There was a time when Americans used to sneer at corrupt third worlders whose entire governments had a hand out. There was corruption in America, but it was mostly internal and foreigners couldn’t just walk in and bribe half the government. Abscam was a shock to the system and then by the time the Clintons began renting out the Lincoln Bedroom, followed by Harry Reid, the Bushes and then the Bidens getting into bed with the Chinese, we’ve become not just corrupt, but laughably easy for the Chinese to buy up like a dollar store.
ByteDance, TikTok’s Chinese parent company, funneled six-figure contributions to nonprofits aligned with the congressional Black and Hispanic Caucuses, disclosures show.
ByteDance donated $150,000 to both the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation and Congressional Hispanic Caucus Foundation in December, its lobbying contribution report shows. It also transferred smaller amounts of $75,000 to the Asian Pacific Institute for Congressional Studies in December and $35,000 to the right-leaning Ripon Society last summer.
The CBC is almost as notorious for this sort of thing as the Clinton Foundation. And the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Foundation?
The institute’s board of directors includes Democratic Reps. Adriano Espaillat of New York, Ben Ray Luján of Nevada, Darren Soto of Florida, and Tony Cárdenas, Nanette Barragán, and Norma Torres of California. Its advisory council has several other federal politicians, such as Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Joaquin Castro of Texas.
Some say this explains AOC’s newfound enthusiasm for TikTok.
Either way, it’s absurdly easy for a foreign company operating under an enemy government to just show up and start handing out cash to congressional groups with no apparent legal recourse.
Remember when Dems and the media were warning about foreign influence operations? Suddenly they don’t seem as interested in common sense reforms like preventing foreign companies from buying influence in Congress.
Oren says
I think Tik Tok is A good example of how easy it is to buy right wing alternative media. I guess they will censor this. In G-d I trust.
Jeff Bargholz says
What? It wasn’t Russia Russia Russia and Trump?