(UnitedVoice.com) – Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass (D) has served in a political office of some sort for almost two decades. First, she was a member of the California State Assembly, including two years as its majority leader and two more as the speaker. Then she moved on to federal office, serving in the US House of Representatives for almost 11 years. During her time in Congress, she chaired the Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security. In other words, she has a lot of experience in politics and matters of national security.
Yet, with all of that knowledge and experience, she still met with a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) linked group. She went through with the meeting even after President Joe Biden’s administration reportedly issued warnings about China.
Threat Assessment Report Warnings
On February 6, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) issued its Annual Threat Assessment report. It’s a wide-ranging report that alerts Americans, both private citizens and public officials, about the threats to global stability. The latest report focuses heavily on China as one of the problems facing the world.
In the report, intelligence officials warned the Chinese government is “expanding its global and covert influence posture.” One of the ways the country is doing that is by developing a “sophisticated array of covert, overt, licit, and illicit means to try to […] influence policymakers at all levels of government.”
Further, the ODNI warned the Chinese are “redoubling [their] efforts to build influence at the state and local level” in order to change US policies and make them more favorable toward the foreign government. In short, Beijing is not just going after federal lawmakers as they have in the past; they are targeting every level of American governance, right down to local leaders like Bass.
Mayor’s Meeting
A week after the ODNI issued the report, Bass and California State Treasurer Fiona Ma had a private meeting with Lin Songtian. He is the president of the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries, a group that is controlled by the CCP.
Songtian was in the US on a 10-day tour when he met with the mayor of America’s second-largest city. The meeting was sold in the Chinese state media as “people-to-people diplomacy.” Bass’ office didn’t announce the meeting to the press or invite them in to take notes, so it’s unclear what the officials talked about with the CCP’s diplomat.
Victoria Coates, who served as former President Donald Trump’s deputy national security adviser, told the Washington Examiner the meeting was “a real problem” and all Californians “should probably start asking what they talked about.”
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