WASHINGTON, D.C. — In a series of exclusive interviews with Digital, lawmakers on the House Foreign Affairs Committee sounded the alarm on a sprawling network of «Trojan horse» activists, nonprofits and social media influencers allegedly amplifying the hostile messages of foreign adversaries straight through the open gates of American democracy.

The warning came into sharp focus Tuesday when CodePink co-founder Medea Benjamin and two fellow activists walked into House Rayburn 2172 for a hearing on covert foreign influence operations, then strategically positioned themselves behind witnesses in T-shirts supporting the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Communist Party of Cuba.

About 30 minutes into the hearing, South and Central Asia Subcommittee Chairman Bill Huizenga, R-Mich., stopped the hearing and had Capitol Police escort them out.

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«They’re coming in, trying to look like one thing, but we know that once they’re inside the gates that those doors are going to spring open, and there’s a whole other motivation for what they’re trying to do,» Huizenga told Digital.

At the center of the controversy is communist tech tycoon Neville Roy Singham, who married CodePink co-founder Jodie Evans in a tropical wedding in Jamaica in 2017, soon after funneling $285 million to six pro-China, pro-communist, anti-American nonprofits in the U.S., including CodePink, according to a Digital investigation.

Lawmakers say the answer is transparency and following the money and exposing who finances the alleged «Trojan horse.»

In their series of interviews, Huizenga and other committee members explained how the modern «Trojan horse» isn’t made of wood but rather a network of activists, nonprofits, social media influencers and other ostensibly American voices that foreign governments and foreign-linked actors can allegedly fund, amplify or exploit to carry their messages through the open gates of American democracy.

«They’re coming in, trying to look like one thing, but we know that once they’re inside the gates that those doors are going to spring open and there’s a whole other motivation for what they’re trying to do,» Huizenga told Digital.

At the hearing, devoted to «Trojan Horses: Covert Foreign Malign Influence Operations in America,» lawmakers expressed concern about how the Communist Party of China, Russia, the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Communist Party of Cuba spread their propaganda and influence in the U.S.

The phrase «Trojan horse» comes from the ancient Greek story of soldiers concealed inside a wooden horse presented to the city of Troy. Once the horse was taken behind the city’s fortified walls, the soldiers emerged and opened the gates, destroying Troy.

Huizenga stressed that Americans can hold sincere beliefs while also having those messages funded or amplified by foreign actors without necessarily knowing it. He argued that the answer to foreign influence is exposing the origins of the messaging through transparency and robust debate.

Inside the hearing room, as Digital reported, Benjamin and her fellow CodePink activists offered a vivid illustration of the debate over how political messages are created and amplified.

They sat directly behind the witnesses, placing their T-shirts in the sight line of the official committee cameras.

Benjamin then turned toward a television monitor on the side of the hearing room displaying the official video feed. She pulled out her phone, zoomed in on the image of herself and a fellow activist appearing behind the witnesses and took photo after photo of the screen.

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Huizenga said he viewed the episode as political theater designed for an audience beyond the committee room.

«This isn’t about discourse. This is about disruption,» Huizenga told Digital. «It’s all planned out. You see people in the crowd filming with their phones, getting ready. You knew something was going to happen because, all of a sudden, the phones would come out.

«It’s really about theatrics,» he added, arguing that confrontations can subsequently be circulated on social media to attract attention, donations and volunteers.

The episode captured the central tension running through the hearing: How does the United States expose genuine covert foreign influence without treating protected American political speech as foreign subversion?

«Transparency. Transparency is the watchword,» Huizenga told Digital. «We really need to make sure that people know not only the why, but the who is behind all this.»

Rep. Michael Baumgartner, R-Wash., told Digital that America’s open political system creates opportunities for foreign governments to try to influence legitimate domestic debates through social media, universities and other institutions.

«The American people need transparency and need to understand what is going on in these public policy discussions and whether it’s podcast hosts, certain actors on social media or things going on our college campuses,» Baumgartner said. «We need to know who’s behind it and what their motivations are.»

Baumgartner pointed to «clear transparency on this issue» as a solution, adding that if evidence showed organizations were acting on behalf of foreign governments without complying with applicable disclosure laws, the matter could potentially be referred to the Justice Department, which oversees the Foreign Agent Registration Act, or FARA. The law requires that people and organizations acting on behalf of foreign interests register with the Justice Department.

Other lawmakers said the modern Trojan horse doesn’t necessarily have to walk physically through the doors of Congress, but rather arrive via social media.

Rep. Randy Fine, R-Fla., described social media, influencers and protests as potential channels through which foreign governments influence American political debate. He said «it’s a real issue, whether it’s on social media, influencers, protests, these things are all designed to destabilize our country.»

Fine characterized what experts call «cognitive warfare» as «using our information platforms to try to poison people’s minds and to create division from within.»

Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., focused on another battlefield: artificial intelligence.

«Trojan horses are things like the announcement that we should slow down on AI,» Issa told Digital, arguing that foreign adversaries can benefit when American political pressure slows U.S. technological development.

«We are in a war in which the other side uses all the clandestine tools,» Issa said. «They use their, quite frankly, their social media to our detriment.»

Huizenga similarly argued that Americans should view the organizations under examination not individually but as a network.

«It’s a network. It’s not independent organizations or even people,» he said. «You will see some of the same people at different organizations, rallies, or protests.»

At the center of much of the hearing were findings from a Digital investigation into Neville Roy Singham, an American-born communist tech tycoon who lives in Shanghai and has pumped $285 million into six nonprofits, including CodePink, the People’s Forum and other groups examined during the hearing.

Huizenga alleged in his official opening remarks that Singham uses his wealth and relationships in China to support organizations that promote communist ideology and destabilize American society. He explicitly described Singham, CodePink and a growing network of pro-communist, pro-China groups as «Trojan horses.»

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Singham and CodePink have denied taking direction from the Chinese government. Singham has said his activities reflect his own political beliefs, while Benjamin has said CodePink doesn’t receive money from the Chinese Communist Party.

As Digital reported in June, the Justice Department and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York have convened a grand jury investigation into alleged money laundering, bank fraud and wire fraud by Singham and the organizations he has funded.

No criminal charges have been filed against Singham or CodePink with respect to those allegations.

Huizenga argued that the funding relationships deserve scrutiny.

«Oftentimes, it’s frankly the origins aren’t organic, or if there is a part of it being organic, this is getting fed by outside organizations, oftentimes even outside countries,» Huizenga alleged.

Being escorted through the committee room doors didn’t end CodePink’s political theater.

Outside the hearing room, Benjamin positioned herself beside the House Foreign Affairs Committee placard and began recording another video, pulling out a comb first to straighten her hair.

When Rep. Fine emerged from the hearing, Benjamin followed him down the hallway firing questions as another member of her team recorded the encounter.

After Fine disappeared into an office, Benjamin returned to the committee entrance, straightened her hair with a comb and resumed recording.

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About two hours after Capitol Police escorted the activists from the hearing, CodePink posted a carefully edited video of the day’s confrontation on social media, where activists in the broader network began sharing it.

The physical protest was over, but the images it produced were just beginning to travel.

That sequence was precisely why lawmakers said Americans should look beyond the spectacle to who finances and amplifies political messaging.

«This is theater for many of these people,» Huizenga said. He said he wanted Americans, through «transparency and disclosure,» to understand «not just the what they are doing, but the who is financing them.»

The lawmakers gathered to investigate modern «Trojan horses» said the lesson of the ancient story wasn’t simply to keep the horse outside the gates but also to understand what — and who — might be inside.

«Transparency. Transparency is the watchword,» Huizenga said.

Lawmakers say ‘transparency and disclosure’ are the best defense against influence campaigns exploiting America’s democracy.

Digital’s Reagan Schroeder and Brooke Curto contributed to this report.

politics, foreign affairs, china, russia, iran, cuba