California’s Highest-Paid Govt Employee Worked for Org Tied to Chinese Espionage
Taxpayers paid $1.7 million to ex-pension fund manager Meng
California taxpayers shelled out more than $1 million to a man linked to a Chinese espionage program, making him the state government’s highest-paid worker.
Meng Yu, former chief investment officer of the California Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS), received more than $1.7 million in total pay and benefits in 2019, according to the latest financial disclosures obtained by Transparent California, a taxpayer watchdog group. Under Meng's leadership the pension fund, which covers two million members in the retirement system and 1.5 million members under its health program, has been subject to federal inquiries into its investments in Chinese government entities.
Meng took the lead at the pension fund after China's Thousand Talents Program recruited him to serve as the deputy CIO of China's State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE), a state-controlled entity. The FBI considers the Thousand Talents Program an example of "China's non-traditional espionage against the United States" that seeks to recruit people to transfer U.S. trade secrets and taxpayer-funded research into the hands of the Chinese government. Meng told the propaganda outlet People's Daily that he worked for SAFE out of patriotic commitment to "the motherland."
Neither CalPERS nor Governor Gavin Newsom's (D.) office responded to requests for comment.
Robert Fellner, the executive director of Transparent California, blasted CalPERS for failing to conduct appropriate oversight for such a high-profile position, pointing to Meng's August resignation.
"One would think that the state’s highest-paid employee earned his position after rigorous scrutiny revealed him to be the best candidate for the job," Fellner said. "If such recklessness is prevalent in a decision of this size and magnitude, how can Californians have any faith that their tax dollars are being spent responsibly in all those areas that evade public scrutiny?"
Meng resigned after the financial news blog Naked Capitalism reported that he may have committed a felony by failing to disclose his sale of 21 securities in 2019. Some of the undisclosed sales involved shares in Chinese companies. The site also argued that Meng's investments in Blackstone Group and other private equity groups presented a conflict of interest, since experts at CalPERS had advocated offloading investments in the firms—a move that would hurt Meng’s personal portfolio.
Meng's China ties attracted federal scrutiny. In February, the Trump administration confirmed that it was "looking at" CalPERS's investment in Chinese defense and state-owned companies to find out whether American taxpayer money was being used to subsidize China's military expansion. Rep. Jim Banks (R., Ind.), a leading China hawk on Capitol Hill, told the Washington Free Beacon that California owes taxpayers an explanation for how Meng was able to go directly from working for a Chinese entity to being the state's top earner.
"Californians not only had to see their hard-earned tax dollars go towards the buildup of our most dangerous adversary's military, they had to pay the guy responsible more than any other public official in their state," Banks said. "That's a raw deal."
Meng's $1.7 million compensation—comprising $1.5 million in pay and roughly $200,000 in benefits—far exceeds that of his predecessor, Theodore Eliopoulos, whom Meng replaced in January 2019. Eliopoulos made just shy of $1 million in total compensation in all of 2018. Meng's 2019 salary also far exceeded that of the second-most compensated California state employee, who made less than $1.3 million.
·
Feinstein’s Close China
Ties Under Scrutiny After Chinese Spy Discovery
·
BY ZACHARY
STIEBER
·
·
News of a Chinese spy working for U.S. Senator Dianne
Feinstein broke recently, revealing the spy was employed by Feinstein for 20
years.
·
Initially reported
as part of a larger story about spies in Silicon Valley, a former intelligence
official later revealed that the staffer was Feinstein’s driver for many years.
·
The source
told the San Francisco Chronicle that the driver passed information to
Chinese officials based at the local Chinese Consulate. Part of the staffer’s role was acting as
a liaison between Feinstein’s San Francisco office and the local consulate.
·
The staffer was
recruited to spy after visiting China.
·
The staffer,
who has not been named, worked for Feinstein for 20 years.
·
Senator Feinstein was alerted to the spy about five years ago. The FBI alerted
Feinstein after investigating and finding the staffer shared nothing of
substance.
·
“They
interviewed him, and Dianne forced him to retire, and that was the end of it,”
the source said. “None of her staff ever knew what was going on. They just kept
it quiet.”
·
Feinstein
wouldn’t comment on the spy but her office told CBS that none of the staffers in San
Francisco have ever had security clearances.
·
Noting the
oddness of the discovery, President Donald Trump said via Twitter on August 3: “Dianne is the person
leading our Nation on ‘Collusion’ with Russia (only done by Dems). Will she now
investigate herself?”
·
…Dianne is the person leading our Nation on “Collusion”
with Russia (only done by Dems). Will she now investigate herself? https://t.co/OG6l04bBwg
·
— Donald
J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 4, 2018
·
Feinstein’s Relationship With China
·
Some details of
Feinstein’s past are now being examined anew, centered on her close
relationship with China, beginning with her service as mayor of San Francisco
from 1978 to 1988.
·
Feinstein has
long been linked to China. For instance, she hosted former president of
China Jiang Zemin at her home for dinner when she was
mayor of San Francisco, and celebrated the resumption of air service from China to the United States (starting with
San Francisco International Airport) after a 32-year hiatus.
·
San
Francisco and Shanghai have been sister cities for 38 years, after the
agreement was put into place by Feinstein and Jiang, who was then Shanghai’s
mayor. Feinstein was cited as having a “close relationship” with Jiang and ties between the two continued for many years later.
·
Jiang is
infamous for cracking down on human rights, most notoriously by banning the peaceful
meditation practice of Falun Gong and throwing many of its estimated 100
million adherents into jail.
·
·
Under
Jiang, torture, rape, murder, and even organ harvesting from detained practitioners became
common.
·
To help
facilitate the relationship between the U.S. and China, Feinstein asked
organizers of the city’s popular Chinese New Year Parade to stop displaying the flag of the
Nationalist Chinese government, which ruled in exile in Taiwan after 1949.
·
Feinstein also
defended China, despite its communist policies, insisting that it was merely
“socialist.”
·
“There was
originally this kind of anti-communist view of China,” Feinstein told the Washington Post. “That’s changing. . . . China is a
socialist country but one that is increasingly becoming capitalistic.”
·
Husband Becomes Prominent Investor in China
·
Several
articles from the 90s explore the development of not only Feinstein’s
developing relationship with China while she was mayor, but her husband’s
burgeoning investments there.
·
According to
the Los Angeles Times, in 1997 Feinstein’s husband Richard Blum,
who invests his own and clients’ money into undervalued firms, expanded his
business investments into the communist nation to the point that “his firm is
now a prominent investor” there.
·
In 1992, the
investments amounted to one project worth less than $500,000. Two years later
he was planning to invest up to $150 million and two years after that a Blum
investment firm paid $23 million for a stake in a Chinese government-owned
steel company.
·
Another
investment by Blum’s firm was helped by the International Finance Corp., an arm
of the World Bank, which invested $10 million in the leading producers of
soybean milk and candy in China.
·
Utterly amazing to read this 1997 report on Sen
Feinstein’s family’s political and business ties to #China in context of revelations about a Chinese spy working for her as a
driver for 20 years, quietly let go seemingly rather than being brought to
justice https://t.co/efwT2yZgkg pic.twitter.com/twAI5igZ2I
·
— Benjamin
Weingarten (@bhweingarten) August 4, 2018
·
“It seems to be
going quite well,” Rashad Kaldan—who in 1994 managed the IFC’s capital markets
investments in Asia—told the Times of the project. He added: “There also was
some comfort in that Mr. Blum had some contacts with the Chinese.”
·
Blum said that
his interest in China went back many years, predating political connections. He
won permission from the Chinese in 1981 to climb the east face of Mt. Everest
and called himself a close friend of the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan leader who the Chinese
government opposes.
·
In dispatches
written for the San Francisco Examiner, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, Blum said that a goodwill visit to China
by Feinstein in 1979 helped him win permission to climb Everest.
·
“We had come to
build goodwill, promote trade and to make new friends,” Blum wrote in one
story, adding, “but I asked for and received permission to have another kind of
meeting—one with the Chinese Mountaineering Association.”
·
Trips to China
·
Feinstein
took three trips between 1995 and 1997 to China, in addition to trips earlier
in her mayoral service, to meet with top communist officials, including Jiang.
Blum often attended the meetings with her, an arrangement the Times described
as “unusual.”
·
At one time,
the couple had dinner at Zhongnanhai, the enclave reserved for the president
and other top officials in China.
·
“We had dinner
in Zhongnanhai in Mao Tse-tung’s old residence in the room where he died. We
were told that we were the first foreigners to see his bedroom and the swimming
pool. It was a very historic moment to see some of these things,” told the Los
Angeles Times. Mao was the communist leader of China whose policies led to
the deaths of tens of millions of Chinese people.
·
Feinstein
insisted that Blum had never spoken to officials during meetings about
business.
·
“I am open to
any suggestion as to how I can even make a firewall more fireproof,” she said.
“I don’t know what else I can do. . . . Either he retires or I suppose we end
our marriage.”
·
·
Experts
noted that even attending the meetings and being so visible conferred a certain
benefit to Blum, in addition to Feinstein’s pro-China record.
·
“There is no
doubt in my mind that, if Dianne Feinstein had a pattern of taking positions on
U.S.-China policy that Chinese officials disliked, Mr. Blum would have a great
deal more difficulty doing business in China and probably would find it
impossible to do,” said Ross Munro, co-author of “The Coming Conflict with
China.”
·
By 2000,
Blum pledged not to invest in China or Hong Kong as long as his
wife remained a senator.
·
The Los
Angeles Times noted that Feinstein has sometimes taken on issues that seemed to
coincide with those of her husband, such as calling in a speech on the Senate
floor in 1994 for President Bill Clinton to increase favorable trade relations
with China. At the same time, Blum was planning to invest up to $150 million
there.
·
Feinstein was
elected to the U.S. Senate in 1992.
·
China Attempts Illegal Contributions
·
A
widespread campaign of making potentially illegal donations stemmed from a 1996
vote on whether to bestow permanent most-favored-nation trading status on
China, an effort Feinstein led.
·
According
to Slate and the Washington Post, Feinstein was alerted in the early 90s by
the FBI that the Chinese government was working to illegally contribute money
to various campaigns, including hers. Though no donations could be definitively
linked to the government, Feinstein returned a $12,000 check to businessman and
Democratic National Committee Vice-chair John Huang.
·
“We have reason
to believe that the government of China may try to make contributions to
members of Congress through Asian donors,” a statement in the FBI briefing
materials to elected officials read.
·
A Justice
Department task force said Feinstein nor any other member of Congress knowingly
received illegal payments from the Chinese government.
·
However,
authorities said that the Democratic National Committee returned $3
million in campaign contributions because the money came from questionable or
improper sources. Officials believed the potentially illegal campaigns were an
attempt to influence votes on the trading status.
·
Feinstein has
received awards and recognition from some groups for promoting U.S.-China ties,
accepting the California-Asia Business Council’s New Silk Road award in
2005.
·
“The rise
of China is one of the most remarkable transformations the world has ever
seen,” she told the crowd.
·
“For many of us
who watch China, there is both a sense of awe at what China has accomplished,
as well as a sense that it could all unravel overnight.”
·
“Rather than
just pinning the blame on China, we need to better understand the costs that
lead to outsourcing abroad and take action to remediate them,” she added.
·
“I strongly
believe that the US-China relationship is and will be America’s most important
bilateral relationship. We must not let differences, economic or otherwise,
derail the progress that has already been achieved over the past three
decades.”
·
From NTD.tv
·
Follow
Zachary on Twitter: @zackstieber
·
Ranking member Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) attends a Judiciary
Committee hearing in Washington on June 16, 2020. (Tom Williams/Pool/Getty
Images)
·
POLITICS
·
Feinstein Praises China,
Opposes Bill That Would Let Americans Sue CCP
·
Longtime Democrat has ties to the
country
·
BY ZACHARY
STIEBER
·
·
July 31, 2020 Updated: July 31, 2020
·
·
Print
·
✉
·
A longtime senator spoke out against
legislation that would let American citizens sue the Chinese Communist Party
(CCP), claiming China’s
regime is “growing into a respectable nation” and that the bill would open the
United States up for to lawsuits.
·
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who has close ties with China, made the comments during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing that
included discussion of a bill introduced
by six Republican lawmakers.
·
The legislation would
provide Americans with the “legal tools necessary to sue the Chinese
government in federal court for creating and worsening the COVID-19 pandemic,”
Sen. Martha McSally (R-Ariz.), one of the sponsors, said in a statement.
·
Feinstein, the oldest member of the Senate,
told colleagues that Californians “hold China as a potential trading
partner, as a country that has pulled tens of millions of people out of poverty
in a short period of time, and as a country growing into a respectable nation
among other nations.”
·
“And I deeply believe that. I’ve been to
China a number of times. I’ve studied the issues,” she added.
·
·
Feinstein cited a professor who told the
committee behind closed doors that the United States has the most to lose by
permitting civil lawsuits against China.
·
“She explained that the more expansive the
exceptions, the more they could also apply to U.S. conduct, the worse off we
will be,” Feinstein said.
·
“In short, if we eliminate sovereign
immunity for countries engaging in reckless behavior that contributed to the
spread of COVID-19, and other countries, including China, may very well do the
same to us,” she added later.
·
A Feinstein spokesman didn’t respond to an
inquiry about what the senator is doing to respond to the CCP’s human
rights abuses, including holding over one million in concentration camps in
Xinjiang, or the party’s failure to contain the CCP virus.
·
Feinstein during the hearing said she
favors forming relationships “that can make the changes internationally.”
·
·
The committee later advanced the bill to
the full Senate. Republicans hold majorities on each committee because the
party holds the Senate with a 53-47 majority, including two Independents who
nearly always caucus with Democrats.
·
“China’s Communist Party must face
consequences for concealing and now profiting off of the COVID-19 pandemic,”
Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), a member of the committee, said in a
statement.
·
Republicans on the House Foreign Affairs
Committee conclude
Democrat
Traitors Stand by China’s Spy Consulates
Democrat sanctuary cities don’t just provide sanctuary for illegal
aliens, but for enemy spies.
July 29, 2020
Daniel Greenfield
Daniel
Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is an
investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical Left and Islamic
terrorism.
On Tuesday,
Houston firefighters arrived at 3417 Montrose Boulevard. Neighbors had reported
smoke and a burning smell at the Chinese consulate. The consulate, which had
been given 72 hours to close by the State Department, did not let them in even
as the smoke continued to waft into the summer air.
Video showed
consulate employees throwing paper into burning bins.
“We have
directed the closure of PRC Consulate General Houston, in order to protect
American intellectual property and American’s private information," the
State Department had warned.
The Houston
consulate had become notorious for trying to intimidate American elected
officials in Texas and nearby states, as well as American energy companies,
especially those doing business in Asia. Some have also linked the
Houston consulate to Chinese espionage against American tech and medical firms.
FBI
investigations into the Houston consulate involved theft of medical
research, recruiting researchers to get at scientific secrets, and forcing
Chinese nationals to return to the People’s Republic of China.
Why would the
People’s Republic of China have thought that Houston would be a safe base for
spying on and intimidating Americans? Houston and Texas Democrats quickly
rushed to provide the answer.
Rep. Al Green,
who had hosted a luncheon at the spy consulate, accused President Trump of
racism.
“Don’t give
the impression, please Mr. President, that they are all spies,” Green whined. “My
appeal is to the president to understand that his words take on a meaning that
can be harmful to other people.”
Rep. Green
then went on to suggest that Trump had endangered his constituents by referring
to the pandemic as the 'China virus', and suggested that Trump's actions might
be leading to "more anti-Asian American violence, or worse, internment.”
While
shamelessly playing the race card, for a race he doesn’t belong to, the
Democrat did not discuss his own collaboration with the spy consulate.
Rep.
Green had co-hosted a
Houston press conference with Consul General Cai Wei of the spy consulate, whom
he described as a friend, with Chinese state media in attendance, at which the
Democrat urged local residents not to worry about the virus, and described
himself and Wei as a “committee of two”.
The Houston
Democrat boasted that the enemy consulate was close enough for him to walk to.
That's the
same Wei who had been accused of using fake
identification to get Chinese nationals through the airport, with whom Rep.
Green, an American official, had been meeting with on a regular basis.
Texas state
representative Gene Wu, who had also been at the press conference, warned that,
"in retaliation, China may basically stop all the investments and tell
companies to pull out of here."
Green and Wu were
far from the only Democrats playing defense for the Communist dictatorship.
Amid reports
that a fugitive spy wanted by the FBI is being harbored by the Chinese
consulate in San Francisco, the inescapable reality is that foreign spy
compounds operate in Democrat sanctuary cities.
Democrat
sanctuary cities don’t just provide sanctuary for illegal aliens, but for enemy
spies.
The Trump
administration had already ordered the shutdown of the Russian consulate in San
Francisco over its espionage. And the Chinese consulate appears as if it will
be next. But if the Chinese consulate in Houston was able to garner the support
of Democrats at the local and national level, the situation in San Francisco is
expected to be much worse because of Chi-Com infiltration of California
Democrats.
Chinese
intelligence officials at the San Francisco consulate had successfully
recruited a staffer at Senator Dianne Feinstein’s San Francisco office and the
situation at the local level is much worse.
And Democrats,
instead of supporting their country, are once again undermining it in favor of
China.
The same
Democrat officials who had castigated President Trump for not trusting the
“intelligence community” are the ones rejecting intelligence findings about
China’s spy networks.
Senator Angus
King suggested that the move was a political stunt by President Trump. "Is
it really about confronting China, or does it have something to do with an
election in four months?"
Former Senator
Max Baucus, Obama's ambassador to the Communist dictatorship, has falsely
claimed that the closure was "electioneering".
“This is the
wrong way to handle it," Baucus wheedled. "If Pompeo thinks he is
going to quote ‘change Chinese behavior,’ he is gravely mistaken.”
Baucus' China
rhetoric has, in recent months, tipped into blatant PRC propaganda, when he
compared Trump to Hitler for
opposing the brutal dictatorship in an interview with a Chinese propaganda
outlet. Baucus has a consulting firm that works with Chinese businesses,
and sits on the boards of several Chinese companies. The media outlets who have
had Baucus on have not disclosed his ties to China.
"There
are a lot of very responsible people in America who know this China-bashing is
irresponsible and we will pay a price if it continues. That is all I am
saying," he had warned.
The Democrat
has claimed that relations with China will improve if Biden wins the
presidency. That’s not surprising since Biden and Baucus are good friends, and Baucus got the
ambassadorship due to Biden.
Biden’s China
ties have made it impossible for Democrats to confront the Communist
dictatorship. Instead they’ve decided to accuse President Trump of closing the
consulate as an election stunt even though it’s only July and the closure it
hardly likely to have any meaningful impact on the election.
Instead of
standing with America, the Democrats are trying to shift the onus to President
Trump.
“The White
House must be transparent and show that it is taking smart and thoughtful
action, rather than engaging in brash foreign policy," Rep. Lizzie
Fletcher complained.
Meanwhile
local Democrats like Rep. Al Green, and local Houston media, are treating the consulate
closure as a hate crime perpetrated by President Trump in order to persecute
Asian-Americans.
Gordon Quan, a
former Houston City Councilman, contended that, "to have the consulate
close, to have accusations being made that this is the hotspot for spying, just
creates a further cast upon the loyalties of Chinese Americans.”
And the
Chinese Communist propagandists have adopted the familiar playbook of the Left,
complaining about racism, and whining that PRC embassies are facing bomb
threats and angry messages. This propaganda is coming from a brutal regime
which has engaged in genocide, ethnic cleansing, and the ruthless suppression
of political dissent, ethnic and religious minorities, and anyone who gets in
its way.
Chinese
Communist consulates in America, including in Houston, have been used to
intimidate Chinese residents in America, and to suppress political protests
against China in this country. The Communist regime’s diplomatic corps has
organized Chinese students to shout down, threaten, and even physically
intimidate political opponents on campuses and even off them in San Francisco.
And yet,
Democrats and the media insist on treating the Chinese Communist regime as the
victim.
The Democrats
are more loyal to their hatred for President Trump than they are to America.
And even in the face of blatant enemy action, they choose the People’s Republic
of China over the United States. A growing number of Democrats have also been
directly or indirectly compromised by the enemy regime.
And that makes
President Trump’s crackdown on spy consulates in Democrat cities all the more
urgent.
When the State
Department closed the spy consulate in Houston, Democrats had to choose between
standing with Communist China or standing with America. They chose China and
they chose treason.
Photo: China Uncensored (YouTube)
FEINSTEIN HAS SPENT HER ENTIRE
POLITICAL LIFE STALKING THE HALLS OF CONGRESS SNIFFING OUT DEALS THAT PUT
MULTIPLE FORTUNES IN HER HUSBAND, RICHARD BLUM’S POCKETS EVEN AS SHE SOLD OUT
AMERICA
The deal would impose no review
of human rights and impose no conditions for democratic reforms, supervised
multi-party elections and such. All that, and more, is already a done deal with
China, like the USSR a one-party Communist dictatorship that never produced a
single product the United States needs. This has come about, in large part, due
to U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein, San Francisco Democrat.
LLOYD BILLINGSLEY
https://cms.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/04/americas-china-dependency-syndrome-lloyd-billingsley
After Feinstein was elected to the
Senate in 1992, Blum continued profiting off their ties to China. A the same
time, the freshman lawmaker was pitching herself as a “China hand” to
colleagues, even once claiming “that in my
last life maybe I was Chinese.” HARIS ALIC
FEINSTEIN HAS
SPENT HER POLITICAL LIFE STALKING THE HALLS OF CONGRESS SNIFFING OUT DEALS THAT
PUT HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS IN HER POCKETS.
SHE HAS AVOIDED
PROSECUTION BY VOTING AGAINST ANY ETHICS BILLS AND HER HUSBAND, RICHARD BLUM'S
HANDING OUT "CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTION" BRIBES TO EVERY DEMOCRAT OUT
THERE!
https://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2019/07/she-ranks-as-one-of-most-corrupt-and.html
IN THE November
2006 election, the voters demanded congressional ethics reform. And so, the
newly appointed chairman of the Senate Rules Committee, Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.,
is now duly in charge of regulating the ethical behavior of her colleagues. But
for many years, Feinstein has been beset by her own ethical conflict of
interest, say congressional ethics experts.
“All in all, it was an incredible
victory for the Chinese government. Feinstein has done more for Red China than
other any serving U.S. politician. “ Trevor Loudon
After Feinstein was elected to the
Senate in 1992, Blum continued profiting off their ties to China. A the same
time, the freshman lawmaker was pitching herself as a “China hand” to
colleagues, even once claiming “that in my
last life maybe I was Chinese.” HARIS ALIC
“Our entire crony capitalist
system, Democrat and Republican alike, has become a kleptocracy
approaching par with third-world hell-holes. This is the way a great
country is raided by its elite.” ---- Karen McQuillan AMERICAN
THINKER.com
Senator Who Employed
Chinese Spy Endorses Joe Biden for President
A high-profile U.S. senator with professional
and personal ties to China — including once employing one of its spies — is
backing former Vice President Joe Biden amid mounting questions over his son’s
business dealings with the communist regime.
Biden-Linked Firm WestExec Scrubs China Work From Website
Dem cabinet nom for State Department cofounded consulting firm WestExec
The Washington, D.C., consulting firm cofounded by President-elect Joe Biden’s secretary of state nominee, Antony Blinken, has removed from its website details of its China-related business as the firm’s work has drawn scrutiny following Biden's election victory.
As recently as late July, WestExec Advisors touted its work helping major American universities court donations in China without jeopardizing Pentagon-funded research grants. An archived version of the WestExec site states that "U.S. research universities" were among the company’s clients and that the consultancy worked with schools to "remain a trusted partner for DoD-sponsored research grants while expanding foreign research collaboration, accepting foreign donations, and welcoming foreign students in key STEM programs." The company deleted references to such work from its website between July 26 and August 2, weeks before Biden accepted his nomination at the Democratic National Convention in late August.
The consultancy’s work is under the microscope because Biden has tapped, or is considering tapping, several of its principals and advisers who have thus far refused to disclose their clients or elaborate on the precise nature of their work.
Biden is eyeing Blinken’s WestExec cofounder, the former Pentagon official Michèle Flournoy, as a potential secretary of defense. His nominee to be the intelligence chief, Avril Haines, and incoming press secretary Jen Psaki have also done work for the firm.
Founded in 2017, WestExec boasted of deploying its deep government connections on behalf of its clients, pledging to bring "the situation room to the board room," and promised first-hand knowledge and government access to clients. The firm has dabbled in an array of consulting work, some of which involves U.S. adversaries such as China and Russia.
A spokeswoman for WestExec told the Washington Free Beacon that the firm "previously offered a service targeted to U.S. research universities to help them avoid inadvertently becoming involved with the Chinese government." She said the company no longer offers the service but declined to elaborate on why that decision was made.
The firm still says on its website that it helps clients navigate "China-related risks in an era of strategic competition" and at one point strongly suggested its principals would lean on their government contacts, helping American universities seeking Chinese money "navigate these issues with the Department of Defense."
The broad corporate portfolio also raises questions about the Biden nominees’ public comments about China at a time when they were on the payroll of U.S. businesses seeking to expand access there. Blinken, for example, slammed the Trump administration’s foreign policy in a 2017 New York Times op-ed, writing that "Trump Is Ceding Global Leadership to China."
"While Mr. Trump is obsessed with building walls, Mr. Xi is busy building bridges," Blinken wrote. "I’d never bet against the United States, but if the Trump-led retreat into nationalism, protectionism, unilateralism and xenophobia continues, China’s model could carry the day."
Senate Republicans are already signaling that they intend to press Biden’s nominees on their business ties. Sen. John Cornyn (R., Texas) said the Senate is "not obligated to confirm anyone" who hides their prior clients, while Sen. Marco Rubio (R., Fla.) voiced his skepticism for nominees who previously helped U.S. businesses expand in China.
"America will not be stronger or safer if its foreign policy & national security agencies are led by people who just finished getting paid to help American companies do business with the Communist Party of #China," Rubio tweeted on Monday.
The Biden transition team did not return a request for comment.
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