Yavapai News

“To prevent repeating these failures in America’s next great national security undertaking, Congress needs more members like Rep. Crane who will ask important but unconformable questions, drive for reforms to address issues like elite capture, and help chart a course where the actions of government officials represent, above all, the interest of America’s citizens,” reads a new article from The Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project.

During a Homeland Security Subcommittee hearing titled, “Chinese Threats and U.S. National Security,” Rep. Crane (R-AZ) pressed expert witnesses on “elite capture” – the technique employed by the Chinese Communist Party to exert influence and control over the actions of political, academic, business, and cultural leaders in countries like the U.S.

As the article states, “Rep. Crane’s line of questioning, and the lack of attention that this issue received from other committee members and witnesses matters for at least two reasons. First, it matters because elite capture in the United States by the CCP is ongoing. Second, it matters because senior government officials that are responsible for guarding against this threat are largely either unable to define or unwilling to address this issue.”

KEY EXCERPTS:

• “The contrast between the line of questioning of the populist Crane’s and those of other representatives, along with the muddled responses of expert witnesses to Crane’s questions, illuminate a yawning gap between America’s citizens and its political and economic class on the issue of domestic influence and elite capture by the CCP.”
   
• “In order to prevail against this time-tested political warfare technique the U.S. needs more congressmen and women like Rep. Crane who, through meaningful oversight, can force the federal government to address America’s elite capture problem.”
   
• “Examples of elite capture in the U.S. are too numerous to list exhaustively here but a few of the most startling examples demonstrate the extent of the problem. The foremost example and the terminus of Rep. Crane’s line of questioning is the Hunter Biden laptop. Despite the suppression of this story, itself aided by former top-intelligence officials, the broad outline of this scandal is now familiar to the public. It is known that Hunter and other members of the Biden family received millions from the Chinese conglomerate CEFC, which acted as an arm of the PRC government’s Belt and Road Initiative. Further, it has been demonstrated that Hunter’s value to his foreign partners varied in proportion to his father’s political influence, that Hunter’s finances were intermingled with that of his father, and that, while his father was vice-president, Hunter organized meetings between Joe and foreign politicians whose families Hunter sought to cultivate as business partners.”

View the original press release here.