Former President Bill Clinton’s Chief of Staff, John Podesta, later became Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign chairman. Podesta was named September 2 as a Biden administration green energy adviser.
Podesta has now been linked with a Chinese government influence operative for more than 10 years, according to a Daily Caller report.
The Daily Caller further reported:
Since at least 2009, Democratic powerbroker John Podesta, former chairman of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign, has cooperated with Tung Chee-hwa and his Chinese Communist Party-backed organization, the China-United States Exchange Foundation (CUSEF), according to CUSEF’s annual reports. Podesta sits on CUSEF’s “U.S.-China 2022 Steering Committee” and has written at least three articles for its website since 2011 — the same year in which he appeared on the front cover of the group’s annual report.
Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz characterized CUSEF as a “pseudo-philanthropic foundation” in 2018, writing that “CUSEF’s ties to the CCP are an issue of grave concern.” CUSEF is registered under the Foreign Agents Registration Act as a Chinese foreign principal controlled by Tung, the vice chairman of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) — an organization which directs China’s influence operations, according to the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission.
Including Tung, eight of CUSEF’s core leaders have served in the CPPCC, while Chinese military personnel, members of the CCP and former government officials are also listed among the group’s advisers, according to its website.
Tung is “clearly associated” with the CCP’s United Front Work Department (UFWD), according to the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission. The UFWD engages in propaganda, espionage and physical violence, according to the State Department.
At least a dozen photographs of Podesta are included throughout four of CUSEF’s annual reports between 2009 and 2016. Many of the photographs depict Podesta on CUSEF-sponsored trips to China meeting with Chinese government officials and Tung.
After serving as White House chief of staff to former President Bill Clinton, Podesta founded the Center for American Progress (CAP) in 2003, according to Roll Call. The New York Times described CAP as “a virtual external policy arm of the Obama administration” in December 2013, just a month before Podesta became counselor to former President Barack Obama in January 2014.
December 2013 was also when Podesta and Tung published a joint-research paper entitled “Toward A New Model of Major Power Relations,” which the pair co-authored with Wang Jisi — a CCP member and senior fellow at CUSEF. The report included a climate policy recommendation, which urged the U.S. and China to build an international consensus to “phase down” greenhouse gases.
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