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‘Trojan horses’ in America: Congress probes influence networks tied to China, Iran and Cuba

‘Trojan horses’ in America: Congress probes influence networks tied to China, Iran and Cuba

Last Tuesday, at the corner of Church Street and 16th Street NW, blocks from the White House, Christine Balling, a former advisor to U.S. Special Operations Command South, led a panel discussion on the national security threat that communist-run Cuba poses to the U.S. Suddenly, a fresh-faced former college basketball star, Olivia DiNucci, stood up to steal the stage at the Institute of World Politics, yelling as she clutched a hand-painted banner: “SANCTIONS KILL IN CUBA.” “There is global solidarity with Gaza and Cuba and ICE here,” DiNucci shouted breathlessly, as security officials grabbed her banner and pushed her out a side door as she kept yelling, “because the liberation of our people is rooted in our neighbors!” In small print, the banner had DiNucci’s organizational and ideological affiliation: “CODEPINK.” DiNucci is a D.C.-based political organizer with CodePink, a left-wing political agitation group, spending her days and evenings as a professional protester and a regular gadfly, disrupting dinners, hearings and conferences as a sidekick to CodePink co-founder Susan Medea Benjamin. Their group supports the Communist Party of Cuba and has led caravans to the island nation, as Treasury Department officials investigate whether they violated any laws barring Americans from doing business with the communist regime. For Balling and her co-panelist, Michael Gonzalez, a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation and a Cuban American firmly opposed to the communist government of Cuba, DiNucci’s political theater wasn’t the benign act of an “anti-war” group, as CodePink describes itself. “CodePink – and other organizations like it – essentially act like Trojan horses. They burst in onto the scene, and they’re meant to disrupt and destroy from within,” Balling told Fox News Digital. “They’re really interested in dividing America and, in doing so, weakening it,” she continued, “and increasing the friction between Americans by convincing some Americans that the American idea, the American dream, the freedoms we enjoy, all that sort of thing, that they are lies and they’re not worth fighting for, and that our enemies are our victims.” POWER COUPLE OF CHAOS: HOW A TYCOON AND ACTIVIST BUILT A ‘REVOLUTIONARY BASE’ AT THE HOUSE OF SINGHAM The confrontation comes as House lawmakers convene a hearing on Tuesday, titled “Trojan Horses: Covert Foreign Malign Influence Operations in America,” to examine a broad question: how do American activists, nonprofit organizations, media operations and social media influencers, like Twitch streamer Hasan Piker, advance the interests of adversarial nations, including China, Iran and Cuba, inside the United States? Piker joined CodePink’s delegation to Cuba earlier this year, posing for a photo in Havana with CodePink cofounder, Jodie Evans, both of them also drawing Treasury Department scrutiny. “Adversarial nations like China, Russia, and Cuba conduct malign influence operations here in the United States by utilizing social media influencers such as Hasan Piker as proxies to promote communism and push their false propaganda,” Rep. Bill Huizenga, R-Mich., chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on South and Central Asia, told Fox News Digital. “My goal is to raise the curtain to expose these operations and stop them from undermining our national security, capitalism and the American Dream,” Huizenga said. HASAN PIKER CALLS HAMAS ‘FAR MORE MODERATE,’ DISMISSES TERROR GROUP’S BRUTAL RULE IN GAZA The hearing will bring together several strands of alleged foreign influence that Fox News Digital has documented over the past year through investigations into money, political organizing, overseas travel, media operations and relationships between American activists and foreign entities and interests. Most of the groups fall into the “red-green alliance” of socialist and communist groups, symbolized by the color red, working closely with Islamist groups, such as the anti-Israel organization Students for Justice in Palestine, reflected by the color green, a symbol of Islam. The largest financial network examined in Fox News Digital’s reporting centers on Neville Roy Singham, an American-born tech tycoon who lives in Shanghai, late last year standing on a stage at the Golden Tulip Hotel during a conference on the “Global South,” delivering a speech supporting the Chinese Communist Party, China’s leader, Xi Jinping and China’s “new world order.” RUBIO’S CALL TO COMBAT GLOBAL FUNDERS OF FAR-LEFT TERRORISM COULD PUT SINGHAM IN CROSSHAIRS A five-part Fox News Digital investigation published earlier this year examined 223 transactions totaling $591 million across five continents between 2017 and 2025, tracing the flow of money through multiple layers of organizations and into a transnational network estimated at approximately 2,000 organizations. In 2017, Singham married Evans, the CodePink co-founder, in a ceremony in Jamaica attended by Benjamin and other pro-communist leaders. The Fox News Digital analysis documented $278 million flowing from Singham into six core nonprofit organizations that promulgate anti-America, pro-China propaganda, beginning in 2017: BreakThrough BT Media Inc., CodePink Women for Peace, Justice and Education Fund Inc., People’s Forum Inc., People’s Support Foundation Ltd. and Tricontinental Ltd. The organizations and their executives have denied any wrongdoing and allege they are the target of anti-communist “witch hunts.” Singham hasn’t responded to repeated requests for comment. CUBA BUILT COVERT NETWORK INSIDE AMERICA THROUGH SPIES, ACTIVISTS AND UNIVERSITIES, STATE DEPT ALLEGES Huizenga and the hearing’s witnesses say Congress must examine whether adversarial governments are influencing American political discourse through domestic messengers while keeping the foreign power itself at arm’s length. Fox News Digital’s reporting followed the money to the six nonprofits: That was only the first layer. The six nonprofits that directly received Singham money subsequently distributed approximately $163 million to 52 organizations — including themselves — and five geographic regions identified in financial records. Eleven groups at another layer distributed approximately $150 million into four nonprofits and five geographic regions, including $23 million directed to Sub-Saharan Africa, according to the Fox News Digital analysis. The financial architecture has been accompanied by political organizing, media operations and ideological activity that includes the fresh example of political theater that CodePink unleashed at this week’s disruption at the Institute of World Politics’ panel on Cuba. Balling, the former advisor to U.S. Special Operations Southern Command, used the opportunity to

House Dems face Trump tariff dilemma as major Russia sanctions bill heads to floor

House Dems face Trump tariff dilemma as major Russia sanctions bill heads to floor

House Democrats will soon have to grapple with a decision over whether to give President Donald Trump more tariff authority or potentially block Congress from cracking down on Vladimir Putin’s bloody war in Ukraine. The House Rules Committee has teed up votes on several bills this week, including the Senate’s legislation aimed at sanctioning Russia and Iran. That bill was named after the late Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., a massive supporter of Ukraine who died unexpectedly at the age of 71 in July. And while the majority of Democrats support action to help Ukraine against Russia’s invasion, they’ll also be forced to reckon with the legislation’s language giving Trump additional authority to punish Russia and its allies with significant tariffs. LINDSEY GRAHAM’S FINAL MISSION TO PUNISH PUTIN CLEARS SENATE AFTER YEARLONG FIGHT Democrats have long been critical of Trump’s unchecked use of tariffs against U.S. allies like Canada and Mexico, which have also been subject to a slew of court battles. TRUMP JUST EXPANDED HIS TARIFF PLAYBOOK WITH A POWERFUL TRADE WEAPON NO PRESIDENT HAS EVER USED It’s part of why senior House Democrats said earlier this year that they would oppose the bill. “House Democrats are rock solid in our support for Ukraine, but the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia And Iran Act would do more harm than good. This bill would dramatically expand presidential tariff authorities while failing to mandate sanctions on Russia, both of which are unacceptable,” Rep. Gregory Meeks, D-N.Y., Ranking Member of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Rep. Richard Neal, D-Mass., Ranking Member of the House Committee on Ways and Means, and Rep. Don Beyer, D-Va., said in a statement. SEN RAND PAUL: DC’S RUSSIA SANCTIONS BILL WON’T STOP PUTIN — BUT IT WILL HURT YOU House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., did not give up his position on the bill during a Monday press conference, telling reporters, “We’re going to continue to stand by the Ukrainian people and find a path forward to get a sanctions bill done while addressing the very real concerns that [Democrats] have raised about giving Donald Trump authority that the Supreme Court recently made clear he does not currently have, and should not have, because it belongs to the Congress pursuant to the Constitution.” The bill would direct the president to hike up to 500% tariffs on Russia and up to 100% on countries buying Russian energy. MIKE PENCE: CONGRESS MUST FINISH LINDSEY GRAHAM’S FIGHT AGAINST PUTIN Trump would also be directed to impose significant sanctions on Russian officials and others responsible for continuing the war on Ukraine. The bill advanced through the House Rules Committee on Monday night, setting up a House-wide procedural hurdle called a “rule vote” on Tuesday afternoon. If passed, the full House will vote on the sanctions bill on Wednesday afternoon, according to a preliminary legislative schedule obtained by Fox News Digital. And with an increasingly vocal isolationist wing permeating the House GOP Conference, at least some Democrats will be needed to help the bill pass. The package, pushed by Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., and Graham, was in purgatory for nearly two years as the lawmakers and administration went back and forth to find a compromise that Trump and Congress could stomach. Blumenthal defended the tariff language in the bill to Fox News Digital, “If Donald Trump wants to break this law, he will be restrained by the courts, just as when he broke the law on tariffs previously.” And Senate Democrats largely voted in favor of giving Trump limited tariff authority in exchange for the bone-crushing sanctions against Russia, despite raging against duties for years. Though some raised concerns, like Sens. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., most Democratic caucus members gave a thumbs-up to the tariff power. EXCLUSIVE: PENCE PUSHES TO RENAME BILL FOR LINDSEY GRAHAM, RECALLS FINAL TALK: ‘BRING PUTIN TO THE TABLE’ That all came after Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., received guarantees from U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer that the tariffs baked into the sanctions package would just be limited to the top five energy trading partners with the Kremlin.