Dozens of members of Congress accepted tens of thousands of dollars in campaign donations from lobbyists for a Chinese military-backed telecommunications firm, records show.
A total of 46 Republican and Democratic House members and senators have pocketed roughly $35,600 from five Huawei lobbyists, according to Federal Election Commission records and lobbying disclosures reviewed by the Washington Examiner. But this same multinational corporation, which is headquartered in China, may soon be banned by the U.S. government from selling new products in the United States due to the Biden administration’s national security concerns.
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On Oct. 5, Federal Communications Commission Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel circulated a draft order that would ban Huawei and other firms that could allegedly be used by China’s government to spy on Americans from selling new equipment in the U.S. The FCC, in the summer of 2020, labeled Huawei a “national security threat.”
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National security experts have warned Huawei could be used by the Chinese Communist Party for intelligence gathering purposes, and the Trump administration found in 2020 that China’s military owns and backs the tech giant. The DOJ charged Huawei with conspiracy to steal trade secrets and racketeering in 2020, and on Monday, it charged two alleged Chinese spies with criminal obstruction of justice after they purportedly tried to interfere with the department’s Huawei investigation.
“There’s really no obvious gaps between Chinese business and the Chinese government’s intelligence apparatus and military apparatus,” Dustin Carmack, the former chief of staff to Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe, told the Washington Examiner.
Nonetheless, 33 Republicans and 13 Democrats accepted an average campaign donation of about $770 between September 2016 and June 2022 from those paid to lobby on behalf of Huawei, filings show. The lobbyists are Brian McLaughlin and Edward Newberry of Imperium Global Advisors, Glenn LeMunyon of the LeMunyon Group, Bret K. Boyles of Squire Patton Boggs, and Donald Morrissey of Huawei.
Out of the 46 lawmakers, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has taken the most in campaign donations from any of the lobbyists. His campaign accepted $2,900 combined in October 2021 and February 2022 from LeMunyon, who was an aide for former Republican Rep. Tom DeLay, according to filings.
LeMunyon has also given $17,900 since July 2021 to the McCarthy Victory Fund, a joint fundraising committee associated with McCarthy. At the same, however, McCarthy has been critical of Huawei.
“Need more evidence that Huawei is a security threat?” McCarthy tweeted in February 2020, linking to an article in CNET. “U.S. intelligence confirms the telecoms company has built in ‘back doors’ to their devices for more than a decade, giving the Communist Party of China access to users’ personal information.”
Sen. Dan Sullivan’s campaign (R-AK) took a $2,700 campaign check in March 2019 from Newberry, who touts in his bio on his firm’s website that the New York Times called him the “King of K Street.” Nevertheless, Sullivan joined Republicans two months later, in May, to introduce a bipartisan bill that would ban Huawei’s equipment from being included in American 5G networks.
“We urgently need a comprehensive strategy when it comes to the very real threat that foreign actors, particularly China, pose to our communications networks,” said the Alaska senator, whose campaign did not respond to a request for comment, in 2019.
Newberry also gave Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s campaign $1,000 in December 2020, a filing shows. But earlier that same year, in March, Schumer co-sponsored a bipartisan bill that would freeze Huawei and other foreign 5G companies from the U.S. financial system should they engage in espionage or violate sanctions.
Tom Jones, the executive director of the American Accountability Foundation, a conservative ethics watchdog, told the Washington Examiner members of Congress should return donations they took from Huawei lobbyists.
“There is little bipartisan agreement in Washington, but leaders in both parties agree that Huawei is a national security threat,” said Jones. “The fact that members of Congress are taking campaign contributions from advocates for a hostile foreign actor is shameful.”
Two senators who have sought to target Huawei’s power accepted campaign donations from McLaughlin, who also, between 2010 and 2015, lobbied on behalf of Huawei for APCO Worldwide and is a former Senate aide.
In November 2021, Sen. Jerry Moran (R-KS) and other Republicans demanded the U.S. Commerce Department block illegal American shipments of products to companies such as Huawei. However, in March 2022, Moran’s campaign took $250 from McLaughlin, a filing shows.
Sen. Gary Peters’s (D-MI) campaign received $1,000 from McLaughlin in April 2022. Two years earlier, Peters introduced a bipartisan bill that would give federal funding to telecommunications providers and educational institutions to remove and replace banned equipment — like that of Huawei.
“Huawei and ZTE [Corporation] are kind of crown jewels of the telecommunications business of China,” Carmack, now a cybersecurity, intelligence, and emerging technologies research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, told the Washington Examiner.
“You have to realize, these are the companies used to heavily inflict the surveillance culture all across China,” Carmack said.
The lobbyists included in the Washington Examiner’s analysis did not respond to requests for comment, nor did campaigns for lawmakers that are cited.
This analysis only included donations given to campaigns while the lobbyists were registered on behalf of Huawei.
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Huawei itself has spent at least $15 million lobbying Congress on telecommunications issues since 2012, according to disclosures. The U.S. has, in the past, imposed restrictions on Huawei operating domestically because of fears China may use its technology for spying operations, including, for instance, a 2018 ban on government and government contractors using Huawei technology.
A source close to the FCC who is familiar with conversations about the Huawei ban draft order told the Washington Examiner that its passage would “strengthen” the agency’s equipment rules and fulfill its “statutory mandate” under the “Secure Equipment Act of 2021.”
President Joe Biden in November 2021 signed the act, which seeks to block Huawei and other companies such as ZTE that are viewed as “security threats” from acquiring new equipment licenses in the U.S.
Huawei did not respond to a request for comment.
