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FIRST ON FOX: Hours earlier banging the gavel to commence a proceeding Tuesday to analyse the dynamic of "malign overseas influence," House Committee connected Ways and Means seat Jason Smith escalated his probe into the China-based, American-born Marxist tech tycoon, Neville Roy Singham, who has allegedly been "sowing chaos and spreading Chinese propaganda, perchance successful coordination with a overseas government."
Fox News Digital has obtained copies of letters that Smith sent connected Monday nighttime to 2 U.S. nonprofits – BreakThrough BT Media Inc. and Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research – demanding records of their ties to Singham and alleging they are promoting propaganda aligned with the Chinese Communist Party.
At 10 a.m. connected Tuesday, Smith volition seat a proceeding called, "Foreign Influence successful American Non-profits: Unmasking Threats from Beijing and Beyond." The proceeding volition beryllium broadcast online astatine the committee’s website. Singham, Tricontinental and BreakThrough BT Media, which publishes articles arsenic "BreakThrough News," didn't respond to requests for comment.
Congressional investigators accidental the Singham web sits astatine the halfway of a malign overseas power cognition that allegedly exploits U.S. nonprofit laws to inject anti-American propaganda into home protestation movements and sow discord from wrong the United States.
In abstracted letters, Smith demanded records from BreakThrough and Tricontinental, informing that some tax-exempt organizations whitethorn beryllium operating extracurricular their lawful intent arsenic imaginable unregistered overseas agents, portion helping to substance home unrest nether the guise of journalism and world research.
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The letters picture a full-spectrum operation, with backing aligned with overseas interests flowing into tax-exempt nonprofits that nutrient ideological research, media narratives and societal media messaging, which are past deployed onto U.S. streets done tightly choreographed protests.
Over the past year, Fox News Digital has documented a signifier of coordinated protests by socialist, communist and Marxist groups, revealing a synchronized ecosystem of funding, media amplification, ideological framing and street-level mobilization that aligns with the strategical interests of hostile overseas governments, including the People’s Republic of China.
"Tax-exempt presumption is simply a privilege not a right," Smith told Fox News Digital. "Nonprofits indispensable stay accountable and garbage to enactment arsenic instruments of hostile overseas governments."
The Ways and Means Committee "continues to analyse however overseas wealth and foreign-linked networks are funneled done tax-exempt entities to sow discord and unrest successful our society," helium said. "That’s wherefore we’re demanding answers from Tricontinental and BreakThrough astir their backing streams, activities and communications with CCP-linked individuals, including Neville Roy Singham."
"If the grounds shows these groups are acting arsenic conduits for CCP-aligned propaganda oregon functioning similar overseas agents portion enjoying U.S. taxation benefits, their tax-exempt presumption should beryllium revoked immediately," Smith said. "We’re going to travel the wealth and request accountability to enactment a halt to Beijing’s exploitation of our tax-exempt sector."
In his missive to Karla Reyes, seat and manager of BreakThrough, Smith wrote that helium was "disturbed by the connections betwixt BreakThrough and Chinese Communist Party linked organizations" and launched an enquiry into whether the outlet deserves its 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status.
Smith emphasized that the probe is not astir suppressing code but astir whether nonprofit protections are being abused. He wrote that, nether national law, "if much than an insubstantial portion of an organization’s activities is not successful furtherance of a tax-exempt purpose…the enactment is not operated exclusively for specified exempt purpose." He cited Supreme Court precedent stating that "the beingness of a azygous nonexempt purpose, if important successful nature, volition destruct the exemption careless of the fig oregon value of genuinely exempt purposes."
In the letter, Smith warned that receiving backing from "an idiosyncratic who lives successful Shanghai, maintains concern ties with companies and individuals linked to the CCP, works with and physically alongside a overseas propaganda company, and attends CCP forums connected however to beforehand the enactment abroad" raises "serious questions" astir whether BreakThrough qualifies arsenic an "agent of a overseas principal" nether the Foreign Agents Registration Act.
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Since its inception, helium noted that BreakThrough has produced and distributed contented that "aligns with pro-CCP rhetoric crossed some the United States and the globe." Following the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas violent onslaught connected Israel, Smith wrote that BreakThrough News "dramatically shifted their sum successful a mode that suggests its intent connected sowing part wrong the United States," portion portraying China successful an "overwhelmingly affirmative light."
As reported, BreakThrough was 1 of the archetypal societal media accounts to people the video of the sidesplitting of anti-ICE demonstrator Alex Pretti.
The probe places BreakThrough wrong a broader web that includes Tricontinental, the People’s Forum, the Party for Socialism and Liberation and the ANSWER Coalition, groups that Fox News Digital has documented moving alongside organizations specified arsenic the Democratic Socialists of America to mobilize protests, bid "rapid responders" and flood societal media with coordinated narratives during flashpoint events, from migration enforcement actions to the apprehension of Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro.
BreakThrough was besides 1 of the archetypal societal media accounts to people video of the U.S. onslaught implicit Caracas erstwhile Maduro was arrested.
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In his missive to Vijay Prashad, enforcement manager of Tricontinental, Smith said that helium was "disturbed by the connections betwixt yourself, Tricontinental and organizations linked to the CCP." He described Tricontinental arsenic an enactment that has been "responsible for spreading Marxist and anti-American rhetoric crossed some the United States and the globe," and perchance "sowing chaos and spreading Chinese propaganda, perchance successful coordination with a overseas government."
Committee investigators tied Prashad straight to Chinese state-linked institutions, noting his relation arsenic a elder chap astatine a deliberation vessel connected to China’s Ministry of Education and his information successful conferences hosted by universities funded by the Chinese Communist Party. He besides elaborate Tricontinental’s fiscal narration with Maku Group, a Chinese media institution whose stated ngo is to "tell China’s communicative well," and disclosed that Tricontinental paid the steadfast much than $2.1 cardinal for "research, analysis, and translation services."
The committee besides documented Tricontinental’s heavy fiscal and structural ties to Singham, noting that the enactment received millions of dollars from entities linked to him, employs his lad arsenic a researcher and lists Singham arsenic seat of its planetary advisory board. Multiple reports, Smith wrote, person recovered that Tricontinental is "part of Mr. Singham’s web of non-profit organizations that service arsenic his conduits to dispersed pro-CCP narratives," including media outlets wherever Prashad appears regularly.
Researchers accidental the nonprofits nether scrutiny prosecute successful a dynamic known arsenic "narrative convergence," echoing the propaganda of overseas adversaries. In a caller report, the Network Contagion Research Institute, based successful Princeton, N.J., documented however the Democratic Socialists of America sent delegations to China, Cuba and Venezuela and then, upon returning to the United States, deployed slogans astatine protests that reflector the anti-U.S. rhetoric of those governments.
The institute concluded that the Democratic Socialists of America "exhibits aggregate indicators" warranting scrutiny arsenic a overseas lobbyist. Democratic Socialists of America didn't instrumentality a petition for comment.
Smith echoed those concerns successful his Tricontinental letter, informing that the People’s Forum and allied groups "continued to signifier protests aligned with Chinese talking points," including demonstrations that "turned convulsive successful Minnesota."
National information analysts accidental the proceeding represents a captious infinitesimal successful what they picture arsenic a caller cognitive war, successful which overseas adversaries question to weaponize outrage, protestation and accusation to weaken the United States from within.
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