A Tuesday Deadline and 21 Names: Congress Threatens Depositions in the Singham Nonprofit Fight
The Republican-led House Ways and Means Committee has given three tax-exempt organizations until Tuesday, Oct. 20, to produce documents demanded by subpoenas issued in July, warning that refusal will bring "more aggressive oversight actions." The letters, announced Oct. 13, went to lawyers for The People's Forum, a New York activist hub; BreakThrough News, a nonprofit media outlet that shares its Manhattan address; and Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, a Massachusetts-based think tank.
Chairman Jason Smith (R-Mo.) is examining whether money moving through a network of nonprofits tied to Neville Roy Singham is being used to advance Chinese Communist Party interests inside the United States. The letters focus on fiscal sponsorships involving foreign nationals or foreign entities, communications with Singham or other foreign principals about finance, governance and organizational structure, and donor information on contributions from foreign nationals and organizations.
"Shanghai Singham has poured millions of dollars into these groups to take advantage of America's nonprofit sector and promote Chinese Communist Party propaganda," Smith said in a statement. "That much is public. What these groups are fighting to keep hidden is even more concerning." He added: "Either these organizations turn over the documents, or their leaders will answer the Committee's questions under oath."
Singham, an American-born technology entrepreneur, sold his software company ThoughtWorks for an estimated $785 million in 2017 and now lives in Shanghai. Fox News Digital, whose reporting the committee has cited, says it traced at least $278 million from Singham into six core U.S. nonprofits since 2017. Of that, about $22.44 million went to The People's Forum, $16.76 million to Tricontinental and $1.098 million to BreakThrough News' parent organization. The committee says The People's Forum alone received more than $20 million from Singham's network between 2017 and 2022, routed through shell companies and donor-advised funds that, in its words, "by design, obscure the original source of the contribution."
The committee has identified 21 people it could call for depositions: eight at The People's Forum, seven at BreakThrough News and six at Tricontinental. The list includes People's Forum executive director Manolo De Los Santos, education director Layan Fuleihan and organizing director David Chung; BreakThrough editor-in-chief Ben Becker, news director Zoe Alexandra and chief correspondent Rania Khalek; Tricontinental executive director Vijay Prashad; and Singham, who chairs Tricontinental's international advisory board. No individual deposition subpoenas have been publicly issued.
Lawyers for BreakThrough News and The People's Forum objected formally in August, arguing the subpoenas violate First Amendment protections and seek information beyond the committee's legitimate legislative authority. BreakThrough said in an Oct. 9 statement that it takes no outside editorial direction and that its major donations come from U.S. organizations; it accused the committee of targeting its journalists over their political views. Khalek, in a Substack post, called the threat "a fundamental threat to democracy and a free press."
Separately, Singham is the subject of a federal grand jury investigation in the Southern District of New York into possible wire fraud, bank fraud and money laundering connected to his nonprofit funding network, according to Fox News reporting. No criminal charges have been announced.
If the groups do not comply, the committee could move to hold them in contempt of Congress, setting up a prolonged court fight, or begin issuing individual deposition subpoenas and summoning journalists and activists to Washington one by one. The committee has also asked the Treasury Department and the IRS to examine whether the groups' tax-exempt status has been abused. For now, the standoff pits Congress's oversight power against the First Amendment defenses of organizations that say they are being punished for their politics.