Exclusive: Chinese Political Contributions
- Intrepid Research
- Aug 6, 2021
- 2 min read
Employees of Chinese State-Sponsored Media Outlets Made U.S. Political Donations
One has to wonder if the Federal Election Commission is just asleep at the wheel when it comes to policing illegal campaign contributions or just looks the other way.
Fortunately for us good citizens, campaign data is public information (a lot of it anyway), so we can see for ourselves who is paying the people we vote for, or against.
Intrepid Research discovered something interesting not long ago when running some searches against the FEC database.
Employees of Chinese state-sponsored media outlets in China and the United States have made been making political contributions in the U.S. Some of these employees appear to be Americans, so they are free to contribute to whoever they wish.
However, we have identified at least one individual who appears to be a Chinese national, based in China and therefore, his contributions would be considered illegal. His name is Hongyi Yin. He lists his occupation as journalist for Xinhua News Agency in Beijing, part of China's state-run Communist Party media apparatus. Previously, he listed his occupation as translator/research fellow for Xinhua News Agency/Tsinghua University. He has made at least 42 contributions to Democrats through ActBlue. See the document below, followed by a download of his LinkedIn profile. He even falsified his location on some of the contributions, listing his home as Beijing, PA or Beijing, NY, or Beijing, ZZ (whatever that means).
Digging a little deeper into the FEC data, Hongyi Yin's various contributions were earmarked for the Democratic National Committee, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), Jon Ossoff for Senate, Warnock for Georgia, ActBlue, Friends of Andrew Yang, Bernie 2020, Biden for President, and Obama for America. His contributions were not large amounts, but the problem here is the illegality of foreign contributions, not the amount.
Other employees of Xinhua, China Daily, and CGTN (China Global Television Network), also CCP mouthpieces, have made contributions as well, almost exclusively to Democrats through ActBlue. Intrepid Research will be conducting further investigation to identify additional contributions from employees of other CCP-front groups, so stay tuned.
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