EXCLUSIVE — Lobbyists for TikTok and its Chinese parent company ByteDance have enjoyed a cozy relationship with President Joe Biden‘s White House, all while lawmakers ramp up efforts to crack down on the app over national security concerns, according to records reviewed by the Washington Examiner.
Congress is mulling legislation that would ban TikTok in the U.S., and Biden authorized an app ban in December for roughly 4 million government devices as more than one dozen state governments enact device prohibitions. TikTok and ByteDance lobbyists have visited the White House at least eight times between July 2021 and August 2022, White House visitor logs show, providing a window into how the Chinese government-linked social media operation has gained influence in Washington.
TIKTOK SPENT MORE THAN $1 MILLION ON LOBBYING IN SUMMER 2022
While it is unclear whether the lobbyists went to the White House on TikTok business or for another client, the visits are “unequivocally” worrisome, according to Kara Frederick, who helped create and lead Facebook’s Global Security Counterterrorism Analysis Program between 2016 and 2017.
“These people are doing the dirty work of the Chinese party state,” Frederick, now director of the Tech Policy Center at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, told the Washington Examiner. “I don’t think we should mince words when it comes to that. They know what they’re doing.”
National security experts have long sounded the alarm over TikTok, which admitted in December 2022 that ByteDance spied on American journalists. China’s government owns an at least 1% stake in the Beijing-based ByteDance, which former employees have said feeds information to the Chinese Communist Party.
Chinese groups are required to “support, assist, and cooperate with the state intelligence work,” according to the country’s National Intelligence Law. ByteDance Editor-in-Chief Zhang Fuping double dips as secretary for the company’s Communist Party committee, which aims to ensure ByteDance aligns with the party, Foreign Affairs reported. Zhang Yiming, the former CEO of ByteDance, was referred to by the Justice Department in a September 2020 filing as a “mouthpiece” for the CCP.
TikTok and ByteDance have been on a lobbying spree in recent years, dropping over $1 million combined during summer 2022, the Washington Examiner reported. That lobbying team includes dozens of former congressional staffers, former Democratic and Republican members of Congress, and David Urban, former senior adviser for Donald Trump’s 2016 and 2020 presidential campaigns.
One ByteDance lobbyist is Paul Thornell of the firm Mehlman Castagnetti Rosen & Thomas, who, between 1998 and 2001, worked as a senior liaison for President Bill Clinton, according to his LinkedIn account. Thornell made three trips to the White House in 2022, visitor logs show.
He visited with then-senior adviser Cedric Richmond in May 2022 and, in June 2022, with National Economic Council Deputy Director Bharat Ramamurti, according to visitor logs. Then, in July 2022, he was a visitor of Robert Ha, who is special assistant for economic mobility and racial justice and equity under the Biden-Harris Domestic Policy Council, according to Ha’s LinkedIn.
“I’ll take a pass on that,” Thornell told the Washington Examiner when reached by phone and asked if he can comment on whether or not TikTok was discussed during his visits.
Rosemary Gutierrez, who also works at Thornell’s firm and, according to LinkedIn, was once deputy chief of staff for Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA), visited the White House in July 2021. Gutierrez, who is registered to lobby on behalf of ByteDance, visited with Richmond, according to visitor logs.
“None of those visits to the WH were on behalf of TikTok,” Gutierrez wrote to the Washington Examiner in an email, not clarifying whether or not another White House trip, besides the July 2021 visit, transpired. “Further, I have not discussed the company with Admin personnel.”
Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK), who sits on the Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee, said there is strong bipartisan support to “do much more” on the issue of TikTok, noting that hearings would be a good starting place. The senator, in December, voted in favor of the newly approved TikTok ban from government devices, which coincided with Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI), and Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL) introducing legislation to ban TikTok from the United States.
“Members of Congress and the American public need to fully understand the national security implications of TikTok,” Sullivan told the Washington Examiner.
Barton Gordon is another individual registered to lobby on behalf of ByteDance, records show. Gordon, a former Democratic Tennessee member of Congress, is a partner at the corporate law firm K&L Gates.
Gordon visited the White House on Sept. 13, 2022, the same day Biden spoke to commemorate the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, a $740 billion climate and energy spending bill signed in August, according to visitor logs.
In August 2022, Gordon, who served in Congress between 1985 and 2011 and was once chairman of the House Science and Technology Committee, attended Biden’s remarks upon him signing the CHIPS and Science Act into law, visitor logs show. The law approved investments in U.S. manufacturing and aims to counter China’s rising influence.
Gordon directed the Washington Examiner to TikTok when questioned about his lobbying activities for ByteDance.
The other ByteDance lobbyist who visited the White House is Jason Samuels, TikTok’s federal government affairs manager. Samuels visited with Ward Dirksen, director of programs and staff operations for Vice President Kamala Harris, according to visitor logs.
Former Sen. John Breaux (D-LA), who lobbies on behalf of TikTok for the advocacy firm Crossroad Strategies, visited the White House in June 2022, visitor logs show. His visit was with Mitch Landrieu, the former Democratic mayor of New Orleans who is now a senior Biden adviser.
“I assumed President Biden rescinded Trump’s ban on TikTok because Hunter was getting kickbacks from China, but now we know TikTok’s lobbyists have also had unfettered access to the White House,” Rep. Lance Gooden (R-TX) told the Washington Examiner. “President Biden must stop cozying up to Chinese companies and start putting our national security and American citizens first.”
“TikTok must be banned nationwide to prevent the theft of American’s personal data,” added Gooden.
The White House did not reply to a Washington Examiner request for comment.
Gallagher, who helped put forth the comprehensive TikTok ban bill, likened the app in January to “digital fentanyl.” In addition to criticizing TikTok based on its ties to China’s government, the congressman said the app has negative ramifications for children.
“It’s highly addictive and destructive, and we’re seeing troubling data about the corrosive impact of constant social media use, particularly on young men and women here in America,” he said.
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Tech analysts have said that TikTok’s data security protocols will not prevent China from obtaining confidential user data from Americans. The Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S., which under the Treasury Department analyzes foreign acquisitions of American firms, is currently performing a national security review of TikTok.
The review was opened in 2019 after Rubio raised concerns to the Treasury Department over reports that TikTok instructed moderators to censor content related to Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Tiananmen Square.
“Politicians with national security concerns should encourage the Administration to conclude its national security review of TikTok,” Brooke Oberwetter, a spokeswoman for TikTok, told the Washington Examiner.
“The agreement under review will meaningfully address any security concerns that have been raised at both the federal and state level,” she added. “These plans have been developed under the oversight of our country’s top national security agencies — plans that we are well underway in implementing — to further secure our platform in the United States, and we will continue to brief lawmakers on them.”
