The Soviet Union ran front groups in American cities for decades – funding peace movements and anti-war protests that just happened to align perfectly with Moscow's foreign policy goals.
That was 1960.
This week it's happening again – and this time the money trail leads straight to Shanghai.
Neville Roy Singham's $285 Million CodePink Network Exposed
While President Trump sits down with Chinese President Xi Jinping for one of the most consequential trade summits in a generation, Neville Roy Singham's network is flooding the streets from Austin to New York City.
You know his name by now.
The $785 million Thoughtworks payout. The move to Shanghai. The $285 million he's poured into American nonprofits that spend their days screaming about ICE, the military, data centers, and Israel.
His wife, Jodie Evans, co-founded CodePink.
When Singham married her in 2017, CodePink went quiet on China – a reversal for a group that once made Beijing's treatment of its own people a talking point.
Funny how that works.
The Justice Department's Southern District of New York has convened a federal grand jury investigation into Singham's financial network, sources say, examining whether his organizations engaged in wire fraud, bank fraud, or money laundering. Singham hasn't been charged with a crime.
How CCP Money Fuels the Anti-ICE Protests in Austin
This is not new. This is not organic. This is a playbook.
During the Cold War, the Soviet Union ran what they called "active measures" – front organizations, peace movements, and protest groups that existed to destabilize American society and embarrass Washington on the world stage.
China studied that playbook and improved it.
When a Venezuelan national was shot in Austin, the Singham network mobilized fast – the Democratic Socialists of America, the Freedom Road Socialist Organization, and the Party for Socialism and Liberation were all pushing protest messaging before most Americans even heard the name.
Media outlets called it "spontaneous."
It wasn't.
The same network that organized Austin was simultaneously running Climate Week protests outside the UN and an "Unplug OpenAI" demonstration on Lafayette Street.
By Thursday, they're planning an anti-Israel march from Bryant Park to the United Nations.
By Friday, they're back in Austin.
Why China Wants Chaos During the Trump-Xi Summit
China benefits directly from images of American cities in chaos during the Trump-Xi summit.
Trump is negotiating from a position of strength – a trade truce extension, tariff frameworks, and leverage over rare-earth minerals that Beijing has been weaponizing for years.
Xi needs to project that Trump is negotiating from weakness.
Street mobs, burning rage, and wall-to-wall images of American protest fill that function perfectly.
Rep. John Moolenaar, chairman of the House Select Committee on China, put it plainly to Fox News Digital: when organizations "portray themselves as grassroots, it's really more Astroturf, very fake."
He's right.
Singham has pumped $22.44 million into the People's Forum alone – the Manhattan hub that served as the week's protest nerve center.
He gave CodePink $1.33 million.
He gave BreakThrough News – the propaganda arm flooding social media with edited protest footage – another $1.098 million.
These aren't passion projects.
They are infrastructure.
Singham's Donor-Advised Fund and the Tax-Exempt Loophole
The most enraging part of this story isn't that China is running influence operations in American cities.
That's expected.
What should make every American furious is that Singham ran this money through a donor-advised fund – the same tax-exempt vehicle your neighbors use to donate to their local church – to hide the source of the cash.
Rep. Jason Smith, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, said it directly: "There has to be more transparency across all areas with these kinds of activities."
Moolenaar is calling for investigations into whether these organizations should lose their tax-exempt status.
They absolutely should.
Americans are subsidizing – through tax exemptions – a network that exists to make America look unstable while Xi Jinping sits across the table from the President of the United States.
The Soviet Union at least had the decency to fund their front groups with rubles.
China is making us pay for it ourselves.
Sources:
- Asra Q. Nomani, Michael Dorgan and Preston Mizell, "From Austin to New York, pro-China network fuels week of anti-US protests as Xi meets Trump," Fox News Digital, September 22, 2026.
- Gordon Chang, "A lot of our anti-American protests are made in China," Fox News, April 7, 2026.
- Fox News Digital staff, "House hearing raises red flags over former tech mogul's 'CCP network' allegedly funding far-left groups," Fox News Digital, September 4, 2025.
- Jason Smith, "Chairman Smith Exposes U.S. Nonprofit as Likely CCP-Funded Propaganda Arm Operating Under Tax-Exempt Status," U.S. House Ways and Means Committee, September 4, 2025.
- Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck staff, "Expectations for the Trump-Xi September Meeting," BHFS Insights, September 10, 2026.
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