Defense

EXCLUSIVE: Republicans Call On Pentagon, State Dept To Stop Funding Elite DC Think Tank Over China Ties

[Screenshot/YouTube/Carnegie-TsinghuaCenter]

Daily Caller News Foundation logo
Philip Lenczycki Investigative Reporter
Font Size:
  • Republican congressmen are calling on the Pentagon to defund and investigate the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, which was formerly headed by current Central Intelligence Agency Director William Burns, for employing undisclosed Chinese Communist Party members.
  • Carnegie accepted millions in the form of grants, contracts and donations from the U.S. government during Burns’ tenure as the group’s president, according to government records and Carnegie’s annual reports.
  • “I call on the Department of Defense to suspend all contracts and projects with [Carnegie],” said Alabama Rep. Mike Rogers.

Republican congressmen are calling on the Pentagon and other agencies to cease funding and investigate an influential D.C. think tank formerly headed by current Central Intelligence Agency Director William Burns concerning its employment of undisclosed Chinese Communist Party (CCP) members.

The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace employed at least 20 undisclosed CCP members and multiple individuals tied to the Chinese government during Burns’ presidency from February 2015 to November 2021, the Daily Caller News Foundation recently revealed. During that time, the U.S. government gave Carnegie millions in the form of grants, contracts and donations, according to government records and the think tank’s annual reports. (RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: Biden’s CIA Director Employed Undisclosed Chinese Communist Party Members While Heading Elite DC Think Tank)

“The reported hiring of Chinese Communist Party members by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP) raises serious policy and counterintelligence concerns that need to be immediately addressed,” Alabama Republican Mike Rogers, the ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee, told the DCNF.

“I call on the Department of Defense to suspend all contracts and projects with CEIP until the circumstances surrounding the hiring of these individuals can be thoroughly investigated,” Rogers said.

Texas Republican Rep. Lance Gooden not only called on the U.S. government to cut off Carnegie’s taxpayer funding, but also to target their tax-exempt status.

“These organizations must exercise due diligence in exchange for their tax-exempt status, especially if they are pushing a narrative or public policy agenda,” Gooden said. “If the organization has tax-exempt status, it should be immediately revoked. They should also be barred from receiving government funds in the future.”

The DCNF discovered Carnegie was employing CCP members and individuals tied to the Chinese government after analyzing hundreds of Chinese-language, Communist Party branch records and personnel profiles from more than a dozen CCP-linked organizations. Expert profiles on Carnegie’s website do not disclose these individuals’ ties to the CCP or Chinese government.

These experts have worked at both Carnegie’s Washington, D.C., headquarters and Carnegie-Tsinghua — the Beijing center Burns’ predecessor, Jessica Mathews, launched in 2010 in cooperation with Tsinghua University. (RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: US-Based Activist Claims A Chinese Agent ‘Weaponized’ The Justice System To Get Him Arrested On Terrorism Charges)

Carnegie employed CCP members during CIA Director Burns' presidency, the DCNF determined. (Artwork: The Daily Caller)

Carnegie employed CCP members during CIA Director Burns’ presidency, the DCNF determined. (Artwork: The Daily Caller)

The Department of Defense (DOD) and other branches of the military were the largest federal donors to Carnegie during Burns’ presidency, giving the think tank as much as $7.75 million, annual reports show. The State Department and the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) both gave Carnegie as much as $2 million each during Burns’ tenure.

Carnegie was also awarded over a million dollars in federal grants and contracts during Burns’ tenure, government records reveal.

Yet, just how Carnegie spent all these funds remains unclear because its annual reports didn’t earmark donations until Burns’ second-to-last-year as president.

Burns himself could not be reached for comment at the CIA, while the agency referred the DCNF to his 2021 confirmation hearing and Carnegie.

Carnegie did not respond to multiple requests for comment. The Chinese Embassy, DOD, State Department and DIA did not respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

PREMIUM ARTICLE: Subscribe To Keep Reading

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign Up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
BENEFITS READERS PASS PATRIOTS FOUNDERS
Daily and Breaking Newsletters
Daily Caller Shows
Ad Free Experience
Exclusive Articles
Custom Newsletters
Editor Daily Rundown
Behind The Scenes Coverage
Award Winning Documentaries
Patriot War Room
Patriot Live Chat
Exclusive Events
Gold Membership Card
Tucker Mug

What does Founders Club include?

Tucker Mug and Membership Card
Founders

Readers,

Instead of sucking up to the political and corporate powers that dominate America, The Daily Caller is fighting for you — our readers. We humbly ask you to consider joining us in this fight.

Now that millions of readers are rejecting the increasingly biased and even corrupt corporate media and joining us daily, there are powerful forces lined up to stop us: the old guard of the news media hopes to marginalize us; the big corporate ad agencies want to deprive us of revenue and put us out of business; senators threaten to have our reporters arrested for asking simple questions; the big tech platforms want to limit our ability to communicate with you; and the political party establishments feel threatened by our independence.

We don't complain -- we can't stand complainers -- but we do call it how we see it. We have a fight on our hands, and it's intense. We need your help to smash through the big tech, big media and big government blockade.

We're the insurgent outsiders for a reason: our deep-dive investigations hold the powerful to account. Our original videos undermine their narratives on a daily basis. Even our insistence on having fun infuriates them -- because we won’t bend the knee to political correctness.

One reason we stand apart is because we are not afraid to say we love America. We love her with every fiber of our being, and we think she's worth saving from today’s craziness.

Help us save her.

A second reason we stand out is the sheer number of honest responsible reporters we have helped train. We have trained so many solid reporters that they now hold prominent positions at publications across the political spectrum. Hear a rare reasonable voice at a place like CNN? There’s a good chance they were trained at Daily Caller. Same goes for the numerous Daily Caller alumni dominating the news coverage at outlets such as Fox News, Newsmax, Daily Wire and many others.

Simply put, America needs solid reporters fighting to tell the truth or we will never have honest elections or a fair system. We are working tirelessly to make that happen and we are making a difference.

Since 2010, The Daily Caller has grown immensely. We're in the halls of Congress. We're in the Oval Office. And we're in up to 20 million homes every single month. That's 20 million Americans like you who are impossible to ignore.

We can overcome the forces lined up against all of us. This is an important mission but we can’t do it unless you — the everyday Americans forgotten by the establishment — have our back.

Please consider becoming a Daily Caller Patriot today, and help us keep doing work that holds politicians, corporations and other leaders accountable. Help us thumb our noses at political correctness. Help us train a new generation of news reporters who will actually tell the truth. And help us remind Americans everywhere that there are millions of us who remain clear-eyed about our country's greatness.

In return for membership, Daily Caller Patriots will be able to read The Daily Caller without any of the ads that we have long used to support our mission. We know the ads drive you crazy. They drive us crazy too. But we need revenue to keep the fight going. If you join us, we will cut out the ads for you and put every Lincoln-headed cent we earn into amplifying our voice, training even more solid reporters, and giving you the ad-free experience and lightning fast website you deserve.

Patriots will also be eligible for Patriots Only content, newsletters, chats and live events with our reporters and editors. It's simple: welcome us into your lives, and we'll welcome you into ours.

We can save America together.

Become a Daily Caller Patriot today.

Signature

Neil Patel