House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith clashed with one of his Democratic colleagues during a hearing on foreign influence over U.S. non-profits Tuesday.
Smith butted heads with Rep. Lloyd Doggett during Tuesday's hearing after Smith called out the Future Farmers of America for receiving funds from a Chinese Communist Party-linked group.
Smith said FFA is an important organization, but it must still be criticized for accepting the funds, saying it could be "infiltrated" by "Chinese propaganda."
"Will the gentleman yield on that?" Doggett said after Smith made the statement.
"You're not recognized," Smith responded.
"Will the gentleman yield for unanimous consent--" Doggett said, before being cut off.
"I said no," Smith said.
Doggett then clarified that he was asking for unanimous consent to enter into the record a letter Smith wrote highlighting the FFA's funding scheme.
"I would love that letter into the record, because the American people know that the Chinese should not be indoctrinating our children in the FFA," Smith responded.
House Democrats accused their Republican colleagues of hypocrisy for focusing closely on foreign influence in left-wing non-profit groups on Tuesday, arguing the GOP ignores potential issues in the White House.
Several Democratic lawmakers raised the issue during a House Ways and Means Committee hearing on Tuesday.
Rep. Jimmy Panetta, D-Calif., said it "dings the credibility" of GOP witnesses at the hearing when they decline to comment on examples of alleged foreign influence on President Donald Trump.
Panetta and other Democrats pointed to Qatar's gifting of an Air Force One-style plane to Trump earlier this year, as well as various other donations.
The GOP-led hearing focused on alleged foreign agents with links to the Chinese Communist Party contributing significant funds to left-wing non-profits.
The top Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee clashed with a witness in Tuesday's hearing on foreign influence on U.S. non-profits.
Ranking Member Richard Neal highlighted the Trump' administration's firing of tens of thousands of IRS employees to suggest the administration is not taking non-profit malfeasance seriously.
Neal questioned forensic accountant Bruce Dubinsky, who argued that the loss of IRS employees had not directly impacted the organization's ability to launch criminal investigations.
Neal argued the firings affected "everyone" at the IRS, but Dubinsky stated that he is working with criminal investigators at the IRS and their operations don't appear to be impacted.
{{#rendered}}Capitol Research Center President Scott Walter testified that the U.S. nonprofit industry has become a primary vehicle for political influence, increasingly shielded from transparency and donor disclosure and uniquely vulnerable to foreign money.
He emphasized that donor-advised funds and fiscal sponsorships allow foreign nationals to inject unlimited funds into U.S. political advocacy while avoiding campaign finance laws. Walter detailed how Swiss billionaire Hansjörg Wyss used nonprofits connected to the Arabella Advisors network to influence elections, ballot initiatives, litigation and voter mobilization efforts, including spending tied to flipping control of Congress.
He also pointed to tech tycoon Neville Roy Singham, describing how Singham-funded nonprofits promote narratives aligned with the Chinese Communist Party while failing to register as foreign lobbyists.
His testimony frames foreign-funded “charitable” activism as a direct substitute for regulated political spending.
In written testimony, he said, “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. 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.’”
Fox News' Anders Hagstrom contributed to this report.
House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith named a series of left-wing groups that he claims have ties to hostile foreign governments on Tuesday.
Smith made the claims during opening remarks at a committee hearing in Washington, naming the Alliance for Global Justice, American Muslims for Palestine, People's Forum and CodePink.
"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.
"Many of these groups, like American Muslims for Palestine, were contributors to the harassment and violence towards Jewish students that plagued elite universities," he continued.
Americans for Public Trust Executive Director Caitlin Sutherland testified that foreign charities and foreign nationals are exploiting gaps in U.S. nonprofit law to funnel massive sums of money into American policy advocacy, litigation and protest activity.
She detailed findings showing that just five foreign-based charities — Quadrature Climate Foundation, KR Foundation, Oak Foundation, Laudes Foundation and the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation — allegedly spent nearly $2 billion funding U.S. nonprofits, primarily 501(c)(3) nonprofits.
Sutherland highlighted how Swiss billionaire Hansjörg Wyss has routed almost $700 million through nonprofit networks, including Sixteen Thirty Fund and New Venture Fund, to influence U.S. policy and ballot initiatives while remaining legally barred from direct political giving. Those funds have been managed by a company called Arabella Advisors.
She also warned that current law does not prohibit foreign-funded nonprofits from financing protests or policy advocacy.
Her testimony documents the scale of foreign money shaping U.S. policy debates without voter awareness or disclosure.
In written testimony, she said that Americans for Public Trust researchers found that “just five foreign charities spent almost $2 billion dollars bankrolling U.S. policy fights, litigation, research, lobbying, and protests.”
She said about Swiss billionaire Hansjörg Wyss, she alleged: “Foreign money is flowing through the tax-exempt sector, and it is impacting policy right here in America. And while foreign money directly and indirectly to candidate elections is prohibited, Wyss has instead, as stated in his biography, found a way to “exert an influence on American domestic politics through his foundations.”
Fox News' Anders Hagstrom contributed to this report.
{{#rendered}}Fox News Digital will livestream the House Ways and Means Committe e hearing investigating left-wing groups for potential connections to Chinese propaganda groups Tuesday.
The hearing focuses on the left-wing non-profit groups BreakThrough News, a media nonprofit, and Tricontinental, a thinktank. Lawmakers say the groups may be connected to foreign influencers and the Chinese Communist.
As the hearing gets underway in Longworth House Office Building, much of the questioning is expected to center not on ideology, but on infrastructure, examining how money and messaging actually move through the nonprofit sector into the streets.
American-born, China-based tech tycoon Neville Roy Singham is expected to be presented not as an outlier but rather a case study in the opacity around nonprofits, with nearly millions of his money routed through U.S. charities before landing in far-left media and protest organizations that Chairman Jason Smith blasts for “stoking chaos” in America and parroting pro-China propaganda.
As reported, Smith sent letters Monday night to BreakThrough News, a media nonprofit, and Tricontinental, a thinktank, to investigate ties to Singham and the Chinese Communist Party..
The issue on the table is not whether these entities publish controversial content, but whether they violate nonprofit laws by doing work for foreign interests.
Fox News' Anders Hagstrom contributed to this report.
The Republican-led House Committee on Ways and Means is set to hold a hearing on Tuesday morning digging into foreign influence in American nonprofits, with several NGOs and far-left funding networks expected to be on the hot seat.
At 10 a.m. on Tuesday, House Committee on Ways and Means Chair Jason Smith will oversee a hearing, "Foreign Influence in American Non-profits: Unmasking Threats from Beijing and Beyond." The hearing will be broadcast online at the committee’s website.
Witnesses at the hearing will include Capital Research Center president Scott Walter, Americans for Public Trust Executive director Caitlin Sutherland, Narravance CEO Adam Sohn, Dubinsky Consulting founder Bruce Dubinsky and Public Citizen co-founder Robert Weissman.
In a press release, the committee said the hearing will focus on the "ways foreign actors have funneled millions of dollars through networks of tax-exempt organizations to create, support, and fuel disruption and illegal activity across the country."
The hearing is expected to examine a network of nonprofits, including organizations funded by Neville Roy Singham, an American-born tech tycoon and self-styled Marxist-Leninist, living in Shanghai. Singham has funded nonprofit groups, including the People’s Forum, CodePink, BreakThrough BT Media, the ANSWER Coalition and the Party for Socialism and Liberation, which have worked closely with Democratic Socialists of America in dispatching socialist, Marxist-Leninist and communist foot soldiers into the streets to disrupt federal immigration law enforcement agents and stoke chaos.
"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 on Tuesday morning. "Today, we’re putting them on notice. Going to be a late night in China for Shanghai Singham!"
Over the past year, Fox News Digital has documented a pattern 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 strategic interests of hostile foreign governments, including the People’s Republic of China.
This is an excerpt from an article by Fox News' Andrew Mark Miller.
{{#rendered}}FIRST ON FOX: Hours before banging the gavel to commence a hearing Tuesday to investigate the dynamic of "malign foreign influence," House Committee on Ways and Means Chair Jason Smith escalated his investigation into the China-based, American-born Marxist tech tycoon, Neville Roy Singham, who has allegedly been "sowing chaos and spreading Chinese propaganda, possibly in coordination with a foreign government."
Fox News Digital has obtained copies of letters that Smith sent on Monday night to two 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. on Tuesday, Smith will chair a hearing called, "Foreign Influence in American Non-profits: Unmasking Threats from Beijing and Beyond." The hearing will be broadcast online at the committee’s website. Singham, Tricontinental and BreakThrough BT Media, which publishes articles as "BreakThrough News," didn't respond to requests for comment.
Congressional investigators say the Singham network sits at the center of a malign foreign influence operation that allegedly exploits U.S. nonprofit laws to inject anti-American propaganda into domestic protest movements and sow discord from within the United States.
In separate letters, Smith demanded records from BreakThrough and Tricontinental, warning that both tax-exempt organizations may be operating outside their lawful purpose as possible unregistered foreign agents, while helping to fuel domestic unrest under the guise of journalism and academic research.
The letters describe a full-spectrum operation, with funding aligned with foreign interests flowing into tax-exempt nonprofits that produce ideological research, media narratives and social media messaging, which are then deployed onto U.S. streets through tightly choreographed protests.
Coverage for this event has ended.