Foreign Influence in American Non-profits: Unmasking Threats from Beijing and Beyond

[Gavel sounds.] The committee will come to order. Before we get started, I want to first recognize our vice chairman of the committee, Mr. Buchanan, on his well-earned retirement from Congress. Vern brought back a—

Did you not know that?

I've got some other recommendations, but—

[Laughter.] But I want to say he's been a wonderful vice chair serving alongside this time, and we're going to miss him. He has been very focused on bipartisan issues. He was living cool, good health, and preventative care before MAHA ever existed. This was a huge focus of Mr. Buchanan, who also serves as the chairman of the Health Subcommittee. He still has a full year to be with us. He's going to do a lot of great stuff. We're going to deliver, but we're definitely going to miss him on this side of the aisle. Mr. Neal.

Thanks, Chairman. I think I speak for everybody on our side, the sense of collegiality that he brought, the fact that there was very little anger in his tone, the way he spoke to issues on the committee and on the floor. They were anything but divisive. And at the same time, he was quite funny to talk to. He had not only a great sense of humor, smart, smart guy. And whatever differences we had, I think oftentimes were settled because of the tone and the nature of the conversation that we would have. So a really good guy.

Thank you, sir. Today's hearing continues our investigation into the money trails behind tax-exempt organizations failing to operate within their stated tax-exempted purpose and sowing chaos, fueling antisemitism, and interfering in elections across America. We have held hearings exposing many of the main players who use their tax-exempt status in concerning and problematic ways. We've passed legislation out of this committee with strong support from Republicans and Democrats to hold bad actors accountable. We referred, in fact, 11 tax-exempt groups to the Biden and Trump IRS, the same ones, for investigation and possible revocation of their tax-exempt status. What our investigations have found should disturb every single American. Certain tax-exempt organizations funded by foreign donors are exploiting their lucrative U.S. tax benefits to incite violence and unrest in our communities and destabilize our political process, all to the benefit of the foreign flags their donors fly. Several, including Alliance for Global Justice, which I called on the IRS to revoke the tax-exempt status of, are suspected of having ties to terrorist groups and using those close connections to funnel resources to support terrorism. Groups like Samidoun, a sham charity affiliated with the PFLP and designated as a terrorist organization by the U.S. Treasury. These are all facts. This is reality. Other tax-exempt organizations are masking the flow of foreign money by allowing separate entities to utilize their tax-exempt status in order to hold riots across the United States featuring intimidation and violence. Many of these groups, like American Muslims for Palestine, were contributors to the harassment and violence towards Jewish students that plagued elite universities. Several other tax-exempt groups intentionally direct millions of dollars in foreign money to sway our elections. One foreign national, a Swiss billionaire, gave over $200 million to a 501(c)(3) foundation and related 501(c)(4) to help, quote, "Democrats win the White House and control of Congress." Many of these tax-exempt groups also have documented ties to hostile foreign governments like the Chinese Communist Party. The People's Forum, an American tax-exempt group who I demanded documents from in September, it hosts events and courses pushing Communist Party propaganda, incites violent protests and riots, including disruptive occupations of college campuses, and publicly supported Hamas's October 7 terrorist attack against Israel. And it's no wonder that The People's Forum echoes Communist Party propaganda. One of their largest donors is a wealthy former U.S. tech executive living in Shanghai who is cozy, extremely cozy, with the Chinese Communist Party. Neville Roy Singham and his wife, a co-founder of Code Pink, donated over $20 million to The People's Forum through shell companies and donor-advised funds to hide the original source of the money. This committee has worked tirelessly to unravel the Singham CCP network. Just last night, I sent letters to Tricontinental and Breakthrough News, two organizations that are part of this regime of CCP-linked nonprofits operating in the U.S. Each one of these groups has the same thing in common: foreign actors fueling disruption and illegal activity in America using a dark web of tax-exempt groups. And all this disruption, the chaos and hate, is subsidized by the American taxpayer. Nothing about today's hearing should be partisan. Republicans and Democrats should work together to stop foreign actors from interfering with our politics and public discourse through nonprofits. The people who want America weak, they want America divided and torn apart, would love nothing more than a partisan battle on this subject. This is not politics. It's about national security. The manipulation and abuse of tax-exempt status by foreign nationals is absolutely unacceptable. Tax-exempt status is a privilege, not a right. To the tax-exempt groups who set out on a mission to provide benefits to communities, we are encouraged by the good work that you are doing. To the tax-exempt groups hiding in darkness and stirring up unrest in this country, know that this committee is coming for you. We will not hesitate to use every tool in our toolbox to root out the foreign influence lurking in America's tax-exempt sector. I want to thank our expert witnesses for coming to testify today about how foreign individuals, organizations, and even nations are taking advantage of our tax-exempt sector to destabilize the United States through our own tax code. I'm pleased to recognize the ranking member, Mr. Neal, for his opening statement.

Thank you, Chairman. We're here today as a government built for the people. Today, this hearing is being held on the pretense of what happens when tax-exempt dollars are funneled from group to group only that you disagree with. But much more pressing should be the decisions that are no longer being made for the American people, but in service to the president's demands. That expands across affiliated nonprofits and for-profits alike into wide-ranging transactions with foreign governments, including real estate, crypto, and numerous business ventures. Right now, it's impossible to talk about nonprofits in America without acknowledging those that are tied to the president: the Presidential Library Foundation, the Inaugural Committee, the Trust for the National Ballroom, to name but a few. And while we're on this topic, everybody on this committee and every member of Congress that I'm aware of, they are opposed to antisemitism anywhere that it attempts to grow. Let's talk about a few of these high-dollar examples. $400 million, a private jet given to the president personally, a tax-exempt organization from Qatar offering the jet. This donation apparently has been linked to several deals from the administration, including $142 billion arms deal and a deal for AI chips despite national security concerns. $5 million donation to the Trump Inaugural Committee. This pattern of foreign influence continues to the hundreds of millions of dollars that are being funneled to the Trust for the National Mall, a tax-exempt organization collecting contributions for the Trump ballroom. Among the donations that have been publicly disclosed, there are two notable ones from Tether America, a U.S. subsidiary of an El Salvador-based company, and Syngenta, a subsidiary of another owned foreign company. Certainly, the administration has put up a for-sale sign, and many countries apparently are responding. As my colleagues on the other side of the aisle stated, Americans deserve assurance that presidents won't be bought and sold before leaving office, particularly as they still hold immense international power and influence over American policy. We could not agree more with that statement. All of this is just the tip of the iceberg of this profiteering. According to estimates from the New York Times, which they acknowledge is only based on what is publicly available and likely an underestimate, President has used the office for his family and himself to enrich them by $1.4 billion. That is 16,822 times the average income of the American people. How's that in terms of serving the people? Real national security threats are going unexamined on Republican watch right now. The administration admits to mishandling the people's sensitive data as it relates to Social Security, I want to add. Last year, one of our Republican witnesses went on Fox News and couldn't be more impassioned about the national security risk from foreign governments regarding donations to American universities. That is something we all need to pay attention to. We agree that there's an important interest in identifying a foreign actor with shady motivations. We look forward to hearing the perspective today on a $400 million private jet from a country that was given to the president. We need a serious and good-faith conversation about this influence as it's peddled, that's bending politics to the benefit of the well-connected and certainly costly to the American taxpayer. What is happening this morning is disingenuous. It's a cherry-picked exercise to legitimize the White House's crusade to silence the opposition, always, by branding anyone who disagrees with them as a threat or even a domestic terrorist. We've already seen how this has been weaponized for the power of government to target opponents and enemies as professed. We can't be party to another performative effort that continues to ignore the president's abuses. And with that, I yield back my time.

Thank you, ranking member. I will now introduce our witnesses. Our first witness is Mr. Scott Walter, he's president of Capital Research Center. We have Ms. Caitlin Sutherland is executive director of Americans for Public Trust. We have Mr. Adam Sohn is co-founder of the Network Contagion Research Institute. And we have Mr. Bruce Dubinsky is founder of Dubinsky Consulting, and Mr. Robert Weissman is co-president of Public Citizen. I want to thank you all for joining us today. Your written statements will be made part of the hearing record, and you each will have five minutes to deliver remarks. We'll start with you, Ms. Sutherland. You are now recognized.

Chairman Smith, Ranking Member Neal, and members of the committee. Thank you for the invitation to testify on foreign threats and influence in the nonprofit sector. My name is Caitlin Sutherland, and I am the founding executive director of Americans for Public Trust, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that works to uncover and publicize foreign money and influence in politics and policy. Foreign nationals, foreign charities, and foreign governments are actively exploiting loopholes to funnel their foreign dark money into important American policy fights, institutions, and electoral tools, and they're utilizing the nonprofit sector to do it. Over 40 years ago, Congress banned foreign nationals from directly or indirectly influencing our elections. And while federal law is still inadequate when defining what foreign nationals can and cannot do in the electoral space, it is even worse to nonexistent in the nonprofit policy space. The unprecedented rise of foreign donations to nonprofits should be a concern to every American. Tax-exempt organizations, most commonly 501(c)(3)s and 501(c)(4)s, are important institutions in our modern society. They are supposed to serve as charitable backbones in the community, educate the public, and promote the common good. And yet, they've been co-opted by foreign actors who are quietly driving radical changes right here in America. This threat of foreign interference is not a hypothetical one. In October 2025, Americans for Public Trust released a report on how just five foreign charities spent almost $2 billion bankrolling U.S. policy fights, litigation, research, lobbying, and protests. The foreign money identified in this report originated from foreign charities and foreign nationals in Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and Denmark, and then flowed into the United States mostly through 501(c)(3)s. One of those charities, KR Foundation, wants to, quote, "popularize a shared vision of how cities could be much better places to live without private cars," end quote. And they financed numerous climate protests and litigation. The Switzerland-based Oak Foundation poured $653,000 into the 501(c)(3) Environmental Law Institute that houses the Climate Judiciary Project, which has faced accusations of training judges to rule favorably on climate litigation. And the UK-based Quadrature Climate Foundation sent almost $50 million to the 501(c)(3) Windward Fund, in part to, quote, "to support," quote, "environmental justice advocates in the U.S.," end quote, and for calling for diet shifts away from red meat to plant-based proteins. Abolishing private cars, eating less meat, training judges, protests, suing energy companies. These are just a few examples of what is being financed by foreign money and it must stop. Notably, after Americans for Public Trust exposed how British activist hedge fund manager Christopher Hohn funneled over half a billion into U.S.-based organizations, he announced he would no longer be financing U.S. causes in the future. But the damage with this foreign money has already been done, as he's been bankrolling advocacy campaigns and pushing a radical green agenda for over a decade, all while he and his charity maintain close and questionable ties to Communist China, work with CCP officials, and support the CCP's Belt and Road Initiative. While it is a fantastic victory that Hohn was called out and shamed into changing course, it is simply not enough given the influx of foreign money coming into the United States. We must have more guardrails in place to protect our democracy. Another ever-present threat to American politics is Swiss billionaire Hansjörg Wyss. Mr. Wyss, who once said he, quote, "never felt the need to become an American," end quote, has instead, as stated in his biography, found a way to, quote, "exert an influence on American domestic politics through his foundations," end quote. The precise reason this Swiss billionaire or any other foreign billionaire can do this is because foreign money running through foundations and nonprofits to influence policy and advocacy is not prohibited. This has allowed Mr. Wyss to keep the lights on at numerous left-wing nonprofits around town, including giving $280 million to Sixteen Thirty Fund, $30 million to the League of Conservation Voters network, $9 million to the ACLU network, and $7 million to Indivisible, the chief organization leading nationwide protests. How these tax-exempt organizations can simultaneously raise and spend hundreds of millions of dollars from foreign actors, be it from Switzerland or China, all while seeking to influence policies in our backyard is a problem worth solving. I look forward to discussing ways to prevent foreign influence in the nonprofit sector. Thank you.

Thank you. Mr. Sohn, you are now recognized.

Chairman, ranking member, and members of the committee. Thank you for the opportunity to speak. America's nonprofit system rests on citizens who want to make this country healthier, safer, and stronger without being taxed to do so. It's trust between Americans that builds hospitals, educates children, cares for the vulnerable, supports churches, and strengthens communities. Nonprofits were never intended to organize street violence, clash with police, shut down infrastructure, block hospitals and airports, or serve as proxies for foreign governments. I'm Adam Sohn, co-founder of the Network Contagion Research Institute. And today, I'm going to explain to you how the trust between Americans are being broken by foreign enemies. By using data science to identify and mitigate these information threats, I'm going to show you two case studies: one, CAIR, and the second, Neville Roy Singham. And you'll see how foreign influence has penetrated America's nonprofits, exploiting tax-exempt status not to strengthen our communities, but to weaponize them against the United States itself. The Council on American-Islamic Relations presents itself as a civil rights group defending Muslim Americans. CAIR affiliates acknowledge receiving millions from Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, and Kuwait, countries with clear stakes in U.S. politics, without registering under foreign agent laws. Since 2022, American taxpayers have largely replaced CAIR's former donors. In California, CAIR's largest chapter received nearly $30 million in public grants, including $7.2 million in federal funds meant to help Afghan refugees who supported the U.S. mission abroad. CAIR California promised to serve 1,800 Afghan refugees, but served just 177, less than 10 percent. Yet CAIR California still spent most of the money. More than $3.7 million circled back into CAIR's own offices, and for what reason they don't say. California's CAIR California's director, Hussam Ayloush, submitted a signed statement to Congress just last month denying that CAIR managed the Afghan grant or controlled the distribution of the money.

...by Arabella Advisors, one of whose presidents admitted their business model, which heavily uses fiscal sponsorships, is quote, "a workaround to the tax regime." This same Arabella network's first major funder whom we can discern was Hansjörg Wyss, the Swiss foreign national and Democratic megadonor Ms. Sutherland discusses. A big part of the problem is so-called campaign finance reform. It greatly narrows money flows into hard dollar entities like political candidates and parties, but it places no restraints on 501(c)(3) private foundations and public charities. This preference for the charitable sector is explained by the fact that eight billionaires, all with the same last name, Foundation, gave almost all the money to pass the last campaign finance law, McCain-Feingold. That law hurts both political parties and drives anyone seeking to influence our politics to send money not to parties and candidates where it would be disclosed, but into nonprofits where the money is hidden, sometimes under multiple layers, and also where the money is unlimited, both in dollar amounts and also in its source. Foreign governments and foreign nationals like Hans Wyss can give unlimited amounts. As one left-wing activist admits, the law that forbids using (c)(3) charities for electoral work is a joke. Quote, "Philanthropy can help win elections, pass legislation, enact policy, decide court cases, shape press coverage, catalyze protests, smear your enemies, boost your allies, and even help set the overall cultural direction of American life." New York Times reporter Teddy Schleifer agrees, confessing 501(c)(3) charities quote, "are often surprisingly as much a part of big money politics as your neighborhood super PAC." Some left-wing practitioners celebrate the collapse of the traditional separation between charity and politics, including Eric Kessler, who founded the Arabella network of left-wing nonprofits. In a case study of the business he paid for, we read that when Arabella was founded in 2005, most donors still equated philanthropy with giving to charity for community purposes. But he and his business partner quote, "saw things differently." They were obsessed with bold change-making strategies, advocacy, and innovative methods like fiscal sponsorship that would quote, "soon help billions in new philanthropic resources from left-wing billionaires, foreign and domestic, flow into the nonprofit field with unprecedented velocity." It's undesirable when Americans produce this pseudo-philanthropy and manipulate our politics through it. It's far worse when foreign donors are involved because nearly all Americans reject foreign money entering our politics through any channel, much less through alleged charities. That's why states keep passing laws to block foreign funds. Only this past week, Alabama and Michigan saw houses of their state legislatures pass bills to prohibit foreign nationals from contributing to ballot measure committees. On the federal level, this committee should consider whether 501(c)(3) charities should continue to be allowed to engage in ballot initiative campaigns, given that charities have no limit on their spending and may receive unlimited foreign funding. The committee should also consider whether charities should be allowed to engage in voter registration, given the documented abuses by charities who flout laws and regulations that only permit this when it's done in a nonpartisan manner. Charities that hire Democratic micro-targeting firms to help register voters are laughing at your tax code. Thank God Americans give generously to nonprofits. They give because they want nonprofits to help people. They don't want anyone, especially foreigners, to use politicized nonprofits to manipulate people. Thank you for taking this grave problem seriously.

Thank you, Mr. Weissman.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Neal, members of the committee. The committee is absolutely right to be training its sights on improper foreign influence in American politics and policymaking. However, there's no need to be searching for dark conspiracies of foreign influence. The overwhelming problem of improper influence in American politics today stems from two things. First, the fundamental failure of the Trump administration to enforce the existing tools we have to deal with foreign influence and to actively undermine them. And secondly, the president's business and donor relationships that compromise him in a way that probably has no parallel in American history. Let me discuss these two points. First, as regards the failure of the Trump administration to maintain the existing rules or institutions to deal with foreign influence. First, Attorney General Pam Bondi announced as one of her first moves that she would not enforce the Foreign Agents Registration Act. Perhaps that's because she herself had registered as a foreign agent for Qatar. Perhaps that's because the FBI director had failed to register as a foreign agent despite working for Qatar. I don't know. Second, that problem has been made worse by the decision subsequently in the fall through the National Security Presidential Memorandum 7 to weaponize FARA against political enemies, not to use it in a balanced way. Third, we have a problem indeed of foreign money going into American politics. We have record levels of dark money spent on American politics in the last election cycle, $1.9 billion. How much of that is foreign? We do not and cannot know. But we could solve that problem by passage of the DISCLOSE Act, which would require not just disclosure of all donors, but active prohibitions on the means of foreign money coming into our elections. Fourth, the administration has actively undermined the agencies and programs designed to combat foreign influence. It has attacked the Inspector General system, with the president firing two-thirds of the presidentially appointed Inspectors General as of October, the agencies intended to deal with things like fraud and improper foreign influence. It has slashed staffing at the IRS by a quarter, including a quarter cut in the nonprofit tax-exempt division. It has virtually closed the Justice Department's Public Integrity Section that deals with, among other things, efforts by foreign governments to improperly influence public officials. It has shuttered the anti-disinformation offices at the Departments of Homeland Security and State. But all that pales in comparison to the problem of foreign influence that comes explicitly, overtly, and in all of our faces from the president's business and donor entanglements. These include a recently disclosed Wall Street Journal reported business partnership with UAE through the president's affiliated World Liberty Financial, which effectively pocketed $187 billion directly into the president and the president's family's pocket. It involves the Trump meme coin, of which the largest purchaser is Justin Sun, a person facing SEC enforcement now paused. It involves the donation of the $400 million valued plane from the government of Qatar for no possible purpose except to influence the president. It involves two Trump-branded luxury projects in Saudi Arabia, probably throwing tens of millions of dollars to the Trump family in exchange for just a brand deal. It involves the Saudi government spending billions of dollars in the president's son-in-law Jared Kushner's investment fund, despite the government of Saudi Arabia saying it doesn't believe he's got any investment acumen. It involves also now the new efforts to fundraise for the Ballroom and Freedom 250 through using tax-exempt structures and accepting money from corporations and possibly foreign corporations with business before the government. Addressing the challenge of improper influence in the United States requires a fundamental U-turn from what this administration is doing, as well as work from this Congress. We can and we should have effective instruments to address undue improper foreign influence. They have to be administered robustly, but also fairly and without regard to point of view. Right now, however, the Trump administration is actively degrading those institutions, rules, and policies, while simultaneously threatening to use them against its political adversaries. Our democracy needs a complete reversal. Thank you.

I want to thank all the witnesses for being here today once again, and we will now lead onto the question and answer session. There are serious concerns over the link between radical 501(c)(3) organizations that actively cause violence and unrest across the country and the Chinese Communist Party. Most notably being the over $20 million, $20 million that the People's Forum received from Mr. Neville Roy Singham. The CCP is taking advantage of our tax-exempt sector to poison our dialogue and cause division in our political system. That should alarm every single person, whether you're a Republican or whether you're a Democrat. If you are an American, you should be extremely, extremely concerned with what's going on at the expense of our tax-exempt status. Mr. Walter, the CCP's involvement in our tax-exempt sector is one of many ways that China has sought to harm America's national interest. Can you please walk through Mr. Singham's web, the big web of nonprofits, and explain how the CCP is using our tax-exempt sector to push CCP propaganda?

Thank you for the question, Mr. Chairman. I have to say that some of this is speculative because so little is known for certain and, like a good Maoist, Mr. Singham works hard to hide what he's doing, and our nonprofit sector makes that easy. But there's been some very good reporting, especially from the New York Times on this, which uses the number hundreds of millions of dollars Mr. Singham has spent to try to influence politics in America and other countries as well, through a vast number of groups. All those groups do different things, but one thing they do is exactly what you say: they all push Communist China propaganda. As the New York Times is perfectly clear, none of them are registered under FARA, as the Times also points out. They do all kinds of things like the People's Forum, as you said, it both trains and organizes for protests on multiple issues all over America. Other groups operate YouTube channels to reach youth, others operate fake news websites. Still more lobby Congress, operate the Tricontinental Institute, a Marxist think tank, support candidates for office in multiple countries. And in all cases, by the way, they don't just boost the Communist government of China. They also support other hostile regimes. For instance, the No Cold War group connected to Singham propagandizes for the gruesome dictatorship of North Korea. Singham's wife, Jodie Evans, helps operate CODEPINK, and of course their protests famously include disrupting hearings in Congress, which shows their contempt for America and their contempt for the rule of law. So I think this is clearly something that needs additional investigation from multiple parts of the executive branch, and I applaud your investigating it here.

This committee, on a bipartisan basis, approved multiple, multiple bills to address the attempt by multiple foreigners to influence our politics and election outcomes by funneling money through tax-exempt organizations. But when those same bills came to the House floor, our Democrat colleagues ended up opposing, opposing them. They sided with special interest and foreign billionaires and abandoned this bipartisan, bipartisan cause. Similarly, today's minority witness shows that the Democrats would rather focus their time on opposing Donald Trump than working with us on this important issue. It seems opposing the president is the only thing that unites my colleagues on the other side of the aisle. Maybe my colleagues across the aisle want to talk about President Trump because they don't want to talk about the individuals funding these groups. We know of two, two notable examples: a Swiss billionaire and a British billionaire who have attempted to funnel hundreds of millions of dollars into left-wing tax-exempt organizations operating right here in the U.S. for the purpose, the purpose of influencing our elections, which is illegal. Absolutely illegal. Ms. Sutherland, how common is this type of foreign influence and foreign funding in our politics, and what sort of action should we or the IRS be looking at to combat it?

Chairman Smith, thank you very much for that question. It's unfortunately all too common that foreign billionaires and foreign charities seem to have their thumb on the scale of American politics. Yes, we know that Hansjörg Wyss has funneled hundreds of millions of dollars, as has Christopher Hohn, and a smattering of foreign charities. Together, that identifies $2.7 billion of foreign money running through the nonprofit sector. That is a shocking amount to both the right and the left. And you noticed that while these maybe these bills passed on a bipartisan basis but failed on the floor, perhaps it is because the top 501(c)(4) on the left, the Sixteen Thirty Fund, has received $280 million from Hansjörg Wyss. Whereas the top 501(c)(4)s on the right, One Nation and American Action Network, have an internal prohibition on accepting money from foreign nationals. This is something that we must address, and I applaud your committee for taking action. The IRS and this committee must find a way that foreign nationals are prohibited once and for all from funding policy campaigns and issue advocacy campaigns right here in America.

Every Republican member of this committee recently called on the IRS to crack down on certain tax-exempt organizations because our investigations have exposed a pattern of abuse, deception, and blatant disregard for the law. In fact, to date, we have found cause to refer 11, 11 different organizations to the IRS for potential revocation of their tax-exempt status. Mr. Dubinsky, as a forensic accountant who investigates complex financial transactions... ...what sort of practices could IRS Criminal Investigation adopt to better track the flow of foreign money through the complex web of entities involved and safeguard taxpayer dollars?

Thank you for that question, Mr. Chairman. You know, when you look at the situation, by the time it gets to IRS-CI, Criminal Investigation, there's allegations of serious misconduct. I think we need to take a look, and the committee needs to look at what can the IRS do on a proactive basis up front by getting more information from the reporting from the 990, from the nonprofits, that the IRS can use that information and use artificial intelligence—I mentioned that in my opening statement— ...more effectively and efficiently to ferret out some of this behavior before it even gets to the CI level. Once it advances to a revenue agent who's doing the normal audit, they need the tools at that level to be able to look at the complex web of transactions, to be able to follow the money... ...to be able to see the transparency or unravel the transparency to see what's going on. At that point, when CI comes in, a referral is made to Criminal Investigation, they need the tools to do their job. They need better artificial intelligence programs, they need better computers. I've worked alongside CI agents that have old technology. They need better training, technology. It's not that they need more manpower, but they need better tools to operate more efficiently and effectively. So I think it's a combination of starting in the front end with better reporting on the Form 990... ...that the nonprofits will have to disclose things like donor-advised funds. If there's a fiscal sponsorship, they have to check the box to that. At least some basic information that would flag things for the IRS that they could look across the entire spectrum of tax-exempt entities and have a flavor of better what's going on.

Thank you. I now recognize the ranking member, Mr. Neal.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In my opening statement, I made the point that the problem you've all identified with some consistency still can't be based on who we like or dislike, and the testimony certainly highlighted the point that I tried to make. Also, in reference to the statement that was just made about the IRS, the IRS has just lost 27,000 employees. I'm wondering if there's anybody left working down there to undertake these sophisticated audits that have to take place about foreign intervention. And I also think that it was not stated, but I think that in briefings I've had over the years, there's been, particularly from former Speaker Pelosi, she raised the question many times about contributions to universities and how that plays out. I'd hope part of the focus as we go forward would be part of that. So I want to ask a quick question, and maybe a yes or no answer would be appropriate. We'll start on the right to the left, and if you could just give me a yes or no before I come back to a couple of questions that I have. Is the $400 million jet problematic?

Yes.

On its face, I don't have enough information, but I would certainly, it's suspect in my opinion.

I feel that the topic of the committee I thought was on nonprofits, so I don't think I have the sufficient information to answer that question.

Thank you for that question. Very similar answer. I was brought as a witness to examine loopholes in our campaign finance system, of which the Qatar jet was not, so I'm unable to opine on this subject.

Yeah, and I too am not properly qualified as an expert in that sort of law.

So thanks for reinforcing the point that I made in my opening statement. Mr. Weissman, as you know, the presidential library, a tax-exempt charity, has received and accepts gifts from foreign governments, including a $400 million luxury plane from Qatar. It's been reported that Qatar received $142 billion in an arms deal. So do you have any explanation as to why a $400 million jet would be given to the president?

I think the explanation is the obvious one: they were seeking to win influence with the president, and I think they succeeded at doing so.

Thank you. And let me follow up, Mr. Weissman. Yesterday, the Washington Post reported that a federal judge is reviewing the legality of private donors funding the Ballroom. I don't even have to say which Ballroom; we all know which Ballroom I'm referencing. Without objection, I'd like to enter the Washington Post article into the record, Mr. Chairman.

Without objection.

Thank you. Mr. Weissman, what is known about the Ballroom's funding and the Freedom 250 projects?

Well, we have some idea of who's funding the Ballroom, not complete, and maybe there are others that we do not know. We were able to analyze the 24 known corporate donors at the early stages of the Ballroom. 16 of them had government contracts going back over the last five years totaling $270 billion in federal contracts. My view is they were funding the Ballroom not out of a sense of civic pride, but out of a sense of they can get something back in return. A couple of those companies, as you mentioned in your statement, are domestic subsidiaries of foreign businesses. I think as we look now to the Freedom 250 project, which seems to be a comparable fundraising effort, we're going to see the same kind of problem. Lots of money from businesses with business before the United States government, including potentially subsidiaries of foreign businesses. And by the way, because these are going to be through (c)(3) operations, we are not going to know who all the funders are unless there's an affirmative decision by the nonprofits linked to the president to disclose them.

Thank you very much.

Mr. Smith.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you to our witnesses as well for sharing your insight and expertise here. I think this is a timely hearing. We're hearing, I think, relevant topics that I find chilling and that I think most Americans do as well. We heard it earlier that tax-exempt status is a privilege and not a right. I also know that what separates our country from so many others is the philanthropic efforts of many and an investment in our economy that can deliver very positive results and create more opportunity for a lot of others. It's interesting when we see a debate taking place in California now that, you know, the so-called billionaire tax. Now, some politicians would say being a billionaire should be illegal. That disappoints me. That, I guess, stands to reason that that would seemingly come from folks who just see America differently. And the demonization of prosperity, in fact, that you'd never realize, given the demonization of prosperity out of Washington, D.C., you'd never realize that our tax code depends very heavily on financial success and that revenue that is important. And so now we have scenarios where folks have benefited off of the U.S. economy and now they want to undermine it. We have to ask ourselves a question: why, why and how could that be? This debate taking place in California, though, on the billionaire tax, it's interesting that the governor now opposes that. I assume it's because he's concerned about folks, more folks moving out of the state of California, as has been the case. Hearing the various names and entities, I know they've impacted elections in Nebraska, and our Attorney General Mike Hilgers is looking into this, and I appreciate his steadfast review of that. But all the while, when we have these debates, I can't help but think of the good things that charitable activities can achieve. And yet I fear that the bad stuff that's happening, or shall I say the abuses as well that are happening, I think should concern all of us. But Mr. Dubinsky, the term fiscal sponsorship is essentially an arrangement where a tax-exempt organization lends its status to a non-exempt party, allowing that party to receive tax-deductible contributions for its projects. Fairly simple approach here. While often used for legitimate incubation, it creates a structure where a private entity can effectively piggyback off the public's trust in 501(c)(3) organizations. Is that correct?

Absolutely. It's basically lending the tax-exempt status of one organization to another. There's supposed to be oversight from the sponsor to the non-sponsored organization or to the sponsored organization, but many times you'll see that there's not proper oversight, and that's where it becomes a slippery slope. So on its face, a fiscal sponsorship, there's no problem with it, and it's done quite often. But again, if it's misused for nefarious reasons, that's when you end up on that slippery slope and there can be problems with it. So I think identifying, as I said earlier in the answer to a question in my opening remarks, identifying on the Form 990 if a tax-exempt organization is involved with fiscal sponsorships, just a simple checkbox. Another question on the Form 990 can arm the IRS with additional information. If they start to see, and maybe it goes further than that, maybe there are some more sub-questions: if you do have a fiscal sponsorship, and then a series of questions underneath that, would arm the IRS with the information they need to then properly see if it's legitimate, if they need to investigate further. You know, this is all about following the money. I come back to this all the time as a forensic accountant: you have to follow the money and see who's paying it, why it's being paid, what's the substance of the transaction, not so much the form, but what's the true underlying substance of that transaction.

Right. And I think you touched on ultimately what my concerns are, you know, why would an established charity take on the massive legal and even financial liability of sponsoring a non-exempt project? I think, well, go ahead.

Look, there could be legitimate reasons for doing so. If the nonprofit doesn't have the manpower or the specific expertise in furtherance of the charitable cause, another organization may have that, and it's proper to have a fiscal sponsorship. There's nothing wrong with it and it's done quite often. But if you take that situation and abuse it, that's where trouble can occur. So again, it's about transparency or the lack thereof. When things are opaque and you can't see through them, that's when bad actors start to manipulate the system, and that's what we're starting to see. That's what needs to be changed.

And you think we can appropriately kind of root that out or split that up?

I do. I think we need to start somewhere. I think starting with the forms—I know there was a comment about the IRS has lost 27,000 people—it's not about the manpower at the IRS, so to speak; it's about the expertise to work smarter and more efficiently. I work alongside revenue agents and criminal investigators all the time. They're wonderful people, they're smart, they need the tools. And that funding for tools is important. It's not a matter of body count or head count in that perspective, but training the right people and having the information come in on the front end that they can act on in a timely fashion.

Would the gentleman yield?

Thank you. My time has expired. That would be up to the chair.

Richie, I'll recognize you first.

So is the witness suggesting that a cut of 27,000 employees at the IRS does not have impact on sophisticated, complicated audits?

Well, when we're talking, Mr. Ranking Member Neal, the issue really is what was cut at the IRS. Was it line agents? Was it clerical people?

All of that. It's all of them.

Well, my understanding is the criminal investigators are still present. I'm working alongside several cases with them now. And so again, what I see is it's not about just a wholesale head count; it's really about the expertise and having the tools.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Doggett.

Surely there are few better examples of the total misdirection of this hearing than the FFA. That's the Future Farmers of America. They have been challenged by Chairman Smith for taking a contribution from Syngenta, a company that supported them for decades but was acquired by a Chinese company. This is the kind of nonprofit that around the country would say help a student prepare a hog to win a ribbon at a county livestock show. But as usual, the real hog involved here is the Trump administration. No Republicans have voiced the slightest concern that the very same Syngenta contributed a quarter of a million dollars to President Trump, as did another Chinese company to which he cozied up for his inaugural, giving them a full million dollars. This committee has completely ignored the most powerful self-created tax-exempt organization in the country. That would be President Trump himself and the web of businesses that his family controls. Trump has famously bragged about how smart he is to avoid taxes, and of course we know he was so smart that he did so in 10 separate years. No tax-exempt organization... ...organization has been more vulnerable or more welcoming to malign foreign influence than Donald Trump. Unlike every modern president before him, he refused to divest his business interests or place them in a blind trust. Instead, he effectively erected a giant sign on himself, his family, and the White House: We're open for business. In addition to cozying up directly with various Chinese companies, the Wall Street Journal, as has been noted, recently published an article, "Spy Sheikh Bought Secret Stake in Trump Company." Known as the Spy Sheikh, an Abu Dhabi citizen invested $500 million, half a billion dollars, in Trump's World Liberty Financial. The Trump family got $187 million directly and immediately. Then the Trump regime just coincidentally lifted export controls on the selling of America's most advanced artificial chips. Tens of thousands of these chips have been authorized to be shipped to a UAE firm called G42. This is the same G42 that the recent, not Democratic, but Republican chairman of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party warned, and I quote, "G42 presents risk to critical technology and export-controlled research." The chairman also noted that this was a company that developed dual-use technologies through its subsidiaries and materially supports the PRC military. Instead of safeguarding our most advanced AI technology, Trump has now authorized the sale of these chips to a firm with deep ties to the PRC and the Liberation Army. Of course, the Trump family got a nine-figure payday in return. This is part of a long and deeply troubled pattern of personal enrichment. Then there is also Mr. Zhao. He's the one that President Trump pardoned. He's being sued by the victims of the October 7th Hamas attacks, alleging that his company helped facilitate the transfer of hundreds of millions of dollars to Hamas. At the same time as he sought a pardon, he just coincidentally provided critical support to Trump's crypto venture. The tax-exempt organizations that my Republican colleagues have singled out here today do not wield that kind of presidential power. They can't pardon individuals accused of financing terrorism. They can't discard export controls and provide China the most advanced American AI chips, and they cannot subvert our democracy by selling off our national interest to the highest bidder to become the biggest hog in the land. They are only a few of the many examples of Trump malfeasance. Now, the type of action that is being advanced here today was no doubt inspired by Vladimir Putin and Viktor Orbán, two people that Trump clearly admires, their authoritarianism, because they have spent a good deal of time smearing nonprofits in their countries as foreign agents, stigmatizing them and muzzling free expression. It's also fitting and deeply troubling that one of today's witnesses has cited the No Kings rally as an example of the kind of misfeasance of which they complain. I spoke to thousands of my neighbors in Austin last October at one of hundreds of these events. It was an expression of democratic values, peaceful, not a threat to anyone except those who insist on authoritarianism. In America, we do not punish critics, we do not crown kings, and we must not sell our democracy to the highest bidder. I yield back.

Thank you. I want to respond to the comments since I was raised in Mr. Doggett's comments about the FFA. That's the first time FFA has been brought up, but FFA, Mr. Doggett, is a very, very important organization to myself. In fact, when you go down to my personal office, the very first thing that was ever hung on the wall is my framed FFA jacket, and it stands here today. It's an organization that so many members care about. It helps create the future agriculture leaders of tomorrow. But when that organization's largest funder is Syngenta, which is connected to the CCP, we do not need to allow our kids to be infiltrated by the Chinese propaganda. And so I want to correct the record for that. Mr. Kelly, you're recognized.

Will the gentleman yield on that?

You're not recognized. Mr. Kelly.

Will the gentleman yield for unanimous consent to enter the letter that you wrote into the record? Just unanimous consent to put your letter...

I would love that letter into the record because the American people know that the Chinese should not be indoctrinating our children in the FFA. Mr. Kelly.

But it's okay for Donald Trump to take a quarter of a million dollars from them. You don't care about that. [Gavel sounds.]

Mr. Kelly.

Thank you, Chairman. I just, I'm confused. I don't know if this, the hearing today is a result of hangover from the 2024 election and with the Trump derangement that seemingly goes with everything. By the way, this, I'm going to read this, the topic of the roundtable would be to provide the opportunity for members to highlight its continued oversight of the tax-exempt sector focusing on the perverse and outsized influence foreign adversaries, including the Chinese Communist Party, CCP, to interfere with elections and fuel antisemitism. It would be nice if we could actually talk about the issues that we're concerned about. Jake in our office gave me a note and he said, you know, we were looking, looking at the nonprofits, tax-exempt nonprofit economy now comprises 15 percent of our GDP, manages over $8 trillion in assets, and nets $238 billion in net income. So getting to that, as opposed to who is getting a jet or who's getting a new ballroom as opposed to the previous administration where I think there were a lot of questions about who was getting what from whom. I got to tell you, coming from the private sector where I do pay taxes, and there's only two times in my life I haven't paid taxes and people said, that's amazing, how'd you get away with that? I said, well, we lost money that year. That didn't keep us from paying wage taxes and real estate taxes and every other kind of tax that the American people burden, and I think they're starting to look as what is the return on my investment. Mr. Sohn, I was really interested in, and everybody, thank you for being here today. This is incredibly important because the subject is really about where are these dollars going and what are they funding. I'm amazed that people can travel all over the country and go from demonstration to demonstration. I don't know who pays for their airfare, I don't know who pays for their hotel, who pays for their food, who makes up these elaborate signs that they seem to be able to unload under somebody's trunk. Most of the places I go when I'm up for an election are kids with a sheet of paper that they use magic marker. So I am fascinated that we got so far off from where we're supposed to be. Now, Mr. Sohn, from a national security perspective, how concerning is this model of foreign-linked donor networks embedding themselves within U.S. protest infrastructure? Somebody's picking up the tab.

Yes. So we, from a simple, let's take the example of CARE California. So with CARE California, they used, they had an EIN number for CARE California and they got millions of dollars in taxpayer grants. And they were supposed to administer those grants to independent registered entities. And a Senate Judiciary Committee started asking a few questions about whether or not that money was directed back into CARE California itself or was directed out to third-party independent registered entities. And the head of CARE California voluntarily sent a letter back to Congress stating that they had no authority over those funds. And it was a grant designed, as I mentioned earlier, to help support Afghan refugees that had supported U.S. mission overseas. So it's just very hard to believe that some of these instances are accidents because when you have that level of funding that comes from taxpayers and then the money is basically self-dealt right back into the same organization, that's not an accident. So I do think it requires further investigation. In terms of some of the other conversation happening here, and I don't know if I'm permitted to just mention this quickly, is, you know, the operative word I thought in this session this morning would be around transparency. I mean, there's not an American that doesn't know whether or not it's right or wrong about the jets and all of that, but they're not showing up in my community. They're not, you know, when my daughter wants to go to Rockefeller Center during Christmas at 16 years old with her friends, I was afraid that I knew that from my knowledge and the work that I do with the NCRI that there were going to be severe demonstrations that could be blocking hospitals, that could be blocking this lighting of the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree. These are the things that I worry about with my teenage daughter. So this is coming to our communities at home and it's where, how is this money getting into the hands of these individuals that are stampeding our communities? And we need infrastructure in place that can match the level of the threat that's meeting us on the streets of our own communities. And I think the transparency is what I'm hoping that we could accomplish here this morning is to really set in place an infrastructure that can identify these problems, where the money is coming in and how it's getting into the hands of these people, like you say, that are often sowing dissent and breaking the trust between Americans themselves.

Well, thank you for bringing it back to the real reason we're supposed to have the hearing today. I wish we could just stay on policy and not politics. I know it's very difficult to do, it was difficult for ourselves with the previous administration. I think the American people are more concerned about who is it that's funding something as opposed to which party thinks that their previous person got more than this person. I'm tired of hearing about jets and ballrooms and everything else. I got to tell you, I've always been worried about the 6th and the 21st of every month, and people said, what is that for? I said, those were paydays at my business and I was really concerned with that. But I'll tell you what, I'm fed up. I'm fed up with paying an incredible amount of taxes when we're successful and watching it dribble into every possible thing that we could put it into. And the bottom line, nobody's kidding anybody. You talk about buying votes? The way you buy votes is offer something to people that they say, I think I'm getting this for nothing. I said, no, you didn't get it for nothing. Hard-working American taxpayers fund everything. I want to thank you for taking a day out of your lives to be here. I appreciate all your opinions. Let's stay on the subject of who is doing what to whom as opposed to a political battle over something. I look, I know you all don't like President Trump. We didn't particularly care for President Biden, but at the end of the day, I never called him Biden, I called him President Biden, and I'm always going to call Mr. Trump President Trump because that just happens to be what they're doing right now. Thank you, Chairman. Yield back.

Mr. Thompson.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think we should all agree that foreign malign influence in the United States is real, it's serious, and it needs meaningful oversight. But I don't think that's what this hearing's about. Seems to me that this hearing is more about organizations whose viewpoints some members of this committee disagree with. If we're truly concerned about foreign influence, that concern cannot be partisan and it cannot conveniently stop at the door of the most powerful office in the world. If foreign influence is the real issue, we can't ignore the president is reportedly accepting major financial benefits from foreign governments. As was pointed out, a luxury aircraft from Qatar, a reported $500 million stake in the UAE in a Trump company tied to the access to advanced AI technology, to ballroom investments, to crypto investments, or anything else. If we're serious, then members of this administration should be sitting before this committee today answering questions. Instead, the majority has allowed serious national security and public trust concerns to go unexamined. The majority has yet to condemn the president for effectively controlling both sides of a lawsuit involving himself and the IRS, one where he could benefit by a billion dollars. And we have credible reporting of a whistleblower alleging that highly classified intelligence was blocked from reaching this Congress. Those issues go directly to public integrity and to oversight. Yet today, rather than addressing those matters, we're debating whether certain nonprofit organizations, often advocacy groups whose views the majority opposes, whether or not they should have their tax-exempt status scrutinized. Which apparently has brought up by my colleague Mr. Doggett, the Future Farmers of America, the FFA. I have my FFA jacket as well, Mr. Chairman, and I meet with FFA students all the time in my district, and I've seen no evidence that the Chinese are influencing them. I ask unanimous consent to put this letter into the record.

Without objection.

The Supreme Court has repeatedly affirmed that the government may not punish speech or association by selectively targeting organizations for their views. Using the tax code as a tool to suppress opposing perspectives would be unconstitutional. Now, I agree with my colleagues on one point: oversight of malign foreign influence should be robust, but it must be even-handed. If we're going to demand transparency from nonprofit organizations, that standard must be applied across the board. Many of the witnesses before us today represent organizations funded heavily and sometimes almost entirely by anonymous donations. So I want to ask each witness before us today: Yes or no, will you submit your donor list for the record? Starting on the right.

Our donor list is public.

Yes or no?

Our donor list is public and yes.

I don't receive donations. I'm a private company.

990s are public and I have no problem sharing donor information. All of our donors are American.

Okay, yes or no is fine.

Yes.

Americans for Public Trust respects our donors' right to privacy and are proud to state that we prevent foreign funding.

So yes or no?

No.

Yes, I will say we receive no foreign funding. No, I will not violate the constitutional rights involved.

Okay, that's yes or no is fine. So starting from my left, going the other way... Can you certify under oath that your organizations have never received funds from a foreign national or foreign corporations?

Yes.

Yes.

Yes. We did receive a small grant from the UK government to investigate child harm.

My company's never received grants or donations from any foreign entity.

Not to my knowledge.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.

Mr. Schweikert.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Ways and Means Oversight Subcommittee, we've actually spent some real time on tax-exempt. And look, from a global standpoint, 17 percent of the U.S. economy now is in the tax-exempt space. So you start to see our world of trying to finance government, those things, and the leakage because we don't have enough information. Mr. Dubinsky, you actually got closest to where I think there's, it's not a solution, but at least we would know what we're working on. And from the left to the right, we've actually had a proposal, a number of us in the Oversight Subcommittee, on to modernize the 990 forms. And this would affect all sorts of tax-exempt organizations, from my credit unions to a hospital to maybe someone dodgy trying to... How would you design a modernized, because our 990 form barely provides any useful information, but we could actually see what's really going on because for everyone, the basic standard of tax-exempt is you provide more community good than the value of the taxes you would have paid. That was the underlying standard. How would you change the 990 form?

It's a great question. I would start by taking a fresh look at the form and basically reconstructing it from top to bottom. I think there's some good information on the current 990, there are a lot of different schedules and sub-schedules, but it needs to be designed in a way that that information can be easily used and not for political purposes. I'm totally against that, but for proper purposes by the IRS, for transparency. So there could be a series of questions put on there, as I said earlier, on fiscal sponsorships. There could be, you know, banks have a tremendous anti-money laundering and know your customer regime that they have to follow. And I'm not suggesting that nonprofits and tax-exempts should do that, it's very onerous. But I think if you have some questions along those lines are: Who's the ultimate beneficial owner? Do you know? If certain contributions are above a certain threshold, we need to know who's behind those. I think that's very important. So I would start from fresh, taking a fresh look at the form and all the schedules with the goal of transparency for ultimate enforcement actions if necessary and if required.

Okay, you're going, I'm maybe slightly more cynical than even you are because we've actually looked at some of these where it's a donation to a tax-exempt to a donation to a tax-exempt to a field operation that's bundling and then another one and somehow we see where it ends up in U.S. politics, but it's a voter registration drive just only in the right zip code. And you can understand. Mr. Walter, how would you redesign the 990 form and do we need to have more of it's not just who you transferred money to, but so we need the chain of lineage? What would you do?

Well, thank you for the question, Congressman. Certainly additional transparency would be very valuable. EIN numbers are not always used on 990s when one nonprofit is giving to another. That's certainly an important way to help track. You could expand the disclosures for the highest-paid employees, for the highest-paid contractors. The fiscal sponsorships could be required to be listed, possibly with a basic budget for them or the name of the individual who's the principal officer of the fiscally sponsored project, when the project begins and ends, and then whether the project applied for its own exempt status independently. And obviously the simple thing of: Do you accept foreign money? That's the single most obvious.

Any concerns on your part between the leakage between a C3, C4, offsetting expenditures in that just that simple world there?

Well, some of that is already supposed to be disclosed, but so...

It's supposed to be, but it's really hard to track.

Yes. And you're right, there are cost-sharing agreements there that are very problematic. In that case, it's probably the law that needs to be changed. I wouldn't think it's a bad thing, I mean, conceivably just say C3s are not going to be allowed to give to C4s. That alone would be a significant thing. The big left-wing foundations would be very angry, but...

Mr. Chairman, there may be an actual solution that could come out of this hearing that's actually not Republican or Democrat but just good tax policy. Let's clean up, modernize the 990 form so we actually know what's going on out there. And with that, I yield back.

The whole purpose of the hearing is to find solutions to solve the problem. Mr. Larson.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I want to thank the witnesses as well and thank you for your participation. And certainly as Mr. Thompson pointed out, you know, foreign influence should be a concern to all Americans. And as expressed in your testimony, we can see clearly that it does. Mr. Walter, you in fact cited an article from the New York Times, I believe. What was that article again?

It's an extensive article reporting on Neville Roy Singham's worldwide network.

I take it you read the Times frequently?

When I have to.

Oh, that's not bad, huh? Well, I'd like to submit for the record an article from the New York Times entitled "Trump's Cash Grab Undermines Our Republic." You may have been familiar with that, but both Mr. Doggett, Mr. Thompson, Mr. Neal have already mentioned a number of the contradictions that exist here. So here you are as witnesses before a committee and you've got to be asking yourself: So why is it that they are focused on not just exclusively what I have to say? Because we think there's a connection. And we think there's a connection when witnesses aren't called before us. Do you think Elon Musk should come before the Congress and testify, Mr. Dubinsky?

It depends on what you're asking.

Do you think he should, Mr. Sohn? It depends on what you're asking. Okay. Ms. Sutherland, should he come, Elon Musk?

Depends on the subject matter of the hearing, I think he's connected.

So if the subject matter is Social Security, should he come and talk about it and what he's doing with DOGE in there?

I cannot speak on to Elon Musk's...

You can't speak to that. Okay. Mr. Walter, should he come?

Well, yes, I'm not a spokesman for him. I mean, I don't see it would be wrong if he...

If the United States Congress asks him to come and testify as an American citizen, should he? Yes or no?

Well, presumably, but of course there are many people I would like to suggest for testifying.

Yes.

Yes, he should.

Yes.

It's his right if he wishes to come, he should.

If it's not his right and the Congress asks him to come, he has the right not to do it? Is he above the law?

No, but you said if he was invited. If he's subpoenaed, that's a different question.

Well, if he's subpoenaed?

Then that's a legal issue that I'm not...

What about DOGE? Should they come before the committee, Mr. Weissman? Do you think they should come before the committee?

Yes, sir.

What about DOGE? Do you know anything about DOGE? We don't, because they've never been before our committee to testify before us. But we don't know anything. So my point is this: When you think for the moment that you're here to testify about something, it's all related to other testimonies that go on. Here's the big question in a number of our minds. This concern about China should be something that gets everyone's attention. So let me ask the follow-up question: Should we therefore militarize our election process? We'll start with you, Mr. Walter.

I certainly don't think it should be militarized and I'm very sorry that your party has been willing to try that in recent years.

Ms. Sutherland, should it be militarized?

No, it should not be militarized and be free from foreign influence from China.

Mr. Sohn, should it be militarized?

No, we should be able to free our elections from foreign influence without military.

And so would that require militarization?

No, I think it requires knowing when money is coming into the country and using our nonprofits as a laundering scheme to bring their narratives into our community.

Mr. Dubinsky, do you?

In the general context, no, I don't think it should be militarized.

Mr. Weissman.

Certainly not.

Mr. Weissman, you've also suggested the contradiction that exists here today in terms of the testimony, etc., and the full breadth of testimony, not just a narrow focus designed to achieve one result or to say that there is only one concern here that's going on and that happens to be about China and how we deal with it. Forgive me for thinking that this is all part of a process that ultimately says, you know what? We're going to have to militarize these elections to guarantee that we're safe, to make sure that these things aren't taking place. When in fact what we know is the goal is to intimidate and prevent people from coming out to vote. Have we ever militarized an election in this country, Mr. Weissman?

Perhaps during the Civil War, otherwise I'm not aware of it.

Mr. Dubinsky, do you know?

I'm not aware.

Mr. Sohn? Ms. Sutherland? Mr. Walter?

Not aware.

So I think you get my point. And the point is is that while we should all be concerned and make sure that collectively we're addressing the concerns of foreign influence, there's a lot more going on here than meets the eye. And that's why the outcry is here and that's why I want to submit this New York Times article for the record and the people in America should be playing close attention to this.

Without objection. Mr. Estes.

Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to all our witnesses for taking a day out of your lives to appear before us and I hope we can get back on the topic of malign foreign interference in our nonprofit sector as we go forward. It's important to us to have the intense scrutiny on this space so that the legitimate nonprofits can continue to serve the American people and to prevent American taxpayers from unknowingly subsidizing bad actors that do not share our values. This committee has a responsibility to prevent foreign governments from exploiting our tax laws to interfere in our elections, fuel antisemitism, and support terrorism threats against the United States. Most recently, nonprofit groups have joined a push to defund ICE and attack law enforcement after receiving hundreds of thousands in donations linked to the Chinese Communist Party. For example, since 2018, the Chinese American Planning Council has received at least $445,000 in donations from people and organizations controlled by the Chinese Communist Party. These funds have been used to directly sow discord in our society and support violent riots across the country. This has to stop. Our oversight's critical to ensure we address these abuses and risks proactively and proactively work to prevent them from escalating. We must have more transparency, accountability, and oversight on all foreign money flowing through U.S. nonprofits to ensure that American tax-exempt privilege is protected. Congress and this committee have the power to ensure tax-exempt status remains a tool for legitimate good work while prohibiting foreign propaganda from being subsidized by our tax code. I'm proud of the work this committee has done in bringing these issues to light and look forward to discussing them further. Mr. Sohn, your research on diseconomies of memes illustrate how state actors like Iran have used coordinated botnets to manipulate financial assets like gold and crypto to subvert some of the international sanctions. We're seeing a similar pattern where foreign entities don't just spread fake news but instead fund camouflaged independent U.S. tax-exempt organizations to provide what appears to be an academic or charitable veneer to these state-aligned narratives. Given your background on tracking these, how do you address the danger of narrative laundering where these foreign-backed disinformation can be scrubbed of its origin?

Well, thank you for the question, Congressman. First, you need a way to systematically identify when narratives are coming from hostile foreign regimes into our American nonprofits for to be cleaned and then through the legitimacy of our nonprofit system and put into our communities. Second, from an enforcement pipeline perspective, I don't know where that exists today in the federal government. So we need an infrastructure that not we could identify these risks, the NCRI, our organization, can identify these risks, but then what do you do about them once you find them? ...using out in the open our own systems against us. They find American non-profits that will do their bidding. These non-profits are rewarded with more funding, with more support, with amplification of their messages and the missions of their organization. So it's a bit of a perfect storm. So I do hope that this committee does look continue to look past the politics and recognize that this could be happening in any organization from any non-profit in their community. And I think that the non-profits that have kept these communities strong for centuries should remain in place. I mean, when did we start non-profits in the 1800s? So since when did all of these foreign countries become interested in our non-profits, whether it's our universities, our public schools, or the non-profits in our community?

Thank you.

Hansjörg Wyss, as mentioned earlier, is a Swiss billionaire who's funneled hundreds of millions of dollars into liberal non-profits through donor-advised funds and non-profits managed by Arabella Advisors, including things like 1630 Fund, New Venture Fund, Berger Action Fund. You know, this foreign billionaire has quietly created a sophisticated political operation to advance these progressive policy initiatives. You know, States Newsroom started as a project called Newsrooms Network inside the Hopewell Fund, an Arabella Advisor managed 501(c)(3) around late 2017. The Wyss Foundation gave States Newsroom $1 million in 2020 and over $1 million in 2023. In my home state of Kansas, an entity called the Kansas Reflector launched in July of 2020 in Topeka as a direct affiliate of States Newsroom. Since its inception, the Kansas Reflector has functioned as a tax-exempt hit piece, writing critical stories. I mean, a business operating as a business should be paying taxes. Ms. Sutherland, I know I'm close to being out of time, so can you quickly say a comment about why we should subsidize with our tax code one-sided media coverage?

Absolutely. The problem of States Newsroom in your home state and in all of your home states, the States Newsroom runs fake newspapers in all your home states, Kansas Reflector in yours. And the fact that we have news being paid for with foreign dollars is something that needs to be fixed. We should not have news networks be propaganda pieces, whether or not it's a Swiss billionaire or propaganda from the CCP.

Well, thank you very much. I yield back, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you. Mr. Davis.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I also want to thank all of the witnesses for your testimonies. As I listen, I know the value of non-profits in my communities. I know that the strength of non-profits include their mission-driven work as well as their commitment to transparency, accountability, and regulatory compliance. I know that organizations and individuals have constitutional rights to free speech, freedom of association, and due process. I know that today's hearing is not a serious effort at oversight. Republican leadership cannot earnestly seek to limit foreign influence in the public sphere when they only target groups with whom they disagree and ignore how the President welcomes foreign influence as long as he and his family profits. I mean, I grew up in rural Arkansas, and so I know how important the Future Farmers of America is. Yet this committee is pushing an investigation of the FFA because it receives funds from the same organization that donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to President Trump and Vice President Vance's inaugural committee. I know that they are real threats to our country and to the programs within this committee's jurisdiction that already exist. So I ask, when will this committee consider what whistleblowers revealed about DOJ's mishandling of data? When will this committee investigate the administration's efforts to weaponize the Internal Revenue Service, especially against organizations that disagree with it? When will this committee examine the illegal halting of childcare cash assistance and services funding to Democratic states, all programs within the jurisdiction of this committee and actions that are all prohibited by statute? So Mr. Weissman, could you speak more about effective instruments to address foreign influence and not using the government as a weapon against political adversaries?

Yes, thank you very much, Mr. Davis. I think there are two primary kinds of disclosure regimes that exist or should exist. One is the Foreign Agent Registration Act, which is an imperfect statute, which I would encourage this committee to look at for reform, but it does require the registration and the documentation of what people working for foreign governments or foreign principals are doing. This administration announced at the outset it would not enforce that law except in extreme circumstances. Then it said, yes we will, in another set of limited circumstances, when we want to go after our political enemies. So that is wrong. We should end the weaponization of FARA and renew its actual enforcement. On the political, the election side, there is a problem with foreign money coming in and we have no idea the scale of that. The solution for that is the DISCLOSE Act, which would require these different forms we're talking about, C3s, C4s, whatever, to disclose who and effectively, most importantly the C4s, to disclose from whom they were receiving funding and to certify they are not receiving funding from foreign entities. I think if we move away from these individual cases and selecting out organizations based on political viewpoint and actually look at the policy issues, there should be room for agreement. Those are the top two things. The other last thing I would say is, as I mentioned in as I detailed in my testimony and mentioned in my oral statement, this administration is across the board obliterating the agencies that are in charge of dealing with foreign influence. So it should restore those agencies and let them do their job.

Thank you. Thank you very much and I yield back, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you. Mr. LaHood.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this important hearing. I want to thank our witnesses for your testimony and being here today. And I want to begin by obviously recognizing the important work that charities and foundations and other non-profits play in American life. They feed our families, they care for our veterans, they respond to disasters, and they step up where government often can't. These organizations are built on generosity, trust, and a commitment to the common good, and they deserve our respect and support. In the House, I'm proud to be the lead sponsor of House Concurrent Resolution 4, which recognizes the critical support provided by tax-exempt fraternal benefit societies. I've also led and will soon be introducing the Workforce Development through Post-Graduation Scholarship Act, which will allow charitable organizations and foundations to help better assist students in paying off student loans and boost economic growth in our local communities. Having said that, however, I think we have to be clear-eyed about the growing efforts by the Communist Chinese Party, the CCP, and other adversaries to exert influence in the United States, particularly through non-profit organizations. And this isn't about questioning good intentions, it's about protecting American civil society from foreign interference. Transparency, accountability, and strong oversight are essential so that our charities remain focused on serving the American people and not advancing the interests of an adversarial foreign power. Beyond serving on this committee, I also serve on our Select Committee on China, which is a bipartisan committee put together roughly three years ago focused on how do we win the strategic competition against China and exposing the malign activities that the CCP is involved with. Mr. Dubinsky, I'm going to start with you. As an expert in unmasking complex financial fraud schemes and influence laundering, I want to direct your attention to the Singham network, which presents a high-level case of layering. We see a sophisticated multi-layered flow of capital. Funds that originate in Singham in Shanghai move through his private LLCs and then are transferred to a donor-advised funds, DAF. From there, the money is granted to Singham's own non-profits that act as pass-throughs, such as the Justice and Education Fund and the People's Support Foundation, which subsequently distribute the funds to other groups in the Singham network, like the media outlet Breakthrough News or the People's Forum, which organizes protests that have turned violent. By the time the money reaches the end user, the original donor's name has been stripped away three or four times, and the tax-exempt status of the DAF and the other non-profits has provided a layer of legitimacy to the entire operation. So from a forensic standpoint, what is the strategic advantage of using a major institution as a middleman, number one, and does this layering through the donor-advised fund or DAF make it virtually impossible for the public or proper oversight to connect the radical activities of a group like the People's Forum back to a benefactor living in Shanghai?

Yes, thank you for the question. You know, when you use a legitimate financial institution or a large financial institution in the process, it adds legitimacy to the process. So if you're having a donor-advised fund coming from a large major sponsor and that money's going through it, it adds an air of legitimacy to it. It's almost impossible to unpack the layering that goes on in these structures. I spent five years investigating the largest tax fraud that occurred in the United States to date. Layering entities all across the world, it took multiple man-hours and time to unravel all that. Subpoenas, letters rogatory to foreign countries to get information, it's next to impossible to try to get the information to do that. And the bad actors know this. They know that if they're jumping from place to place, jurisdiction to jurisdiction, things are running through different bank accounts, it loses the original identity, and that's the whole purpose when a bad actor does that. So it's a real problem. I don't have the answer for that. When those situations come to light, you need to investigate it and follow the money. It comes back to following the money in that situation. But you know, maybe we go back to the Form 990, maybe disclosures on how many times you're receiving money from a DAF per year and what's the total amount coming from DAFs may give a flag to the IRS to then focus in on that charity where they could do additional investigation and see if there's a real problem. Again, as you mentioned in your statement, charities do good work and we shouldn't put a reporting regime in place that hamstrings charities from doing what they need to do, but the American people do deserve the transparency and also the confidence when they're giving money to a charity, the confidence that that money is not being commingled with bad money and it's going to good uses.

Thank you. I yield back.

Thank you. Ms. Sánchez is recognized for five minutes.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This hearing is interesting because I think it's a very clear example of my Republican colleagues' hypocrisy. On the one hand, they're expressing concern for foreign money in politics, while President Trump, on the other hand, has accepted millions of dollars and lavish gifts from foreign entities ever since he won the election. I agree that we should have stricter guidelines about foreign interference in our politics, but really, does the Republican Party have a leg to stand on here? Behind me, I have only some, just some of the many examples of foreign entities that contributed to President Trump's inauguration committee, a tax-exempt 501(c)(4) organization. This includes Chinese-affiliated entities like Syngenta, which has been mentioned today, Gotion Incorporated, and TikTok, just to name a few. In fact, as has already been mentioned today, our chairman led a letter just last week citing concerns with the National Future Farmers of America's work with Syngenta. Our chairman forgot to check whether or not President Trump had money from the CCP-controlled Syngenta group as well. Not only has Trump taken foreign money, but he was also gifted a $400 million Qatari jet. Are we going to pretend that these donations don't have any bearing on politics? Even our chairman had concerns about that. Mr. Walter, you testified both today and in front of this committee in 2023 that we possess, I'm quoting you here, quote, "We possess near universal agreement that foreigners and foreign money should not meddle in our politics," end quote. And I agree with you on that. Clearly, however, our former President has a different view. Some of these examples are from the same countries that you criticize left-wing groups for taking money from, but Trump is taking money from them in much larger amounts. And many of these groups are not affiliated in any way with the Democratic Party. Mr. Walter, would you consider President Trump's inauguration committee to be affiliated with the Republican Party?

Yes.

Yes. Okay. Thank you. I heard a lot of criticism of left-leaning organizations in your testimony today. I'm curious, would you classify the organizations here as foreign entities?

Businesses, I assume, with foreign ties, yes.

Ownership interests from foreign countries, does that not make them foreign entities?

Yes.

Thank you. I agree. Although I didn't hear you mention any of these in your testimony today in your criticisms of foreign malign influence and the money that is going into different pockets. I will say that most of these organizations, which are based or have affiliates in China, have funneled huge amounts of moneys directly into President Trump's inauguration committee. So my plea would be that if we're going to have a plea for transparency and for oversight and for stopping the malign influence of foreign money in our politics, in our government, then we have to start from the top down. You cannot apply one set of rules to one set of people and a completely different set of rules or no rules to somebody else. If we're going to have this conversation about foreign interference, we have to be honest that it starts at the top down. And with that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Thank you. Mr. Hern is recognized for five minutes.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this hearing and thank you to our witnesses for being here today and taking valuable time out of your lives to come here and talk to us about this very important issue. Tax advantages have allowed non-profits to underwrite coordinated campaigns, politicize the courts, and impose costs on defendants without direct accountability. Just as non-profit tax exemptions can directly incentivize lawfare, for-profit third-party litigation funders' preferential tax treatment turns lawsuits into tax-advantaged asset class, leading to predatory and frivolous lawsuits that overburden the courts and raise prices. Both sectors bypass normal processes. Non-profits evade democratic policymaking through tax-exempt lawsuits, and for-profit use tax loopholes to treat courts as an investable vehicle. This distorts outcomes and harms everyday Americans through their higher cost. Ronald Reagan once said, if you want more of something, subsidize it, if you want less of something, tax it. Non-profit and for-profit entities have significant tax incentives to meddle in and to distort the U.S. legal system, whether for economic or political gain, with no accountability and no transparency. Similar to the complex business structures of non-profits, for-profit entities are structured to operate within our court system, in some cases tax-free or with preferential capital gains treatment. Mr. Walter, you have done a great job highlighting the concerns with foreign entities such as those tied to the CCP funding U.S. tax-exempt non-profits to support climate litigation and other lawfare against American energy companies. Unfortunately, non-profits are not only entities are not the only entity steering outside money into the U.S. legal system. Foreign-linked funds are investing in lawsuits against U.S. businesses across almost every sector of the economy for profit. I assume, based on your testimony today, that you believe we shouldn't allow the abuse of our tax code by organizations that characterize themselves as not-for-profit when they are more akin to agents of foreign governments. Is that correct?

Yes.

Would it be fair to assume that you would also be concerned about foreign-backed for-profit entities abusing our tax code in the pursuit of financing litigation?

Yes, foreign financing of litigation is a real problem.

Well, I'm glad we also agree on that. One reason this foreign capital is flooding into our courts is that these litigation financiers are adopting aggressive tax positions. They claim their deals are subject to capital gains rather than ordinary income tax rates. This allows some foreign funders to evade the U.S. tax code entirely. This is why I'm introduced the TPLF Act, along with other half of over half of my Republican colleagues on the committee, to ensure foreign investors pay their fair share and that all for-profit litigation investments are taxed at the ordinary rate. As the committee continues to examine these ideas to address these very real concerns, I'm hopeful that we will work to address the tax treatment of both the not-for-profit and the non-profit funders of litigation. With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.

Thank you. Now recognize Ms. DelBene for five minutes.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to all our witnesses for your time today. Today's hearing claims to be about foreign influence, but let's be honest, this isn't serious oversight. It's a distraction, a political weapon aimed at silencing voices that disagree with Republicans. And that's not just wrong, it's unconstitutional. While Republicans spend their time manufacturing threats, real national security risks are being ignored. The President has welcomed foreign interference with open arms, accepting massive gifts, striking secret business deals, and profiting from foreign governments. That's the real danger to our democracy, and yet my Republican colleagues just turn a blind eye. Instead of gutting the IRS, illegally firing several Inspectors General, and weaponizing laws like the Foreign Agents Registration Act against non-profits, we should be restoring and strengthening enforcement and closing the loopholes that allow corruption. Mr. Weissman, can you explain how Citizens United opened the floodgates for unlimited, undisclosed spending in U.S. elections? And from a national security perspective, how this decision has had how has this decision created vulnerabilities that foreign actors can exploit through shell companies and 501(c)(4) organizations?

So Citizens United in 2010 was a landmark decision, changing completely the landscape of election financing. It held narrowly that corporations could spend whatever they want to influence election outcomes. It subsequently was expanded to include individuals, so super-rich people also could spend whatever they want. What followed since then, but was not required by Citizens United, was a surge in what people call dark money spending. Secret spending of an unlimited amount going to outside organizations, not directly to candidates, to influence election outcomes. We're at $1.9 billion in the last election cycle. Because the money is secret, we do not know how much of it is foreign. It should be zero, but we really have no way to know because of many of the kind of financial flows that colleagues on the panel have discussed today. There is an easy solution to this without overturning Citizens United, by the way, the Congress should overturn Citizens United through a constitutional amendment. There is an easy solution, which is the DISCLOSE Act, which would require disclosure of all secret spending and would end affirmatively all foreign financing of U.S. elections.

Disclosure and transparency. Also in your testimony, it shows that the DOJ scaled back the Foreign Agents Registration Act or FARA enforcement while simultaneously threatening to weaponize it against disfavored viewpoints. How does this selective approach undermine constitutional protections? And what does it say about the majority's priorities when they ignore foreign money flowing through dark channels but fixate on silencing domestic critics?

Well, I think there is a huge concern about the authoritarianism of this administration in its effort as part of a tapestry of authoritarian actions to clamp down and intimidate critics. In the early stages of the administration, Attorney General Bondi announced we are not going to be enforcing the Foreign Agents Registration Act. I think as I said, it is not unreasonable to wonder if that's because she herself had been subjected to it and that FBI Director Kash Patel possibly should have been subjected to it but did not register under it. In any case, that was the announcement. Months later, we became a new announcement that it would be aggressively enforced in limited circumstances that are plainly designed to punish the President's political enemies. The document that established that, the National Security Presidential Memorandum 7, is extraordinary in its scope of defining who it's going to target. Allegedly domestic terrorists, but really political enemies, people with so-called extreme ideologies around race, gender, or immigration, people who express so-called anti-Christian views. What are the predicates for enforcement? Trespass. This presidential memorandum would have labeled a terrorist Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King.

And also in your testimony, you highlight that 501(c)(4) dark money vehicles can be used to launder foreign funds into U.S. election interference influence as you referred to. What are the most common pathways by which foreign money enters through 501(c)(4) organizations?

It's very elaborate now, sort of channeling money between entities, between shell companies, limited liability companies, into the C4s, and then on to super PACs. The C4s themselves are spending less now than they did in the early days post-Citizens United and really serving as vehicles to funnel money into directly into the super PACs. But again, we really can't trace the money because we don't have disclosure. Totally solvable problem.

We need disclosure and Congress can do that. Thank you so much for your testimony. I yield back.

Thank you. I now recognize Mrs. Miller for five minutes.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you all for coming here today. Wow, I didn't know it would get to be quite like this, and I do think it is such an important issue that we all need to use logic and facts to solve. Ms. Sutherland, the Federal Election Campaign Act is clear. Foreign nationals cannot donate to American political campaigns. However, your research shows a massive gap in how this is enforced. Foreign nationals can donate to a 501(c)(4) social welfare organization, which can then in turn turn around and fund a super PAC or other political entities. In this scenario, is the tax-exempt organization required to disclose the identity of the foreign donor? And what are the real-world consequences of this donor scrubbing on the integrity of our federal elections?

Thank you for that question. You've identified an alarming loophole in which foreign nationals are prohibited from contributing to a super PAC directly, but they are able to make unlimited donations to the 501(c)(4) that then turns around and donates to the super PAC. And we actually see this play out in real time with the 1630 Fund. They are simultaneously funded by Swiss billionaire Hansjörg Wyss and bankrolling super PACs. This happened in '18, the cycle, 2020, 2022, 2024, and it's going to happen again in 2026 if we don't stop this. And the problem, as we've identified, is that there is no real requirement that a 501(c)(4) on that Form 990 disclose anywhere that they are receiving foreign funds. This is a huge threat to foreign interference in our elections and we must close this loophole.

Wow. Taxpayer dollars should never go towards things like financing terrorism, supporting illegal activity, or causing major disruptions in Americans' everyday lives. Reporting that suggests that some taxpayers are donating to a charitable organization in good faith, only to find out later that that money may have ended up in the hands of designated terrorist organizations. I think that's terrible. To hear that a tax-exempt organization that helped fund one of these groups is still active in America today is even worse. To any of you all, what should Congress do to ensure that the taxpayer dollars are not being funneled through tax-exempt organizations which support things like terrorism and illegal activities? I got two minutes.

Well, I think transparency is key. I think some of my colleagues here mentioned revising the 990, modernizing the 990. I also think that technology lends a hand. I know there's a lot of talk about this being a partisan hearing. There's digital footprints that will deny that. This is a puzzle that's been designed by hostile enemies, hostile countries, and they basically have the digital footprint is proof. The narratives that they're funneling through here are very closely coordinated. You could hear where they're planting those narratives. They come through our non-profits. So it's not just the money. You take the digital footprint aside that. So to give an example of just how non-political this is, coming off a weekend of football, if you found out that a hostile foreign regime was trying to convince Americans not to talk about Tom Brady as the best of all the greatest of all time, but instead was highlighting another sports star in another sport popular in another country, that would immediately feel wrong to all of us. So that's what's happening, except take that same lens and apply it to our politics and our civil norms. So unless we could have a greater transparency, a systematic way of identifying that, I think the modernizing of the 990 is an excellent first step.

[Crosstalk.] Go ahead.

I can also add, that's a great question. I think that we can always strengthen the penalties on the front end for the bad actors to deter the behavior from ever happening. As you said, it's horrible that taxpayer dollars and charitable dollars end up financing terrorism, and that's often through the use of fiscal sponsorships. If we strengthen the penalties, that can be financial penalties, that can be civil liability penalties, criminal penalties for the bad actors, it will deter them from even funneling that money to the wrong group in the first place.

Thank you.

I would tend to agree with the co-panelists have said. I used to ask my clients, do you look good in dark green or bright orange? And they look at me and I said, those are the colors you wear when you go to prison when you do things wrong. So I think strengthening the penalties where a non-profit is knowingly using money in an improper way, I think needs to be looked at very seriously. And again, this I'm not saying all non-profits are doing that knowingly, but I think there needs to be a revisit of the penalties, both civil and criminal, in those situations.

Should I yield back? Yes, please. Okay. Sorry. I yield back.

Thank you. And now recognize Ms. Chu for five minutes.

Mr. Weissman, you highlighted in your testimony that in order to actually address improper influence in our elections and politics, this committee should be focused on closing the loopholes that allow dark money to flow through 501(c)(4) organizations. One of those loopholes allows wealthy donors holding appreciated assets like corporate stock to donate that property to a 501(c)(4) without paying capital gains tax. And in fact, in 2022, billionaire conservative donor Barre Seid transferred $1.6 billion in stock to Marble Freedom Trust, a right-wing 501(c)(4) organization. This was the largest political advocacy donation in U.S. history, and it was totally tax-free for Seid, who avoided paying around $400 million in tax liability due to this loophole. And this kind of dark money influence is only growing. The 2024 federal election cycle saw $1.9 billion in dark money spending, nearly double the amount from the previous cycle. Groups like Building America's Future have used these structures to fund political messaging campaigns, and major donors, including Elon Musk, have helped bankroll such organizations. If donors in that position choose to contribute appreciated assets, they can do so anonymously and tax-free. And that's why I will be reintroducing my End Tax Breaks for Dark Money Act with Senator Whitehouse, which would apply the same tax treatment to donations of appreciated property made to 501(c)(4), 501(c)(5), and 501(c)(6) organizations as already applies to donations to 527 political organizations. So Mr. Weissman, from your perspective, how do these tax and disclosure loopholes combine to expand the risk of secret and also foreign influences in our elections, and what are the risks if Congress fails to disclose them?

Well, thank you. We very much support the initiative and the bill that you will be reintroducing. As you describe, it effectively makes donations to 501(c)(4)s tax-deductible wrongly and in contravention of the purpose of the tax code. So you are indeed closing a loophole that should be a common sense matter. I think everyone should agree on that. More broadly is this issue that we've been discussing of secret donations to 501(c)(4)s. There is a balance that needs to be struck about legitimate privacy interests of political of donors to tax-exempt organizations. But when you enter the electoral space, the balance tips clearly in the need for public disclosure of those donations and the source of those donations. And the answer to this, and perhaps my colleagues agree because I agree exactly with what Ms. Sutherland just described it, exactly with what Ms. Miller described it, the answer is the DISCLOSE Act, which would require robust disclosure and would affirmatively end foreign donations that funnel into our elections.

Thank you for that. Mr. Weissman, Democrats successfully secured $80 billion in historic funding to strengthen IRS enforcement, but since then, Republicans have since clawed back over half of that funding and colossally slashing the IRS workforce. And in fact, the Trump administration slashed the very division tasked with overseeing the tax-exempt status of nonprofits by 25 percent. So it has been maintained that these cuts did not affect the criminal investigation portion of that division. But is that true? And how do these cuts affect IRS's ability to look at millionaires and billionaires who can cheat our tax system while everyday Americans wait hours to spend to just speak to a live human being? So how does this increase foreign influence?

Yeah, well, I don't want to comment on Mr. Dubinsky's remarks. I think he was trying to make a nuanced point, but the main point is very clear. The IRS staff, not only has that money been clawed back, on top of that, IRS staffing in the last year has been cut by 25 percent, and as you say, also 25 percent within the tax-exempt division. So as regards the topic that we are talking about, that means there is less staffing available to do reviews of tax returns from nonprofits and to discover the problems that the panel is all discussing. So if we care about that, then the administration needs to restore that staffing. The other question you are saying is perhaps even more important, which is the reason that extra funding was supplied, as you know, was primarily to do two things: to make the service more responsive to regular consumers, but also to give them and empower them to investigate complex returns of high-dollar and corporate tax cheats. That investment pays itself back about five or more times over. They've lost that money, lost that capacity. That means we're going to see more tax fraud, more tax cheating, more tax avoidance by the rich and large corporations, and the tax revenue of the United States will net go down by at least $200 billion over the next 10 years.

Thank you. I yield back.

Mr. Kustoff is recognized for five minutes.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to the witnesses for appearing today. I do want to recognize Chairman Jason Smith, who has really led on this important issue. Since 2023, this committee has worked to not only understand but also address the improper influence and abuse within the United States tax-exempt sector. I don't think there's any doubt, and we've heard it from all of you, that right now that there are actors who are adversarial to the United States who are exploiting weaknesses in our tax system to move money to support causes that are nefarious and even finance terrorism. And Mr. Walter, that's the one thing I want to talk to you on that last point is financing terrorism. Can you talk about through your experience and especially maybe since October the 7th of 2023, the attack on Israel by Hamas, what pattern or what trends you're seeing in terrorist groups and foreign actors and how they exploit the U.S. tax-exempt system?

Thank you for the question. Probably the best thing would be possibly to enter into the record our report, Marching Towards Violence. But I'll give the highlight of that report is that we identified approximately 150 groups that were endorsing or supporting Hamas's terrorism in a variety of ways and often, of course, encouraging domestic terrorism as we've seen in this state, in this very capital at Union Station when there was a riot, for instance. But the large majority of the groups that we identified did have connections to the American nonprofit sector. Many of them, of course, were precisely handled through fiscal sponsorships by places like WestPAC. So this is a sprawling problem that deserves serious investigation given the gravity of the crimes that are involved.

Thank you. And on that note, I've introduced a bill, the bill number is H.R. 6800. The bill would authorize the Treasury Department to revoke the tax-exempt status of any organization deemed to have provided material support or resources to a designated terrorist group. I do want to note that we proposed this bill in the last Congress after the October 7th, 2023 attack. And I do would also note that it's got a strong legislative record because it was reported out of this committee with bipartisan support and it's actually passed the House floor twice. To me, that reflects the broad recognition not only of the threat but also the importance of protecting Americans from this foreign influence. Can I ask you your opinion if you've had a chance to look at this bill, H.R. 6800, and whether it would be effective in preventing these groups from channeling funds to terrorist groups?

I think it's fair to say that it certainly would improve the current situation. And it's a sad fact that the attacks happened at this point almost two years ago, and yet we still have not done much in response.

Thank you. Let me ask you, are there any additional measures right now that you think Congress could consider to combat this type of abuse?

Well, I think a lot of the reforms that were already mentioned here, including additional disclosure of foreign funding, additional disclosure of fiscal sponsorships, those are certainly part of it.

Thank you. Thank you very much. Mr. Dubinsky, if I could with with you. Looking at the Treasury and IRS, do you think there's any additional statutory authority that Congress could give to help the IRS and Treasury track foreign money through nonprofit networks?

It's possible. Let me just backtrack one second. And in the issue of the IRS, it's not just the staffing. You know, there's been talk today about the staffing was slashed. Years ago, I had a tax practice. When I computerized that practice, I was able to get rid of half my staff and do more tax returns out the door quicker. So I think the IRS needs to embrace technology, embrace AI. I think what this committee can do is charge the IRS with developing an AI system to go through this data, restructure the forms as I said, use AI to work more efficiently, not just restore headcount, because headcount just doesn't mean that it's going to work efficiently. So I do take issue with with some of the comments that have been made about that. As far as additional laws that could be put in place, I'd have to think more about that.

Thank you very much. Thank you to the witnesses, and I'll yield back.

Ms. Moore.

Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman, and thank the panel for coming today to talk about this very important topic. I think one of the witnesses said that a through line of this hearing was that you all agreed that foreign money should be kept out of American politics. But if that were the topic of this hearing, I would be delighted to do that, but you have selectively chosen to focus the witnesses that I have before me to focus on those groups that somehow the Republican Party seems to disagree with. I was struck, you know, when I came in here, I had to look up the First Amendment to the Constitution to remind myself of the rights to which we're all entitled. And it occurred to me that we are strategically dismantling democracy here. I've heard you all complain mightily about freedom of speech here today, mightily about complaining about, you know, environmental groups that want us to eat less meat and, of course, the Republican Party, which has been infamously denying climate change, you know, all kind of groups that are funded to talk about the impact of fossil fuels on our environment is in the crosshairs of your studies and complaints here today. And I am just wondering, no free press, you talk about Code Pink, very irritating group to some people, but of course, they are protesting war, protesting aggressions, and they have a constitutional right to do that, whether we agree with them or not. Those safeguards are built into our Constitution, the First Amendment to the Constitution. And sir, I forget which one of you gentlemen talked about your teenage daughter being afraid for her, she'll be just fine. America was built on teenage daughters standing up for justice and protesting in this country. Now you guys want me to stay, keep the main thing the main thing and talk about what we're talking about here today and not talk about CZ and the money laundering and the fact that 87 percent of Trump's stablecoin is held by him and his pardon. You all don't want me to talk about that. So let's talk about another 501(c)(3), Heritage Foundation. Mr. Weissman, the Heritage Foundation has received funding from many foreign corporations to my knowledge. Some of the stuff we agree with and some that we don't. What is the impact of having, you know, cherry-picking through? How do we get to ending abuse of 501(c)(3)s if we're just going to cherry-pick through them?

Well, I appreciate your remarks, Ms. Moore, and the answer is of course that we can't. And what's worrisome is that there are legitimate and important policy issues here about which there may actually be some reasonable agreement on the panel, but the conversation is focused on viewpoint. And it's a problem when that is happening on the panel, it's a problem when the committee is focusing on viewpoint rather than on the broad issues, but it's the most severe problem when the President of the United States is threatening organizations based on their viewpoint, as he has done.

And by the way, Mr. Weissman, can the President do an executive order and really eliminate our ability, 501(c)(3)s to lose their tax-exempt status?

Well, he should not be able to do that, but if he orders the IRS to selectively persecute and prosecute organizations, I assume that they are going to do it, and I am deeply worried about that.

I'm deeply worried about it from the perspective of our constitutional structure. I just want to recall, I'm surprised that I see we got one of the Selma sisters here today. She was born in Selma, Alabama, and my time is about to expire, I'm going to ask her to recall if she can, she's a very young person, but I recall Alabama, her home state, trying to ban the NAACP, getting them to lose their 501(c)(3) because they have consistently since its inception, the NAACP, a respected organization, has fought for civil rights, fought against discrimination in education, in housing, and it's a revered organization that deserves its 501(c)(3) status. I'm sorry, Mr. Chairman, my time has expired. I thank all of you, all of our witnesses.

Mr. Fitzpatrick.

Thank you, Chairman Smith, for yielding and for holding this hearing today. Tax-exempt nonprofits who are acting as fiscal sponsors of groups interfering with our elections and institutions harboring terrorist sympathizers and fueling antisemitism must be investigated and held accountable. The House of Representatives has long maintained a transparency standard. To receive press credentials in this institution, a news organization, even a nonprofit, must demonstrate that it is operated independently of any government institution or lobbying group. The goal of this policy is simple: to ensure that those with special access to this building are not merely fronts for hidden or corrupt interests. We see a starkly different standard for the nonprofit sector at large. An organization can spend millions of dollars to influence the outcome of an election while being managed by individuals who may have undisclosed ties to foreign entities or foreign governments. Ms. Sutherland, we'll start with you. First, your perspective of why the House would recognize that undisclosed funding is a vehicle for hidden influence when it comes to journalists and credentialing journalists, but yet we ignore that same risk when it comes to nonprofits who are engaged in political advocacy? And second, should the anti-front group logic be the baseline for how the IRS vets the operational independence of all tax-exempt organizations?

Thank you for that question. I think the theme here is that we all agree that there can be more transparency when it comes to foreign donations. And you make a great point as far as we want to make sure that our press corps is not a hidden front group for malign foreign interference. We want to make sure that someone with the press credentials is not just serving the mouthpiece of the CCP. And I think the same can be said for our nonprofit sector. We want to make sure that our nonprofits are not merely front groups for foreign governments, foreign charities, and foreign nationals. I think at a minimum, that would certainly be a violation of FARA, but I think we can go further as we've identified some really good solutions to prevent foreign donations ending up in the advocacy sector.

Thank you. I now want to move on to discuss the role of social media efforts to spread malign influence by foreign actors. Mr. Sohn, your organization, NCRI, has been able to map how Russian troll farms and bot networks don't just post content, they actually game out social media algorithms to manufacture a false sense of viral consensus around a topic or an entity or an individual. Your research notes that for a foreign narrative to take root, it often requires a bridge into domestic institutions. We are increasingly seeing evidence of foreign state actors, including Russian proxies, using U.S. tax-exempt organizations to fund so-called digital advocacy that mirrors our own geopolitical goals. Mr. Sohn, from a data science perspective, can you share with us how foreign-funded nonprofits serve as laundering mechanisms specifically for the Russian-style bot operations?

Thank you. Well, we see this over and over again. Groups like Code Pink or the ANSWER Coalition are key examples where they show up repeatedly in records from the Iranian state media's top U.S. contacts. And that's not a coincidence. That's an ongoing relationship. They travel to Iran, they meet with regime officials, they come back, and then they run digital campaigns promoting across social media that Americans need to lift sanctions and stand down. Every time they do it, they get more funding, they get more media, and more amplification online. And that was my point earlier about not needing spies anymore. This is being done in the open using our own systems. And Americans need to recognize that when they see these protests that happen in a matter of hours, mentioned Selma and other really important moments in American history, it takes days, weeks, months for people to figure out how they're going to get 100,000 people into a certain area or even 500 people in some cases. But here with social media, when you have these nonprofits that are doing the bidding of a foreign regime, they could be galvanized in a matter of hours to show up at a location. And that overwhelms emergency services. Emergency services are not designed to respond to that type of a galvanizing of protesters. They expect protests to grow organically and slowly over the course of a day, not have 10,000 people show up somewhere with just a touch of a button through a few social media accounts. So when you think about the national security threat, imagine a foreign hostile regime was planning an attack somewhere in the United States. These nonprofits that are doing the bidding unwittingly of a day like where there might be an attack will deploy all of these groups, will be blocking bridges, blocking hospitals, blocking critical infrastructure, and then if an attack would happen, it would be a different type of a threat that this country hasn't seen before. So I do think it's important that we look past the politics and recognize that this is a digital laundering operation that can galvanize at a scale that we've never seen before Americans to show up and put themselves and others in harm's way unwittingly.

Thank you all for your testimony today. I yield back.

Mr. Arrington.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Moore, and our panelists. The lack of transparency surrounding these nonprofits, specifically 501(c)(4)s, and their foreign nationals' ability to indirectly influence elections is disconcerting to say the least. Mr. Walter, just a yes or no question: are FEC-regulated PACs and super PACs required to disclose their direct donations and the donors?

Yes.

Mr. Sohn, yes or no: can foreign nationals directly donate to PACs and super PACs?

I'm not as familiar with that topic given my expertise and why I'm here.

Anyone want to take that question? Ms. Sutherland.

No, foreign nationals are prohibited from directly or indirectly contributing to candidates, PACs, super PACs.

Okay, so U.S. citizens can, they disclose, foreign nationals can't, period. Now, Ms. Sutherland, we'll stay with you. You seem to have the answers here. Yes or no: are foreign nationals able to donate to 501(c)(3)s and 501(c)(4)s?

Yes.

And so let me ask everybody this question: is this a loophole when a 501(c)(4) can take the money from a foreign national? U.S. citizens have the right to exercise freedom of speech and association, but they disclose it in the light of day. And then we leave the back door open for foreign nationals. This isn't a partisan issue. I don't care what the cause is, but they're able to influence political causes and candidates in the dark of night. Am I reading that right? I'd call that a loophole. How would you describe that?

No, that is absolutely correct. And what we have here is that it comes down to how we define elections. Foreign nationals are prohibited from directly or indirectly influencing our elections. That means candidates, PACs, super PACs, and participating in your campaign's decision-making process. But all those other electoral tools that matter up to and including on election day, the issue advocacy campaigns, the nonpartisan GOTV voter registration, because those are not technically elections, a foreign national can finance them. So the solution isn't to change the definition of what is and is not an election, but to expand the prohibition of what can and cannot be financed with foreign dollars. Because what we have here is that if there's a television advertisement that's not saying vote yes, vote no, can't use foreign dollars for that. But if you're saying that look at how great Senator So-and-So did on this bill, call him and tell him a good job, that issue advocacy television advertisement can and is being paid for with foreign dollars.

Mr. Weissman, do you agree with that? That there's a loophole and that...

There are some details where I disagree with some of that, but with what you said, I 100 percent do agree. I think you're exactly right, and the solution to that is the DISCLOSE Act. And the only thing I would amend your comment, it is most serious for sure with foreign nationals coming in. It is not true that all Americans are disclosing their money. Most of the secret spending by far is coming from Americans who are not disclosing and using these vehicles.

And I don't like that either. So maybe here we are in agreement. Democrat witness, Republican from West Texas in complete agreement on that. I mean, we all have to be there on transparency. We just have to. And there's more work you're saying on the U.S. citizen side, but we all agree on this back-door foreign national influence. I think we look, when we have this sweet spot and we're coalescing as a body, both Republican and Democrat, we ought to act and execute with urgency. Ms. Gwen Moore is a good friend, happens to be a Democrat, and she's shaking her head up and down. Do you want to comment in my remaining 40 seconds?

Thank you, Mr. Arrington. And again, I just want to reiterate the through line is that none of us want to see foreign influence, particularly in our elections. And if we're going to be monitoring contributions to 501(c)(3)s and (c)(4)s, it ought to be, number one, we ought not hobble the IRS. It is duty to do that. Why cut now, you know, 25 percent of their workforce that examines tax-exempt things? Should I yield back?

Yes, my time's expired. Mr. Chairman, thank you for your leadership on this. I look forward to fixing this gaping hole.

Thank you. Ms. Sewell.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'd like to thank our witnesses for testifying today. As the ranking member of the Oversight Subcommittee, I agree that foreign influence in our democracy requires aggressive oversight. Unfortunately, Republicans have chosen to use this hearing to go after nonprofit organizations that don't support President Trump's radical agenda. Meanwhile, this committee has done nothing to address the many cases of foreign national illegal funding, millions of dollars into GOP super PACs and far-right think tanks like the Heritage Foundation. As we are here today talking about nonprofit organizations, President Trump is continuing to operate the most corrupt White House in our nation's history. My constituents in Alabama continue to face an affordability crisis due to Trump's inflation. Meanwhile, the Trump family has made almost $4 billion in the last year by leveraging the power of the presidency to enrich themselves. My question to my Republican colleagues is this: why have we done nothing on a hearing of Trump's personal profit from overseas licensing agreements? We know that Trump put tariffs on Vietnam and then conveniently reduced those tariffs when Vietnamese officials fast-tracked approval of a new Trump golf course outside of Hanoi. Where was the oversight? Why have we not had a hearing on President Trump's deal to accept a $400 million jet from Qatar, which he is trying to keep once he's out of office? Why is this committee not providing oversight over Trump's crypto dealings? It has been widely reported that President Trump and his business partners have set up a crypto scheme that allows foreigners to buy the Trump family's crypto coins in order to influence federal policy. For example, Reuters reported last summer that a United Arab Emirates investment firm announced a $2 billion investment in Trump's cryptocurrency. Two weeks later, the White House magically gave the UAE access to hundreds of thousands of the most advanced computer chips. President Trump has proven time and time again that he will prioritize his own wealth over the interest of the United States and the American people. Mr. Weissman, in your testimony, you talked about President Trump's foreign dealings. Whether or not Trump's actions violate the Constitution's Emoluments Clause, they absolutely violate the spirit of the Constitution. What reforms should Congress consider to ensure that no future executive uses the office of the president... ...to personally make billions of dollars while poor constituents in rural communities like mine are literally barely able to afford food and medicine.

Thank you for your question. I think it's important to underscore what you said. The self-enrichment is unseemly. That's not the biggest issue. The biggest issue is foreign governments and domestic corporations are spending money to influence the president. Again, we don't have to conjure some indirect process in a magical mystery of conspiracy. It's happening in front of our eyes. They're making direct payments and there's every reason to think that identifiable decisions are going the other way because foreign governments have channeled money to the president and his family.

Yeah, you know, our oversight duties, I mean, we are accountable to the American people and we should be having oversight hearings about just this foreign influence by our president. For any of the witnesses, how about you, Mr. Walter? This question is to all of you, but according to your testimony today, you all have said that taking foreign influence in our democracy is very serious. Therefore, I am giving you the opportunity right now to condemn President Trump's willingness to accept funds from foreign interest. Will any of you go on the record and condemn any of the actions that I have just mentioned? Any of you? Mr. Walter.

I'm sorry, but I can't say that I have studied those and I didn't understand that this hearing was going to involve inaugural committee contributions rather than nonprofits.

Ms. Sutherland.

Thank you for that question. Same answer. I've been prepped to talk about foreign influence in the nonprofit sector.

Mr. Sohn.

I think there's some hope to what you're saying in the sense that this Congress and the executive branch worked together to rid TikTok of exercising foreign influence. My organization actually identified and it is in the DOJ documents, our organization has identified manipulation—

I take that as a no. Our last witness, or next to last witness.

Look, I'm a forensic accountant, I'm not a politician. And from the standpoint of cleaning it up on both sides, I think the American people want to see things cleaned up on both sides of the aisle.

Mr. Weissman.

Yes, of course, I do condemn that. And I think it's a strange thing to say you're an expert on foreign influence channeled through a particular means when your underlying concern is foreign influence and we are seeing the most blatant in American history foreign influence exercised over our government.

Right in front of our eyes. With that, Mr. Chairman, I just wanted or Madam Chairman, I wanted to just reiterate how important our oversight responsibilities are and I look forward to working with all of you in making sure that we bring this to light. Thank you.

The gentleman from Florida, Mr. Steube, is now recognized for five minutes.

Thank you, Madam Chairman. Mr. Dubinsky, in your opening testimony, you stated that the transparency deficit in our current system is being fueled by the growing use of donor-advised funds, which effectively strip the identity of the original donor away before the money reaches the recipient. You described these anonymous grants and fiscal sponsorships as vulnerabilities that allow money to flow with almost no public visibility. Most importantly, you shared your professional judgment that a practical and cost-effective remedy would be to modernize Form 990 with standardized questions to generate structured data for the IRS. Mr. Dubinsky, based on your 40 years of unmasking the labyrinth of shell companies and offshore schemes, how would this shift to structured data allow investigators to use AI to flag foreign influence in a way that current paper-based honor system cannot?

Very easily. The use of AI looks at both structured and unstructured data. It can look at typologies, it can look at the footprint, it can look at a vast amount of information very quickly across a universe of information. The human simply can't do that. When we launch an investigation, it takes a lot of manpower to lay eyes on documents and start tracing things. Properly developed AI systems can make that cut that way, way down. So that's why I said it's not a matter of the headcount at the IRS, it's a matter of working smarter, more efficiently, using technology as your friend.

How common is donor-advised fund to donor-advised fund or multi-intermediary routing, and does that materially frustrate oversight?

It does because once the money goes into a donor-advised fund, it can sit there for several years until a request for a grant is made. And the request comes in, the donor-advised fund will either honor it or not, but most of the time they'll honor it. It goes to another DAF, it could, and so it's layering and masks the identity over many, many years. So trying to trace that becomes very, very difficult.

And in the donor-advised fund context, where does screening actually fail most often? Donor source, sponsor intake, downstream grantee, or what's the consequence when it fails?

I think on the donor intake mainly because if the, you know, it's like the AML laundering. If you only know the first layer in it and you don't know who's behind the layer, that's all you can look at. So if the donor looks legitimate but you don't know where that donor got their money, that becomes an issue.

Right. Mr. Walter, what about donor-advised funds make them attractive to influence campaigns? Insulation, anonymity, plausible deniability? What would you say?

Well, of course, all of those things. I mean, again, donor-advised funds were created to help encourage good charity in America, but they are easily abused by bad actors.

So this is like a structural vulnerability in our charitable system. Would you agree with that?

It is, yes.

Ms. Sutherland, how often are DAFs used as a cutout to fund policy fights in ways that prevent the public from connecting the founder to the outcome?

Thank you for that question. I think that it can happen quite frequently. In fact, just last night, Gabe Kaminsky of the Free Press published an article identifying how almost $40 million was funneled through a DAF and ended up into a 501(c)(4) that ended up supporting Kamala Harris's campaign.

Do you see donors loading money into DAFs in election years for deductions, then deploying grants later to avoid scrutiny and timing accountability?

I'm unable to speak to the specifics of the money moving in, moving out, but we are able to identify that DAFs can be conduits for foreign influence. Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, a large donor-advised fund, does receive hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign funds.

If Congress increases inflows to DAFs without fixing the guardrails, aren't we just expanding the size of the black box?

Certainly, but I will caution that when we discuss donor-advised funds, that we must do it narrowly to maintain the privacy protections of donors who are rightfully using those wonderful charitable vehicles. Unfortunately, through the theme of this hearing, we are hearing that too many foreign bad actors are coopting our charitable sector.

So what guardrails do you think we should do first?

I think certainly taking a look at the flow of foreign dollars into DAFs. As Mr. Dubinsky pointed out, it definitely gets shuffled around and comes out the other side. Foreign money flowing into any nonprofit sector that ends up in advocacy should be Congress's first step to fix.

Thank you. I yield back.

Thank you very much. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Pennsylvania, Congressman Smucker, for five minutes.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Thanks for holding this hearing. Mr. Walter, I'd like to talk briefly about the fiscal sponsorship structures, which I think you mentioned in your testimony. And there was a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed by Tal Fortgang of the Manhattan Institute that I think explained very well how the structure works and how it's in some cases allowed bad actors to raise money through tax-deductible donations. And I think I want to say and I'll see if you agree, they are often used for legitimate purposes to help new nonprofits sort of get off the ground, if you will. But it also can allow a non-exempt entity to maintain limited public disclosure, which is really what I'm working to get at with a bill I'm working on. So do you agree with that assessment?

Yes, Congressman.

Based on your research, is there an example for those listening that you could point to that would exemplify that gap in transparency?

Well, one of the most egregious examples of the abuse here would be a fiscal sponsor that was helping Samidoun, which is tied to terrorism. I believe it was the Biden administration's Treasury Department that designated them in that way.

Thank you. Are nonprofits currently required to disclose fiscal sponsorship activity on their annual tax returns?

I think I would call it best practices, so it sometimes happens, but it is not required by anything.

Yeah, my understanding is it's not required, but as he said, they can choose, folks can obviously choose to do that. So as we're considering reforms to the Form 990, the tax form, what basic information would you suggest would help the public better understand how tax-deductible donations flow through these arrangements? Do you have any ideas?

Certainly. One simple thing would be requiring that sponsored projects be named on the 990. Perhaps the basic budget of revenues, expenses, assets. You certainly could also designate a person as the principal officer for the fiscally sponsored project. The dates of which the sponsorship began, when it ended. Yes or no to whether it received foreign funding. And yes or no to whether the fiscally sponsored project applied for its own independent tax-exempt status.

Yeah, all great suggestions. It's literally, it's all about the transparency so that anyone reading that could understand the arrangement where those dollars are going. So thank you. Your testimony makes clear that if an organization offers donors a charitable tax deduction, it should expect to face the equivalent level of accountability. So we're going to continue to work on this legislation. We hope to be able to introduce this and then have it pass out of the committee and hopefully get it passed into law. I think it would protect, we want to ensure that we protect legitimate charitable work, but also close the door to potential abuse. So thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Madam Chairman, I yield back.

Thank you very much. The chair now recognizes Mr. Beyer from the great state of Virginia for five minutes.

Madam Chair, thank you very much, and Ranking Member Horsford, I appreciate this. Let me first just ask a rhetorical question and quote Ms. Sutherland who said, "News networks should not be propaganda machines." I totally agree, but from the democratic left, I wonder if that would include Sinclair Broadcasting or Barry Weiss of CBS. That's a rhetorical question, I don't need an answer. I'd like to quote Scott Walter, Mr. Walter, you said, "We possess nearly universal agreement that foreigners and foreign money should not meddle in our politics. To ignore this overwhelming democratic consensus against foreign meddling is to suppress our democracy." I heartily agree with you. And I think there is a lot to learn from this. And for example, 990 reform, I'd love to be participating in that. We don't want foreigners affecting our elections. But I think it's, I want you to share my horror at the amount of dark money that poured into seven battleground states at the end. Billions of dollars, we have no idea where it came from, we can't determine where it came from. Or I think it's the nth hypocrisy to be concerned about complaining about American nonprofits without addressing the unbelievable corruption of this Trump administration, sparked by a president who seemingly put a for-sale sign out the White House. So any foreign country, individual with business before the U.S. government, you can buy billions of dollars with the president's cryptocurrency in exchange for access to advanced American AI chips. You can strike deals with the Trump Organization to develop hotels, casinos, golf clubs in exchange for advanced military aircraft or relief from U.S. tariffs. You can get $2 billion into Jared's investment fund in return for other favors people have mentioned, the jets over and over again. The degree to which this president has enriched himself and his family at the American people's expense and opened the door for wealthy foreigners to influence U.S. policy directly. You complain about the people investing in the Sierra Club or the League of Conservation Voters or the Center for Biological Diversity. They just skip it, they go right to the policy itself, they don't skip the elections. The only thing that's concerning about the rank corruption though is my Republican friends, whom I admire and like, who've been, where are you? Why have you been completely silent about the sale of our government to foreign officials? Mr. Weissman, you talk about how this administration's worked to undermine our laws. Have you ever seen anything in American history, Democratic or Republican presidents, like this?

No.

What do we do, what's the cumulative effect of the attacks on the IRS, firing all the inspector generals, the DOJ public integrity not enforcing FARA?

The overall effect is that the government is putting its hands up. We're not going to enforce the rules against foreign influence. Full stop. Except not full stop because there's one exception. We'll use those rules weaponized against our political enemies. We're getting the worst of both worlds.

And and that's the thing that really concerns me too. I would love to work with my Republican friends on dialing down on the many apparent abuses that come from the majority's witnesses. But I think we can only do it hand in hand with the abrupt, the obvious corruption that's coming with right on top. And we've sort of normalized with the American people that this is what we expect. You know, $100 million here and $2 million there. Mr. Weissman, how long will it take to rebuild this infrastructure and what will we do about the desensitization of the American public to these kinds of cash flows?

We're going to need to rebuild very quickly. It is going to be a monumental challenge. The IRS is a good example, maybe one of the easier ones to do, but the widespread destruction of the government, obviously it's going to take a lot to get people to come back in when they no longer think that the job is safe and secure. But the point you make about the values perhaps is even more difficult. There is a worry that we are sliding into a view where Americans just have no trust in the government no matter what. Assume everybody is a crook and don't care. That is a ticket to authoritarianism. If people give up because everybody's a crook, well then the authoritarians get control. Massive challenge facing our nation going forward.

Yeah, thank you. We continue to try to fight to get a bill here that would prohibit members of Congress from trading stocks. I don't think hardly anybody here would ever use inside information. There might be a handful of things. But more important is that we we be the role models. We be above suspicion. People don't think we will use our office for our personal gain. When we see it on such a broad scale, it's very discouraging. And with that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back. Madam Chair.

I now recognize Ms. Tenney from the great state of New York.

Thank you, Madam Chair. And I want to say thank you to the witnesses for being here to talk about the issue of the day, which is the growing issue that is concerning our nation's adversaries seeking malign influence into our public discourse through tax-exempt nonprofit organizations, opaque nonprofit structures, and fiscal sponsorships, which enable foreign adversaries to obtain dark influence on the unwitting public in most cases and our election systems while evading IRS disclosure, oversight, and public accountability. And as Mr. Scott Walter from the Capital Research Center said, the line between philanthropy and politics has been obliterated. So thank you for that great line in your testimony today. In recent years, we've witnessed a sharp escalation of antisemitic incidents on American campuses, including harassment, intimidation, disruption, and rhetoric that increasingly justifies or glorifies violence against our Jewish students. These incidents are not isolated. They're all over upstate New York in my district where I live. They are coordinated, they're networked, they're well-funded, and we lack the enforcement rules necessary to know who's really behind these. It's also been exposed that these groups seek to disrupt and influence our election systems by proposing ballot initiatives at local and state levels using these nonprofits as cover within the United States. Elections are the cornerstone of our constitutional republic. I established the Election Integrity Caucus to promote transparency, which we need to have here, and accountability. And we thank all the witnesses for talking about this. But it seems that whenever we attempt to bring transparency to these issues, whether it's election integrity or the funding of campus hate, our colleagues across the aisle always pivot to the partisan politics and the theatrics of lawfare rather than working on a bipartisan basis, though I saw a little break through today with Mr. Arrington. But we do have credible, data-driven research that shows that campuses receiving non-transparent funding experience higher levels of antisemitic incidents and suppression of speech, which was documented recently by our colleagues on the House Education and Workforce Committee in their October 2024 report. When money flows are hidden, we cannot rule out foreign influence, and that's where we want to get to, especially when messaging, timing, and tactics are coordinated across campuses. This isn't a question of protected speech. It's a question of who is financing and coordinating this activity under the protection of U.S. law and whether existing IRS rules and campus oversight are adequate to counter malign influence orchestrated by our nation's enemies against Jewish students and others. As an example, and I want to address this my first question I want to address to Mr. Walter, but I just want to give an example in my home state, a 501(c)(3) called Westchester Peace Action Committee Foundation functions as a fiscal sponsor for multiple activist groups operating on college campuses that individually—it's known as WESPAC, by the way. That individually lack nonprofit status, lack independent financial reporting, and are not subject to meaningful transparency requirements. Through fiscal sponsorship, WESPAC enables anonymous tax-deductible donations to flow to organizations that engage in campus agitation, political pressure campaigns, and rhetoric that many universities themselves describe—the universities themselves describe as destabilizing or threatening towards their students and faculty. For Mr. Walter, I just want to ask you in your dark money ecosystem, you highlight in your testimony the dark money ecosystem highlights a disturbing trend where nonprofits essentially lend out to their tax-exempt organizations. Can you explain to me a little bit about what we can do to solve this issue with WESPAC? I only have a minute left, but you have been a leader on this with your organization. Tell us how we can do this legally or legislatively to correct this. And I think you mentioned a few ideas, but I'd like to hear them.

Well, as I said, the WESPAC operates by fiscal sponsorships and the groups that you're complaining about rightly are fiscally sponsored projects. So at a bare minimum, more transparency about fiscal sponsorship would be valuable and it's not currently in the law. I will say that the more you and this committee do to expose what's going on here, shame sometimes works. At least one of the worst groups at WESPAC, I believe, has left them as a fiscal sponsor. Now, they just found another fiscal sponsor, but shame did something.

Yeah, and obviously you've been pivotal in exposing the whole Zuckerbucks phenomenon that we talked about in the past with election integrity. You've testified extensively on our End Zuckerbucks Act, which seeks to restore election integrity by banning the private takeover of public democratic process. Do you think this same type of 990 disclosure you just discussed with the Samidoun would actually help with businesses or operations like WESPAC?

It would certainly make some, be some help, yes.

Thank you. My time has expired. I yield back. Thank you.

Thank you. I now recognize Mrs. Fischbach from the great state of Minnesota for five minutes.

Thank you, Madam Chair. And Mr. Walter, we're not going to leave that topic because I appreciate that Ms. Tenney brought it up. And I was just kind of and first I would just ask was there anything you didn't get to say that you wanted to respond to Ms. Tenney with because, you know, we're challenged by the clock sometimes, so I just wanted to make sure.

I appreciate that, but but no thank you.

Okay, all right. And well, I was kind of as she was talking, I was thinking of the who's ultimately responsible? I mean, as this kind of this lending thing is going on, if they are if they're engaging in prohibitive prohibitive political activity or they are receiving some kind of illegal funds, who ultimately is responsible or is it just kind of glossed over?

Well, I believe in law, all the parties would be, you know, both the sponsor and the sponsorees are all going to share legal responsibility for what's going on. I'm confident that lots of the sponsors would try to pretend, oh, what did we know and the rest. And in fact, they may not have known very clearly, but there's a lot, I think, of winks and nods going on like, oh, I don't know what you guys may be doing at the college campus next week.

Okay. Well, thank you very much. And do you do you feel like it is I mean, I you didn't speak about any specific cases, but do you feel like that the prevalence is just wink and nod, oh, we don't know what you're doing? I mean, there's nothing being prosecuted, there's none of the transparency is there, so we really can't get at it. Would that be a correct statement?

Well, part of the trouble is that if you were trying to do something criminally, you would have to prove all the things required under the criminal law for conspiracy. And one of the things is actually knowing clearly what's going to happen. And obviously, I suspect some of the bad actors are very careful not to know what's going to happen.

So being able to just eliminate that kind of relationship would be far more effective than—

Well, certainly exposing it. Now, again, in the case of in the case of groups that we know, if a group is constantly organizing demonstrations that get wildly out of hand and become illegal, I think it would be reasonable for there to be serious investigations to see who knew what when.

Okay. Thank you very much. And I would like to just shift just a little bit on the 990s. I know there's been a lot of discussion about them, so if there's someone who wants to jump in. But my concern was the the nonprofits, obviously the 990s do not do what they need to be doing, but they don't require organizations who are involved in immigrant resettlement to report the number of individuals they assist, particularly when those activities occur through fiscal sponsorship. And so I'm wondering would that be a legitimate kind of I think it would be very transparent and very helpful to have that on the 990. So is anybody, you know, providing that oversight or I know that there's been some discussion. I'm kind of throwing it out there, there's not a real there's not a specific question, but I'm kind of throwing it out there if anyone else has any thoughts on it.

Well, I would just say quickly that the 990 calls for you to to give your program accomplishments. Requesting more specificity in terms of the numbers of persons served would be reasonable. That certainly appears on many 990s because people want to brag about their numbers.

I'd like to build on that. So we at the NCRI, we look at what an organization says it does in its mission and then we also do digital mapping to see what they're actually doing in the real world. So let's take the example of CAIR California again, where they received an enormous amount of money, I think it was $7 million, and to provide this Afghan refugee immigration service to help them resettle. So we once we identified that they had been promoting their immigration services quite robustly, and then they get the money from the taxpayers. As soon as they got the money, we did a digital mapping to try to figure out are they promoting these services more now that they've received all this money? And when we looked at their website, their social media, they were actually they dropped their promotion of those services by more than 50 percent. So if you just received millions of dollars from the American taxpayer to provide services for immigration, why did you drop your marketing of those services by more than 50 percent? So what you say and what you do are two different things, and that's not the IRS's role, really. I mean, they're looking at tax compliance. So to be able to identify narrative analysis, to be able to do digital mapping, I don't know where that falls within the federal government. So I do think there needs to be some infrastructure that's either additive to the IRS or somewhere else in the federal government to identify that. Again, this shouldn't be political because there are digital footprints attached to all of this. Thank you.

Thank you very much. And it looks like I have four seconds left, so I'm yielding all that back.

Thank you. The chair now recognizes Mr. Panetta from the state of California for five minutes.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Gentlemen, lady, thank you very much. And Mr. Walter, I'm sorry you're leaving. But no, I'm kidding. Go ahead, go ahead. Even though you were late, but that's a whole another issue. No, look, I I don't I'm not going to ask any questions. I just got a couple of statements to make to be frank. And coming into this, I wasn't too excited for this hearing. I think there's other areas that we can be working on. However, listening to all of your testimony on all sides of this, you guys have been very impressive. And I really appreciate your expertise quite a bit. And I think what you are talking about is important in all areas though, obviously not just in nonprofits, in our White House, in our elections, in all areas we have to keep out foreign influence. So I guess the one piece of advice I would say to all of you who are experts, I would say is, I think you sense the frustration from our side of the aisle about the potential for hypocrisy in that you're so good on one area, especially when it keeps out foreign influence, the least you could do is provide an opinion on other areas as well, rather than just kind of put up a shield and say I'm not an expert, I can't talk about it. Because I think it kind of dings your credibility a little bit. That's all. And you guys got a lot to talk about and I don't like I said, I don't think you guys you guys have a lot of credibility, maintain that credibility by being not being afraid to talk about foreign influence in other areas of our government as well is what I'd recommend. Now, speaking of credibility, I want to get back to this letter that was mentioned earlier and you guys may know about it or not. In regards to dated February 3rd by Chairman Smith, by David Schweikert, subcommittee chair, and Tracy Mann, who is a co-chair of the Future Farmers of America Caucus, the FFA Caucus here in Congress. I am the other co-chair of that caucus. And I can tell you I was deeply disappointed in Representative Mann that he represented that this was from the FFA Caucus. Let me be clear. This letter was not from the FFA Caucus. This letter, no member of the FFA Caucus besides Tracy reviewed this letter, no vote was held on this letter, no meeting was held on this letter, no members were asked to sign this letter except Tracy Mann. So as the other co-chair and co-founder of the FFA Caucus, I can tell you that the FFA Caucus has nothing to do with this letter. This letter has everything to do with Tracy and Jason and David. Which is fine. I get that. But do not represent that the FFA Caucus is supportive of this letter. Because like I said, this is about credibility. And it's about making sure that when we delve into issues like this, important issues like this, any sort of foreign influence, that it's done properly. You guys understand this and I would hope that my colleague Representative Mann understands this as well. I've talked to him about this, he understands my disappointment. Because the last thing we want to do is take away from the good work that not just that we do on the FFA Caucus, but the excellent work that the FFA does of raising our future leaders in agriculture there throughout the country. I think we see that when the blue jackets come here throughout the year, storm the hill and talk to us about how they are growing. When we talk to our FFA members in our district— ...and understand the importance that they will have to the future of agriculture, which is taking a big hit right now. And the least that we can do is support those young men and women and try not to get them wrapped up in our politics, to be frank. And unfortunately, I believe that's what this letter did, and unfortunately, I think it tainted the FFA Caucus. That being said, Tracey and I are good friends, we're good colleagues, we will move forward on this because we understand our priorities. And our priorities are making sure that we continue to support the blue jackets, continue to support the FFA, and continue to support the congressional relationship with the FFA. Now that Mr. Walter has returned, I will yield back my time. Thank you.

Thank you very much. The chair now recognizes herself, Congresswoman Van Duyne from the great state of Texas, for five minutes. Mr. Weissman, as co-president of Public Citizen, you have long positioned yourself as a leading voice against dark money and foreign influence in American democracy. Yet your testimony today has been nothing more than a hit job on President Trump. I don't like it when Democrats attack Republican witnesses, I don't like it when Republicans attack Democrat witnesses, but you've brought this on yourself, not only with your testimony but also with your response to questions. Instead of confronting how foreign actors linked to the Chinese Communist Party, Iran, Qatar, and other adversarial regimes have exploited tax-exempt organizations to influence American politics, support terrorism, fuel antisemitism, and sow division within our country, your remarks have focused on attacking President Trump while giving a pass to networks that amplify foreign malign influence on the left. We have documented cases, you've heard them today, of CCP-connected funding flowing through Neville Roy Singham to groups like Code Pink, the People's Forum, and others that have organized anti-ICE riots, campus disruptions, and protests that stoke antisemitism and undermine law enforcement. We see Qatari and Iranian-linked money propping up narratives that divide Americans and target Jewish communities. These are not abstract concerns. They endanger lives, they erode national security, and they destabilize our democracy from within. You've described dark money as enabling a corporate oligarchy that rigs the system against ordinary Americans. Yet in the 2024 elections, Democrat-aligned dark money groups outspent Republican ones by nearly double, $1.2 billion versus $664 million. Why hasn't Public Citizen highlighted this disparity or called out Democrats for benefiting the most from the post-Citizens United landscape? Public Citizen has led campaigns against dark money from groups like Americans for Prosperity. What about Democratic counterparts like Majority Forward, which funneled $136 million into Senate races while tied to Senate Democratic leadership? Has Public Citizen ever investigated or criticized such groups for their undisclosed spending? You've testified before Congress about the dangers of undisclosed political spending, and yet how do you reconcile that groups like Future Forward USA Action, which raised $613 million in 2024, mostly from 10 massive anonymous donations, funneled hundreds of millions to support Kamala Harris and attack Donald Trump? Isn't this the same chokehold on democracy that you decry from other corporate sources? As a longtime advocate for disclosure laws like the DISCLOSE Act, why hasn't Public Citizen addressed major liberal dark money hubs like the Sixteen Thirty Fund, which distributed over $400 million in 2020 to anti-Trump efforts and Democratic causes and continued funding influencers and ballot measures with undisclosed donors in later cycles? You've warned about foreign-linked dark money corrupting U.S. elections. What about examples like a Swiss billionaire who routed over $100 million through the Sixteen Thirty Fund to Democrat super PACs? Does Public Citizen view this as problematic only when it benefits conservatives? Groups like VoteVets Action Fund and the League of Conservation Voters, both dark money entities, have spent tens of millions supporting Democrat candidates. Given your work on veterans and environmental issues, why focus criticism on right-leaning dark money while these progressive groups operate similarly without donor transparency? You've opposed dark money that aids corporate-friendly policies. What about Patriot Majority USA, funded by Democrat consultants with ties to Harry Reid, which has spent millions on elections to help Democrats? Isn't this fighting fire with fire exactly what perpetuates the system that you say you want to reform? Public Citizen campaigns against billionaire influence in politics, and yet Bill Gates donated $50 million anonymously to Future Forward's dark money arm to support Harris. Why no outcry from your organization about such undisclosed mega-donations while they align with progressive causes? You advocate for a constitutional amendment to end dark money entirely, and if that's the goal, why does Public Citizen's work disproportionately target conservative or corporate dark money while groups like the House Majority Forward pours millions into Democrat races without similar scrutiny from your campaign? Public Citizen, of which you are co-president, claims to champion transparency and expose dark money and foreign influence, and yet its funding comes from overwhelmingly progressive powerhouses. George Soros's Open Society Foundations, the Ford Foundation, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Rockefeller Foundation, and others ideologically aligned with the same left-leaning networks that it refuses to scrutinize. This financial dependence appears to drive your glaring double standard. In your testimony, you turned what should have been a serious examination of CCP-linked funding, Qatari money fueling antisemitism on campuses, and Iranian-backed networks that are sowing discord into a blatant one-sided hit job on President Trump. Your testimony was not about protecting democracy from foreign threats. It was about weaponizing a national security hearing to smear the president. And until you and my Democrat colleagues apply the same rigor to your own funding ecosystem and to left-leaning dark money networks, your calls for reform are pretty much hollow and your credibility compromised. I yield back.

Will you permit me to respond, Madam Chair?

I now recognize Mr. Carey from the great state of Ohio for five minutes.

I want to thank the chair and I want to thank all of our witnesses. Got to see some of the testimony on the screen in the back, but just we had a voting issue that we had to take care of on the House Admin Committee. And oddly enough, we had a very similar hearing about some of the same things. So I'm going to do a line of questioning, I'll try to be quick. And through my work on the Committee of House Administration, we have diligently strived to establish a system that actually secures fair elections at state, local, federal levels. And this is obviously something that needed to be addressed through that committee. But along the way there, Ms. Sutherland, I know it's good to see you again and we've talked about this before and I'm going to allow you to talk about this. There was a Hansjörg Wyss, who is a Swiss billionaire, a Swiss billionaire who funneled millions of dollars through this organization called the Sixteen Thirty Fund. Now this Sixteen Thirty Fund, great catchy name, was to influence a number of ballot initiatives in the state of Ohio. In response, our Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, alongside the Ohio Republicans in the state, worked to pass legislation that essentially banned all foreign contributions to ballot measure campaigns. So Ms. Sutherland, along with Ohio, 18 other states have enacted similar laws to prevent foreign nationals and entities from financially contributing to ballot measures and campaigns. Why would you think, why haven't other states pursued legislation to prevent those same contributions that would ultimately undermine elections?

Representative Carey, thank you for those remarks and good to see you again. Yes, the House Administration Committee has been at the forefront of getting foreign money out of our elections and I'm very glad that we can continue this conversation today. And thank you so much for bringing up foreign influence in ballot measure campaigns. It is a huge loophole that foreign nationals can't give to candidates, but they can give to these ballot initiative campaigns that are often rewriting the state's constitution, like what almost happened in your home state of Ohio. And in under two years, over 10 states have also closed that foreign funding loophole. We are hopeful that by the end of time, all 50 states and hopefully the federal level, I know Congressman Fitzpatrick is trying to close this loophole on the federal level. To me, it seems bipartisan, common sense, but yet in your home state of Ohio, as you know, every single Democrat in the Ohio legislature voted against banning foreign funding in your state. Now why they would be in support of foreign influence in Ohio is beyond me, but they took it one step further.

And I'm going to jump in here quickly. I think those same people that voted against it probably root for Michigan. Mr. Walter, your organization, Capital Research Center, has documented the Arabella Advisors network role in channeling large sums of money, I'm talking large sums of money, into ballot initiatives on election-related advocacy. So using Ohio Issue 1 as an example, can you explain how groups like the Sixteen Thirty Fund operated within the network and the extent to which foreign-sourced wealth, such as funding linked to the Swiss billionaire that I just mentioned, can lawfully influence elections in states like Ohio and elsewhere?

Sure. The Sixteen Thirty Fund operates dozens upon dozens of fiscal sponsorships and it also directly engages in all kinds of electoral issues, including ballot initiatives. And we should add, of course, ballot initiatives are now seen as one of the best ways to drive your voters to the poll for everything else you want, including getting people elected. And yet our current law allows C3s to do that and it also allows foreigners like Mr. Wyss to give money to the Sixteen Thirty Fund. I would add one quick thing to what Caitlin just said and that is the top Democrat election lawyer, Marc Elias, sued your state of Ohio after you passed a ban on foreign money in these ballot initiatives, which I can only call shameful.

So led by the Sixteen Thirty Fund, it appears that only a few key, I mean they really essentially only had a few key far extremist, if you will, very exotic type of funders that invest the lion's share into these ballot initiatives. In your opinion, was that the case and what is the, you know what, I only have 10 seconds. Listen, I'm going to submit a lot of my questions to both of you for the record and I will do that. And with that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back and thank the witnesses.

Thank you. Mr. Horsford.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for hosting this hearing and I appreciate the opportunity for my colleagues and I and our witnesses to publicly examine the extent to which foreign influence money is running rampant in the United States. Yet what is striking is that too often we avoid the most obvious cause. That is the deliberate choices that have been made by this administration to open the floodgates to foreign money and foreign influence. Mr. Weissman, in your written testimony, you highlighted how the Trump-Vance administration is effectively ignoring an 88-year-old law whose sole purpose is to monitor foreign influence and prevent abuse. Yes or no, Mr. Weissman, is ignoring the Foreign Agents Registration Act a serious commitment to stopping foreign influence?

No.

Pam Bondi was confirmed as Attorney General on February 4, 2025. As one of her first official acts, the very next day, was to announce minimal enforcement of the Foreign Agents Registration Act and other foreign influence laws. I have her memo here for anyone who doubts that. I think that the American people and Nevadans back in my home state deserve to understand what that decision means for them. So I'll share an example. On January 21, 2026, President Trump announced a 39 percent tariff on goods from Switzerland. That tariff later dropped to 15 percent shortly after Swiss business leaders presented the president with a Rolex watch and a personalized gold bar. This conduct was so egregious that lawmakers in Switzerland have called on their own prosecutors to examine whether these gifts violated Swiss anti-bribery laws. So let's examine this deal to see if the American people got anything resembling the art of the deal. According to the Swiss, they promise to accept 500 tons of U.S. beef. But the U.S. exporting 500 tons of beef will not help Nevada cattle producers. Why? Because just three days ago, the Trump administration announced an unprecedented expansion of preferential access for Argentine beef, increasing imports to 100,000 tons. That represents roughly $800 million in Argentine beef exports that could otherwise support American ranchers. And this comes on top of approximately $40 billion in financial support extended to Argentina. To the American people who are watching, your tax dollars that should be used to lower the cost of healthcare or help our farmers is going to foreign companies. Nevada ranchers see no benefits. Instead, they will need to compete with Argentine beef exports as foreign producers gain preferential access because foreign influence laws are not being enforced. Let me be clear. If this committee is serious about addressing foreign influence, we must focus on who is enforcing the law. Foreign influence is not abstract. And that influence being used on the president means he gets richer while people in Nevada pay the price. That is not how our system should work. And that is why today's hearing is so important and I look forward to working with the chairman and the ranking member and other members on this committee to make sure that we uphold ourselves to the higher standards, including those embraced in the Foreign Agents Registration Act. With that, I yield back.

Mr. Moran.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, Congress and this committee specifically, this Committee on Ways and Means, has a responsibility to ensure that the tax-exempt status is applied only to entities that actually benefit our local communities and our country as a whole. That responsibility includes understanding not only how money flows through the nonprofit sector, but how influence flows, especially in an era where technology allows narratives to be manufactured, amplified, and disguised at an unprecedented scale. Our adversaries like China understand our system and they exploit it. Artificial intelligence and social media networks have changed the consumption and accuracy of information Americans consume. When those tools are paired with vague nonprofit structures and limited disclosure requirements, it leads to widespread misinformation and confusion for the public. That is a legitimate concern for Congress regardless of party, ideology, or viewpoint. The privileges that come with nonprofit status also come with responsibilities to follow the letter and the spirit of the law. I want to show you a graphic here as I ask some questions, Ms. Sutherland, because it was your organization that was instrumental in uncovering the activities of British billionaire Christopher Hohn, whose Children's Investment Fund Foundation poured more than $500 million into U.S. advocacy that supported left-wing political causes in addition to the CCP's Belt and Road Initiative. What's concerning about this is Mr. Hohn's ties to CCP-linked organizations, which led to him abruptly pulling his funding from U.S. groups once it was exposed. But it's also concerning because of the level of foreign money trying to influence our political activities and our policies. Ms. Sutherland, I understand your organization was key in researching Mr. Hohn's funding activity and suspicious connections. Can you speak more about what you found in your research and what we see up here on the board?

Thank you for that question and thank you for including the chart. His foreign money does flow through a very complex web and we are at the forefront of exposing it. And his foreign giving went under the radar for far too long because it was done through a charity called the Children's Investment Fund Foundation. You think it's about investing in children, how noble. What we found through our report and through your chart is that through a tangled foreign web, he was investing in climate litigation, protests, research, a radical green energy agenda, all while maintaining close and questionable ties with China. Hohn's charity actually has an office in Beijing. They actively work with the Chinese government. They bankroll CCP-connected organizations and their CEO got a friendship award from the Chinese government. I do not want anyone funding a U.S. cause that is a friend of China. And the fact that we exposed his money got him to finally stop bankrolling U.S. causes. But more attention needs to be done given those Chinese connections and you wonder why is he working with China and bankrolling U.S. causes at the same time?

Yeah, and I've got to tell you, it's extremely deceptive the way they go about it by hiding this money through entities that are not correctly named, certainly not named in a way that understands what they're actually doing. But it's amazing to me that we are subsidizing this activity through our nonprofit tax laws and actually giving them tax breaks and allowing them to do this under the radar. Do you think that strengthening the Foreign Agents Registration Act or including nonprofits within its scope would help solve this problem of nonprofits acting on behalf of foreign individuals or entities?

Absolutely. I think strengthening FARA is a great first step. We need to eliminate some of the exemptions in the nonprofit sector and tighten up some of those loopholes. I think that a very strong case can be made for those nonprofits that are receiving hundreds of millions of dollars from this British activist hedge fund manager potentially could have a FARA violation on their hands.

Mr. Sohn, you have a unique perspective on how adversaries exploit our nation's openness to sow division. A recent Network Contagion Research Institute report specifically analyzed the Singham network, a donor portfolio linked to Neville Roy Singham and its ties to organizations like the People's Forum, where he funneled at least $20 million, and the ANSWER Coalition, a pro-Palestinian organization. Your data shows these groups effectively co-opted domestic activism to push anti-American and pro-CCP talking points following October 7 attacks. Can you explain the mechanics of how the Singham network uses social media or AI to amplify these CCP-aligned narratives and do you also agree that we should strengthen and make more strict our Foreign Agents Registration Act to include nonprofits?

Yes, I do agree that the Foreign Agent Registration Act should be applied to nonprofits. So every time Americans see these staged and amplified protests that shut down bridges or block hospitals, they should know that these are multifaceted efforts funded by millions of dollars designed to rile up Americans in joining these foreign-aligned, these hostile nations to the American public. I want to give you an example. If you look at Wall Street, if you have a million people on social media say buy this stock now, that's legal. If you have a bot army that looks like a million people being run by one person that says buy this stock now, that's illegal. It would be called painting the tape, I believe. So I just want to try to apply that now to what's happening with foreign influence. They're using these narratives and it actually it brings about authentic activity. So just like you'd have in the stock market, if you have a bot army that looks like a million people, it starts to get regular people engaged. Next thing you know, a stock's being pushed up or a stock's being pushed down. And it's a combination of inauthentic and authentic activity, but it's born out of designed inauthentic activity. And I think that's what you're seeing here.

Yeah, and just to finalize, Mr. Chairman, I know I'm out of time. We're not talking about curbing free speech here. We're talking about refusing to subsidize foreign agents that are engaged in covert activities that are impacting our policies and our politics in the United States. And that is not what we should be doing through our tax code. With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.

Mr. Moore.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As my colleagues on this committee will know, I have been a very vocal supporter of charities, foundations, the larger nonprofit sector. My previous time in Congress was in the social impact space in consulting an array of philanthropic efforts through corporations that are trying to do their double bottom line differently and through just individual philanthropies. So big, huge supporter and maybe one of the most vocal. I've championed the enactment of the Charitable Act, giving everyday folks an above-the-line deduction on their donations and have highlighted the importance of private foundations because of the impact that they've had, particularly in Utah, but I know that happens throughout the world. I recently launched the Philanthropy Caucus with Mr. Davis and have worked closely with philanthropists to ensure that Invest in America's initiative that we passed through the one big beautiful bill Trump accounts are as successful as they can be. Ms. Sutherland, you actually just mentioned the need, it's not a question right now, but the need to be focused on the next generation. What better way for philanthropy to be involved in supporting something like this Invest in America push and providing investment opportunities for children, right? That said, our witnesses have pointed out today, it's clear that in some cases foreign actors are taking advantage of this sector. Foreign money should not be funneling through nonprofits into our media or to our education and especially into our elections. This type of influence should not exist and it should not ever type to fuel this type of hostilities in our country. If we want a strong nonprofit sector to survive and for more support to come towards it, which I would love, we should all want to make sure that the loopholes are closed and that there is immense trust in the system. Mr. Dubinsky, you've addressed some of this today and many of you have talked about it, but I want to just ask one more simple time. What specific gaps in the IRS's current tax-exempt oversight system are at the root of this problem?

Quite simply, lack of information. Lack of information that's actionable. If you go back to the forms, it doesn't ask about fiscal sponsorships, there's not even a checkbox for it. Someone mentioned that it's up to the not-for-profit, the actual sponsor, to have a narrative about it. That leaves that open as to how much narrative, how much is in that narrative, how much can be gleaned from that about what's going on. So I come back to it that the form is old. It's outdated, it needs to be brought into line with what's going on in today's world. Give the IRS the tools they need, the AI, have them develop better AI systems to take this information and figure out how to use it properly in a non-political way to make sure that our system is safe and Americans can trust the charitable system.

And do you believe by addressing that root cause of what you're talking about, we can ensure that policy changes go after the bad actors, but also we don't put an undue burden on all of the compliant organizations out there, the smaller charities that they're often understaffed and things like that? Can we do that balance if we address the system?

I think we can. As I said earlier, it's not like implementing an anti-money laundering system that financial institutions have. Those are onerous. I think there's a middle ground or even less than a middle ground to redesign these forms and not put the put an undue burden on charitable organizations. I was a treasurer of a charitable organization and on the board. It was a small organization, we didn't have a lot of resources, but to answer some simple questions about these topics that we've talked about is not going to put an undue burden on charitable organizations.

Ms. Sutherland, I did mention you earlier, would love your thoughts on anything that I've asked and I'll wrap up my time.

Thank you for that question. I agree. I'm obviously much like you and I think we all are a huge fan of the charitable sector. But when charity turns into advocacy and they're using foreign money to do it is the problem and I think that the topic that we hear in the committee. I think a real easy solution is to identify whether or not you are receiving foreign donations. And if you can't reform the Form 990, I think that nonprofits in the advocacy space can elect to prohibit foreign funding. My 501(c)(3), Americans for Public Trust, does not accept any foreign funding. However, we have the Democrat witness joining with us that is actually received a donation from the Wyss Foundation, the very Swiss billionaire that we are talking about who has influenced in our politics and policy. So we can then all elect to not receive foreign money from foreign governments, foreign charities, and foreign nationals like my 501(c)(3).

Thank you and I yield back, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Suozzi.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This is such an important topic. I want to thank the witnesses for spending all this time here with us. I really appreciate it. Listening to some of the testimony here today and some of the comments from my colleagues, you'd think this is a Democratic problem or a Republican problem. And this is not Democrats versus Republicans. This is the United States of America versus our foreign adversaries. So I want you to all just tell me a yes or no answer, I hope you're all going to say yes, that you recognize this affects Republicans and Democrats, progressive organizations and conservative organizations. Do you agree with that, Mr. Walter? Yes. Ms. Sutherland? Yes. Mr. Sohn, Mr. Sohn? Yes. Mr. Dubinsky? 100 percent. Mr. Weissman? Yes. Okay. So our country is so divided these days, people are being pulled apart from each other and there are four factors that I've identified, I'm sure there's more, but there's four factors I've identified. One is we have all these safe seats in Congress, you can't lose. You're the Republican in the Republican seat, you're going to win, the Democrat in the Democrat seat, you're going to win. So everybody panders to their base because the only way they could lose is by losing a primary and nobody votes in the primary, very few people vote in the primary. So everybody panders to their base. That's a big problem dividing us. Second, social media. Social media rewards extremism. The more crazy things you say, the more extreme things you say, the more likes you get, the more followers you get, the more small dollar donations you get. It rewards extremism. Third, cable news. The most watched show on cable news is Fox News, 4 million viewers. Most watched show on MS is 2 million viewers. 350 million people in America. But these shows are not selling journalism or educating us. They're selling entertainment, endorphin rushes, in echo chambers, and the message that they give are completely different, further dividing us in our country. But the biggest factor and the purpose of this hearing today, the biggest factor causing division in our country is our foreign adversaries. The Chinese Communist Party, the Russians, the Iranians, the North Koreans, who are using our freedom, today we're talking about how they're doing it through not-for-profits, but also through social media, and they are feeding division in our country. They cannot defeat us economically, they cannot defeat us militarily, so they want to take what they see as being our biggest weakness, which is our diversity. And they fuel dissent in our country utilizing the things that you talked about here today that affect Republicans and Democrats, progressives and conservatives, and they use our social media and they send different messages. They take issues where there's a some truth to it, like Black Lives Matter versus Blue Lives Matter, or evangelicals versus transgender, or Israel versus Hamas, and they give different messages to different groups and they foment division. And they get us to all look at each other and say, what's wrong with those people? There's something wrong with you guys. So we have got to recognize this is not Democrats versus Republicans. This is America, the United States of America against our foreign adversaries that are trying to get us to divide each other. And we need people like yourselves to work together across party lines the same as we need in our committee to work across party lines to work to defeat our foreign adversaries that are using our freedom, that are using our social media, that are using our not-for-profits to try and divide us in our country. Mr. Dubinsky, I looked at your testimony, you had some very practical things... ...you suggested about reforming the 990s to give more information to create more transparency. Mr. Weissman, as the Democratic witness, looking at Mr. Dubinsky, one of the Republican witnesses, do you support the idea of reforming the 990s to have more transparency, to give more information?

I thought his ideas make sense, yes.

Okay. Mr. Dubinsky, I looked at Mr. Weissman's testimony. In his testimony, he supported a thing called the DISCLOSE Act for transactions over a certain amount that they should have to disclose whether there's foreign influence or not. Do you, as the Republican witness, support the idea of Mr. Weissman's idea of supporting the DISCLOSE Act?

I do support the idea.

So why don't we get Democrats and Republicans to work together to save America against our foreign adversaries that are trying to destroy our country utilizing our diversity and start working together to actually solve these problems and stop making this about you guys are no good, no you guys are no good, no you guys are no good, no you're no good. Let's work together and actually address the real problems that we face in our country. Mr. Chairman, I yield back and I want to thank you for holding this hearing and I hope that you'll get us to work together as a committee to actually find some common ground to address this issue to save our country against the foreign adversaries that are trying to divide us in our nation and stop letting other people try and make this into a political issue where it's Democrats versus Republicans. And I yield back.

Thank you, Suozzi. Mr. Yakym.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this important hearing and to our witnesses for lending their expertise today. We are sounding the alarm today on foreign actors seeking to exploit and abuse America's tax-exempt sector to interfere with our elections. I want to focus on Mr. Hansjörg Wyss, a Swiss billionaire that the New York Times has called, quote, "a leading source of difficult-to-trace money to groups associated with Democrats," who routes money through, quote, "a daisy chain of opaque organizations that mask the ultimate recipients of his money." Mr. Wyss has leveraged a web of 501(c)(3) and (c)(4) organizations to donate hundreds of millions of dollars to groups that help Democrats in elections. These groups also undermine American energy independence and they promote other radical woke causes. The New York Times notes that, quote, "several officials from organizations started by Mr. Wyss and his team worked on the Biden transition or joined the administration." When the FEC investigated some of these organizations, the groups declined to offer specifics about what practices they have in place to ensure that money is not used to pay for ads or electoral activity. Ms. Sutherland, can you walk us through the actual mechanics here? When Mr. Wyss donates to a 501(c)(3) or (c)(4), what specific steps allow that money to re-emerge in a political action committee? How can auditors trace this money back to him when the current system makes it so easy for a foreign donor to launder contributions like this?

Thank you very much for that question. And as you can see, that Hansjörg Wyss channels most of his foreign money through the Arabella Advisors network. Using his 501(c)(3), the Wyss Foundation, and his 501(c)(4), the Berger Action Fund, he has funneled over 307 million through the Arabella Advisors network to impact a whole host of causes from ballot issues to climate change. And what makes it very difficult to track is the web. And however, at the same time that he is using his foreign money through this network of nonprofits, it is all going to these issue advocacy campaigns that are allowed to be funded with foreign money. And also what is very complex here and I think what we can all see is tracing the money back is there is a huge delay in when this money is reported. This Friday, we will finally find out how much Hansjörg Wyss spent in the 2024 cycle. So here we are, February 2026, we finally get to find out how much foreign money was spent through the Arabella Advisors network almost two years ago. So yes, the money is going through a daisy chain of opaque organizations, but it is good that we are unmasking it and we do see the groups that are large recipients of his foreign money. It's Indivisible, it's Sixteen Thirty Fund, it's the ACLU.

Thank you. Mr. Weissman, Mr. Thompson asked you and the other witnesses to, quote, "clarify under oath that your organizations have never received funds from a foreign national or foreign corporation." Your reply was, and I quote, "not to my knowledge." Public Citizen's 2014 annual report counts the Wyss Foundation as a, quote, "major donor." And it has named the New Venture Fund, a known vehicle used by Hansjörg Wyss to launder his foreign influence, as a donor to your publicly available reports since 2012. So I'd like to give you a chance to clarify under your certification under oath that you have not taken funds from a foreign national.

Well, I think those are coming from U.S. foundations, which makes the issue a little bit more complicated.

So you think it makes it more complicated even though his name is listed on your report here?

Well, it's his named foundation. It's not him personally.

Yeah, the Wyss Foundation, which is funded by Mr. Wyss, a foreign national.

But it is not a foreign organization.

So I'm just asking to clarify under oath.

If you will let me finish, I will clarify. That is, you are accurate. Our policy of affirmatively not taking foreign money is a more recent policy and we have affirmatively taken efforts to make sure we do not. I do not believe we had considerably in the past, but the policy was not formalized. And I think this case, if I don't want to get into the details of this, there's no question what you're reporting is correct and I'm not...

So I'd actually like to go into the details of this because again, Mr. Thompson asked you under oath if you've taken money from a foreign national. So would you clarify and say that you have indeed taken laundered money from a foreign national or would you stick to your earlier response of under oath of saying, no, we've never taken money from a foreign national? Which is it, Mr. Weissman?

That is not money from a foreign national.

Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I yield back.

Mr. Miller.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I really appreciate that. And thank you to my colleague, Mr. Yakym, that was quite the exchange. Appreciate it for everyone who's watching. I'll just get right into it. Mr. Walter, maybe you can help clarify this for us then and help us with what my colleague was asking. So from what I've heard so far, America's enemies can funnel as much cash into the nonprofit sector as they want. So let's go through this hypothetical scenario and let's just see if I'm right or if I'm wrong and please tell me so. Theoretically, is it possible for Xi Jinping himself to entirely fund an American 501(c)(3), I'm not done yet, by donating it through a donor-advised fund without the public ever seeing his name on that (c)(3)'s Form 990?

Absolutely.

Just again, so it is possible that Xi Jinping himself could do something like that.

There's no legal barrier whatsoever.

Thank you very much, Mr. Walter. I appreciate it. As a follow-up, Mr. Dubinsky, is anyone within the United States government currently tasked with looking into these covert influence operations? And if not, would the IRS be an appropriate agency to employ skilled forensic accountants to sift through these funding networks?

So I think that the answer to the second question is I think the IRS would be a good place to start. I don't know whether the NSA or somebody else in the government is actively looking at this, so I don't have knowledge of that.

Okay. Thank you very much for that answer. Mr. Dubinsky, so essentially is what you're telling me is, one, possibly there are essentially no disclosure requirements for foreign funding so long as they flow through a DAF? And two, the only people within the United States government who are looking into this are pretty much already extremely overworked or there's just not as much agencies or direction that should be looking into it?

I think that's correct.

Okay. Mr. Dubinsky, do you think it would be valuable to set aside some specific resources at IRS-CI to tackle this problem?

I think as I stated earlier in my testimony, I think it's about modernization. The IRS over many years in my career has gone through different phases of modernization. I think we're at another inflection point with AI and I think the bureau, the service needs to adapt AI, have it tailored to the function that they need it. So whether there's funding there or not, there should be.

Thank you very much. And earlier, I believe it was this term, we had another hearing, maybe it was a subcommittee hearing or a full hearing, but at the IRS, we still have fax machines, which I find incredibly fascinating that within the United States government, we still have an agency that's using fax machines as I have a supercomputer in my pocket with AI and ChatGPT and everything else. Look, thank you for your time. I know it's been a very long day. I do appreciate it and I do appreciate your answers to our questions. Mr. Chairman, I yield back.

Thank you, Mr. Miller. I'd like to thank our witnesses for appearing here today. Thank you for the conversation, the discussion, answering the questions. Please be advised that members have two weeks to submit written questions to be answered later in writing. Those questions and your answers will be made part of the formal hearing record today. With that, the committee stands adjourned. [Gavel sounds.]