President Joe Biden signed a $1.7 trillion spending package in December 2022 that included the government banning TikTok from federal devices, and a bipartisan group of lawmakers are now working with the Biden administration to restrict its U.S. operations further. In November 2022, TikTok lobbyist John Breaux met with John Podesta, Biden's senior clean energy adviser who has been slammed for his links to the Chinese Communist Party, White House visitor logs show.
Biden approved a TikTok ban for over roughly 4 million government devices in December 2022, the same month states ramped up efforts to do the same. The Beijing-based ByteDance, which China's government owns at least 1% of, admitted in mid-December that it gained access to the IP addresses and other data of those employed at BuzzFeed News and the Financial Times — as well as people close to the journalists.
Breaux, who was a GOP senator between 1987 and 2005, had dozens of other clients in 2022, including the oil and gas giant ExxonMobil and the defense contractor Raytheon Technologies, disclosures show. He registered to lobby on behalf of TikTok in December 2020 and has since appeared on lobbying disclosure records for the company totaling $910,000.
“As TikTok is under increasing bipartisan scrutiny in Congress and being banned on government devices due to security risks, why did their lobbyist get a closed-door meeting with John Podesta, someone supposedly on staff as a clean energy adviser?" asked Pete McGinnis, a spokesman for the Functional Government Initiative, a watchdog group.
Podesta notably said in 2013 that there are"great opportunities for Chinese firms to directly invest in this nation, to build American infrastructure, to create American jobs, and generate steady and handsome returns," adding,"There's also the ability for Chinese firms to invest here and learn best practices, and take those home to the tremendous and growing middle-class market in China.
...proving Podesta is not beholden to CCP. What is a Washinton Examiner?