House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith accused left-wing nonprofit groups of “sowing chaos” across America with Chinese Communist Party funding during a Tuesday hearing exposing foreign influence in the U.S. tax-exempt sector.
Smith had a message to voters: He was going to follow the money.
Smith sent letters Monday night to two nonprofits — BreakThrough BT Media Inc. and Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research — demanding records of their ties to Neville Roy Singham, an American-born tech tycoon living in Shanghai with connections to the Chinese Communist Party.
“For too long, foreign actors have gotten away with abusing our tax-exempt sector to [sow] division and chaos in our country,” Smith posted on X Tuesday morning. “Today, we’re putting them on notice. Going to be a late night in China for Shanghai Singham!”
The hearing, titled “Foreign Influence in American Non-profits: Unmasking Threats from Beijing and Beyond,” examined how foreign money flows through tax-exempt organizations to fuel domestic unrest and spread anti-American propaganda.
Congressional investigators say the Singham network exploits U.S. nonprofit laws to inject propaganda into domestic far-Left movements. Singham sold his software firm Thoughtworks for nearly $1 billion in 2017 and moved to Shanghai, where he has funded groups including The People’s Forum, CodePink, BreakThrough BT Media, the ANSWER Coalition, and the Party for Socialism and Liberation.
“The Committee is disturbed by the connections between BreakThrough News and Chinese Communist Party linked organizations,” Smith wrote to BreakThrough. “Tax exempt organizations are masking the flow of foreign money by allowing separate entities to utilize their tax exempt status in order to hold riots across the United States, featuring intimidation and violence.”
Smith said he was “disturbed by the connections between yourself, Tricontinental and organizations linked to the CCP.” He described Tricontinental as “responsible for spreading Marxist and anti-American rhetoric across both the United States and the globe,” and “sowing chaos and spreading Chinese propaganda, possibly in coordination with a foreign government.”
The People’s Forum admitted receiving over $20 million from Singham between 2017 and 2022 through shell companies and donor-advised funds, according to Smith’s letters.
“If the evidence shows these groups are acting as conduits for CCP-aligned propaganda or functioning like foreign agents while enjoying U.S. tax benefits, their tax-exempt status should be revoked immediately,” Smith said. “We’re going to follow the money and demand accountability to put a stop to Beijing’s exploitation of our tax-exempt sector.”
Capitol Research Center President Scott Walter has testified that the U.S. nonprofit industry has become a vehicle for political influence “uniquely vulnerable to foreign money.”
“Again, this top-down, billionaire-driven, hyperpolitical, central-government-bloating ‘philanthropy’ is the opposite of what most Americans expect our charitable sector to engage in,” Walter said in written testimony. “And if it’s undesirable when American donors produce this pseudo-philanthropy and manipulate our politics through it, it’s far worse when foreign donors are involved, because nearly all Americans reject foreign money entering our politics through any channel, much less through alleged ‘charities.'”