Marxist Network Under Scrutiny as Lawmakers Probe Chinese Influence
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WASHINGTON—A network aligned with Marxist ideology and tied to a pro-Beijing millionaire received further scrutiny at a Feb. 10 hearing as lawmakers investigated the network’s potential Chinese communist ties.
Rep. Jason Smith (R-Mo.) chaired a House Ways and Means Committee hearing on Tuesday in which he shone the spotlight on the network, which comprises more than a dozen groups that frequently collaborate on socialist causes or have monetary ties to each other.
Singham, he said, is “cozy—extremely cozy—with the Chinese Communist Party.” And the nonprofits in this network, he said, have been acting as a vector for the CCP, exploiting their tax-exempt status to interfere with U.S. politics.
“The CCP is taking advantage of our tax-exempt sector to poison our dialogue and cause division in our political system. That should alarm every single person, whether you are a Republican or whether you’re a Democrat,” he said.
The night before the hearing, the congressman wrote to two of the groups, BreakThrough News and Tricontinental, asking them to turn over a list of documents for committee investigation. Those include group members’ communications with Singham since 2017; a list of individuals and organizations that have donated more than $5,000 over the same period; and details on the projects and entities they have sponsored.
The committee found Singham’s business ties are “far more entrenched in CCP-aligned networks” than public reports have suggested, Smith said. He noted several of the businessman’s China ventures, including one Chinese media entity, Shanghai Maku Cultural Communication, which describes its mission as to “tell China’s story well,” a slogan meaning to disseminate information that aligns with the CCP’s narratives.
Adam Sohn, CEO of social media threat intelligence analytic organization Narravance, at the hearing referred to this protest and similar incidents, calling them “expressions of the same structural failure.”
“This is not protected speech. It is engineered subversion,” he said.
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He described the coalition as a coordinated system, with some training activists, some mobilizing protesters, and some others handling messaging and media amplification.
“It is a repeatable system for paralyzing American infrastructure on demand, financed through U.S. tax law and aligned with a hostile foreign power,” he said.
Several Republicans at the hearing shared concerns with the network’s activities.
Rep. Darin LaHood (R-Ill.), who also sits on the House Select Committee on China, said that in the Singham network, he saw a “sophisticated, multi-layered flow of capital funds that originate in Singham and Shanghai, move through his private LLCs, and then are transferred to a donor-advised fund.”
“By the time the money reaches the end user, the original donor’s name has been stripped away three or four times,” he said, adding that the tax-exempt status of the nonprofits has “provided a layer of legitimacy to the entire operation.”
Bruce Dubinsky, a forensic fraud analyst, agrees that adding a legitimate financial institution or a large financial institution in the funding process lends an air of credibility.
“It’s almost impossible to unpack the layering that goes on in these structures,” he said at the hearing. “And the bad actors know this.”
“They know that if they’re jumping from place to place, jurisdiction to jurisdiction, things are running through different bank accounts, it loses the original identity,” he said. “That’s the whole purpose.”
For the IRS, which oversees the tax-exempt system, the root of the problem is the lack of actionable information, Dubinsky said.
On Form 990, Schedule B—a form that nonprofits fill out to report significant donors—doesn’t have a check box for disclosing fiscal sponsorships, he said.
“It’s outdated,” he said. “It needs to be brought into line with what’s going on in today’s world.”
Rep. Mike Kelly (R-Pa.) agreed that more transparency is necessary.
“Nonprofit is a tax status. It’s not a real picture of what the company is doing,” he told The Epoch Times.
The focus, he said, should be “who’s making these investments and where’s the money.”
The group didn’t comply with the request from members of Congress. Instead, it described the letter as a “desperate attempt” to “crush dissent,” and launched a fundraising campaign around getting Smith’s letter.
“People’s Forum has not been forthcoming with the requested documents,” a source with knowledge of the investigation told The Epoch Times. The person said the Ways and Means Committee is “exploring additional action to compel the organization to comply, including subpoenas.”
The Epoch Times has contacted BreakThrough News, Tricontinental, People’s Forum, Answer Coalition, and the IRS for comment.
