A lobbying firm led by one of Donald Trump Jr.'s hunting buddies helped a Chinese company make its case to a U.S. national security watchdog, public filings show.
The case involved a U.S. startup that was seeking to have the Chinese firm removed as one of its investors. The watchdog rejected the U.S. firm's request for a national security review of the Chinese firm's investment, according to a document seen by Reuters, handing a rare win to a Chinese company in Washington. The decision has not previously been reported.
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The lobbying firm, Checkmate, helped a lawyer for China's Grand Pharmaceutical Group (0512.HK), opens new tab clinch a meeting with the head of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. (CFIUS) in early January, according to two people familiar with the matter. During the meeting, the lawyer argued that the case was a commercial disagreement with no national security implications, one of the people said.
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Such lobbying, by foreign or domestic companies is "very typical," according to Tim LaPira, a professor of political science at James Madison University. "If you want to speak to the party in power, you are going to need to hire somebody that has those partisan connections," he added.
Six China experts and three Democratic lawmakers who were informed of the situation by Reuters said the case raised concerns that Chinese companies could gain influence over the Trump administration by hiring lobbyists close to his orbit.
Michael Sobolik, senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, a conservative think tank, said that if a Chinese company can lobby the U.S. government into siding with it against an American firm on a national security matter, "that is the height of the swamp."
Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren said it was "troubling that Chinese companies are hiring Trump-connected lobbyists to influence independent decisions about American national security," calling for answers on who made the decisions and what CFIUS's risk assessments of the deal found.
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