat.

The company is a leading candidate to provide new markets with 5G networks, a lightning-fast wireless service that will support advanced technological applications.

A ZTE 5G network, U.S. national security experts warn, would also be able to spy on its users and send purloined data directly to the Chinese Communist Party.

Nevertheless, ZTE’s best-known hired gun, former Connecticut senator and 2000 Democratic vice presidential nominee Joe Lieberman, is now acting as an informal adviser on a U.S. Senate campaign — his son’s.

Matt Lieberman is running in a special election to fill a soon-to-be vacated Senate seat in Georgia and is leaning on his dad to help him become the first Democrat in two decades to win a Senate race there.