House Republicans probing TikTok took thousands from its lobbyists

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy in late January picked 13 members of his Republican caucus to serve on the newly created Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party. Rep. Mike Gallagher, the committee’s chair, has pledged to investigate TikTok, the Chinese-owned social media app.

Gallagher has described TikTok as “digital fentanyl” and said that the company is hiring lobbyists in Washington “to do their bidding.”

But Gallagher and at least half of the GOP members of the panel have received campaign contributions from lobbyists representing TikTok or its parent company, ByteDance.

Gallagher has said he plans to use the committee to warn the public about the dangers of TikTok and questioned whether ByteDance is really a private corporation.

“Is there such a thing as a private company in China? I’m not sure there is,” the Wisconsin Republican told the Washington Post in a Jan. 30 interview. “This is what makes the ‘new Cold War’ so much more complicated than the old Cold War. We never had to decouple from the Soviet Union.”

Gallagher told Roll Call on Jan. 24 that his new panel would push for a TikTok ban.

In November, he warned on Fox News that TikTok was hiring influential lobbyists to protect itself: “TikTok is using the swamp against us. They’re hiring an army of lobbyists, including former congressmen, senators, 31 former high-level congressional staffers, in order to do their bidding. No paycheck is worth that. Okay? We need to ban TikTok.”

Weeks later, with Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL), Gallagher introduced a bill that would completely prohibit TikTok and other Chinese-owned social media companies from operating in the United States.

But as the American Independent Foundation reported in January, Gallagher has previously accepted at least $3,500 in donations from K&L Gates LLP’s corporate PAC and $750 from its government affairs counselor James Sartucci, who represented ByteDance as a lobbyist in 2020.

A review of Federal Election Commission campaign finance data reveals that several of the other Republicans who will serve under Gallagher on the panel have also accepted contributions from donors who are or have previously worked as lobbyists for ByteDance or TikTok.

• Rep. Jim Banks (IN) received at least $1,500 from Constantine Hingson, a lobbyist at Mehlman Consulting, Inc.
• Rep. Andy Barr (KY) reported taking at least $500 from Mehlman Consulting lobbyist Stephen Cote.
• Rep. Darin LaHood (IL) accepted at least $2,900 from Mehlman Consulting lobbyist Sage Eastman. His Abraham Lincoln leadership PAC also took $1,000 from Eastman.
• Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer (MO) received $2750 from Mehlman Consulting lobbyists for ByteDance: $500 from Cote, $500 from Eastman, $500 from Elise Pickering, $500 from Michael Robinson, $500 from Dean Rosen, and $250 from Helen Tolar.
• Rep. John Moolenaar (MI) took at least $500 from Eastman.
• Rep. Dan Newhouse (WA) received at least $500 from Ben McMakin, a lobbyist representing TikTok at Crossroad Strategies LLC.

Spokespeople for the lawmakers did not respond to requests for comment.

Moolenaar and six other Michigan Republican representatives signed a letter in December urging Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to prohibit the use of TikTok on state-owned smartphones and devices. “We implore you to protect Michigan employees and our educational institutions from the threat of (Chinese Communist Party) influence, data collection, and control,” they wrote, labeling China an “adversarial nation.”

Last July, Banks tweeted, “Ban TikTok!” On Jan. 9, he scolded the White House for having “had time to meet with transgender activists, George Clooney, & lobbyists for TikTok,” but not with him to discuss the fentanyl crisis.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.