What was Huawei buying for that $500K it handed to Tony Podesta?
Disgraced swamp lobbyist Tony Podesta was supposedly all washed up.
He reportedly had shut down his powerhouse lobbying firm, The Podesta Group, in 2017, in the wake of its Ukraine scandal, executives fleeing, and prosecutors on his tail. It was billed as "powerhouse to poorhouse," given that his firm was reportedly making $24 million a year. Nevertheless, the press declared he had faded from the scene. His Wikipedia page declares he was "formerly" one of Washington's most important lobbyists and fundraisers. He'd supposedly retreated into...buying and selling and "gifting" fine art, which, in the Biden era, is interesting.
Aside from art, Podesta's kept busy. Business, in fact, is booming. And for America, that's bad news.
Here's Podesta's latest news, from the Epoch Times:
Chinese tech giant Huawei paid longtime Democrat lobbyist Tony Podesta $500,000 from July to September to lobby the White House, according to a recent government lobbying disclosure report.
It's not clear what policies Podesta lobbied on or whom he might have contacted at the White House. According to the disclosure form, it stated that lobbying was for "issues related to telecommunication services and impacted trade issues." Huawei hired Podesta in July.
The disclosure comes at a time when the Biden administration is under close scrutiny for its policies toward Huawei. More importantly, the revelation came less than a month after the company's chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou was allowed to return to China after the Department of Justice inked a deal with her.
Huawei, recall, is the Chinese tech giant whose output is ready-made for spying. It's Chicommed up, with the Chinese government at every level of its operations. Under President Trump, it got sanctions — and a bust of a top official, described in the passage just above. Somehow, under Joe Biden, she got let off. I wrote about that here.
Sara Carter, back in July, noted this:
It's a sure fire and brilliant move on the part of Huawei. Podesta has all the connections within the Democratic Party that the Chinese Communist Party needs, as it continues to spy and penetrate the American people and market.
Frank Fang, at the Epoch Times, got the White House denials of any undue influence, both around the release of the Huawei official, daughter of the company's founder, and other stuff:
A White House official told CNBC, which first reported on the lobbying disclosure report, that it had nothing to do with Meng's release, when asked about the lobbying.
"This was a law enforcement matter that was entirely in the Justice Department's hands—not a policy matter," the White House official stated.
The official added: "President Biden and this administration believe digital infrastructure equipment made by untrustworthy vendors, like Huawei, pose a threat to the security of the U.S., our allies, and our partners. Export controls against Huawei remain in place."
That's is a little hard to swallow.
Podesta, in fact, has had his fingers in every swampy lobbying scheme that tends to undermine America.
He was involved in the Ukraine scandal at the dawn of the Trump era, taking cash from pro-Putin forces there.
He was involved in the Uranium One sale of its assets to a Russian government–linked entity.
He was the lobbyist who protected a wokester oil company in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
Here are some specifics from the Center for Security Policy:
5. Tony Podesta lobbied for criminal Russian bank. John's brother, lobbyist Tony Podesta, John's, took $170,000 over six months in payments from a sanctioned Russian bank, Sberbank (and offshore subsidiaries). The money was for lobbying the U.S. to lift sanctions on Sberbank in 2016, while John Podesta ran Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign.
6. Podesta Group lobbied for same pro-Kremlin Ukrainians as Manafort. The Podesta Group, founded by John and Tony and headed by Tony, took $900,000 in payments from what Politico calls "pro-Russian Ukrainian politicians who also employed former Donald Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort." The purpose was to conduct influence operations against Congress and federal agencies on behalf of the pro-Putin figures. The Trump campaign's liaison to the RNC in 2016, Rick Gates, connected the Podesta Group with the European Centre for a Modern Ukraine, a non-profit whose board originally contained Ukrainian members of parliament from the pro-Russian party." The lobbying ended in 2014 when Ukraine's pro-Putin president, Viktor Yanukovych, fled to Moscow.
7. Uranium One: Sale of 20% of US Uranium Production to Russia. Uranium One was owned by Frank Giustra, a close friend and business partner of former President Bill Clinton. Then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton approved the company's sale to the Russian nuclear agency, Rosatom, giving Putin's nuclear weapons monopoly ownership of 20% of US annual uranium production. Sberbank, which hired lobbyist Tony Podesta, was the lead financial institution involved in the transaction. Tony Podesta's firm also represented Uranium One before the State Department in 2012 and 2015. Giustra and others tied to the sale donated $145 million to the Clinton Foundation.
Anything he's ever been involved in has involved a player who's intended to undermine America. He's also highly connected. His brother, John, used to run the Democratic National Committee as well as the Center for American Progress. John's sidekick, Neera Tanden, after being rejected for confirmation in another post, has just been appointed White House staff secretary. She's the one in charge of gatekeeping the documents that Biden is going to see. A useful connection for Podesta to have, that's for sure.
Now he's with the ChiComs and not even trying to hide it. Five hundred thousand is a lot of money to pay for nothing if the White House denials are to be believed. If one doesn't, what is Huawei getting from all this cash, and why was it so important for Huawei to hire Podesta?
We often wonder how Chinese influence works within the Biden administration. Here is how it looks in one instance. There are likely more, and it's not pretty.
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