Politics
From working with Black Panthers to calling for cease-fire, Barbara Lee stands by her beliefs
On a rainy January day, Rep. Barbara Lee wandered the campus of Mills College pointing out sites from her momentous past.
The leafy, seminary-like grounds in Oakland look different from when she attended. To her frustration, even the school’s name has been changed to Northeastern University Oakland.
But for Lee, her time on campus is preserved in amber — the years of student activism, her first trip to Africa, and a political awakening.
Rep. Barbara Lee gives a tour of her alma mater, Northeastern University Oakland. “I’m a Black woman in America; we always have to deal with stuff, because like Shirley Chisholm said, ‘These rules weren’t made for me,’’’ she said.
(Loren Elliott / For The Times)
It’s where she met Shirley Chisholm, the first Black woman elected to Congress, and where she volunteered with the Black Panthers during the tumultuous late 1960s and early ’70s. Her work at the women’s college provided her first taste of Oakland politics, one that carried her to Congress and now animates her bid for the U.S. Senate against fellow Democratic Reps. Adam B. Schiff and Katie Porter, as well as Republican and former Dodger Steve Garvey.
“She is an organic leader who was a seed that came from the soil of the Oakland community, which has long cared deeply about doing right in society,” said retired Pastor Alfred J. Smith, 92, a famed local clergyman who led Allen Temple Baptist Church, which Lee has attended for decades.
Lee’s quarter-century serving in Congress has been defined by that desire to do right. At times it’s been a lonesome pursuit, but it’s one that she feels has, over the years, proved prescient.
Lee cast the sole vote in 2001 against the Authorization for the Use of Military Force that gave then-President George W. Bush the power to wage war against the nations, people and organizations that aided the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks that felled the World Trade Center towers.
Her support in 2003 for Medicare for all, to provide comprehensive healthcare to all Americans, was considered a relatively fringe position at the time but is now a common topic of debate in Democratic primaries.
Lee speaks during a televised debate on Jan. 22 in Los Angeles for candidates in the Senate race to succeed the late Dianne Feinstein.
(Damian Dovarganes / Associated Press)
More recently, Lee, 77, called for a cease-fire the day after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel, as Israel’s military began responding with attacks on the Gaza Strip, where Hamas is based. Her top Democratic opponents, Schiff and Porter, both declined to take that position initially. Porter later came to support a cease-fire, while Schiff remains opposed to one.
During her time in Congress, Lee has represented one of the most liberal districts in the state if not the country, which gives her the freedom to stick to her progressive ideals and take tough, sometimes unpopular stands. But that shield also has been isolating, since issues that might be popular in Oakland and Berkeley may not be as closely embraced in less politically progressive areas of the state.
Though much of the nation sees California as a far-left haven, its residents hold a wide range of political views, which may explain in part why Lee has been languishing in recent opinion surveys on the Senate race. The latest polling from the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies last month indicated that Schiff was backed by 21% of likely voters, compared with 17% for Porter and 13% for Garvey. Lee was in fourth, with the support of 9% of likely voters.
Schiff and Porter also have far larger national profiles and more sophisticated fundraising operations than Lee, said Ludovic Blain, executive director of the progressive California Donor Table, which has endorsed Lee.
From left, Reps. Barbara Lee, Adam B. Schiff and Katie Porter along with Republican Steve Garvey participate in a Senate debate last month in Los Angeles.
(Damian Dovarganes / Associated Press)
“She and those of us who support her haven’t been able to pull together the funds needed to educate voters about her, especially younger voters,” Blain said.
Just nine Black people have ever been elected to the Senate. Only two, Lee is quick to remind people, were women. Now more than ever, she said, the Senate needs her experience — which includes living through America’s civil rights movement and the entrenched discrimination that still lingers more than half a century later; the daily challenges of single motherhood; being surveilled by the FBI as a young activist in Oakland; and facing death threats and accusations of being a traitor for opposing the war in Afghanistan.
“I’m a Black woman in America; we always have to deal with stuff, because like Shirley Chisholm said, ‘These rules weren’t made for me,’” Lee said.
Lee’s assertiveness has made Democratic leaders uncomfortable at times, including last fall when she criticized Gov. Gavin Newsom for saying he’d appoint a Black woman to the seat to replace the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein — but not any of the candidates already running in the 2024 Senate election, since that would provide an advantage. That took Lee out of consideration for an appointment.
“By advocating for herself, she never had a chance. The minute she spoke up she [disqualified] herself,” said Democratic consultant Doug Herman, who helped elect Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass in 2022.
In the end, Newsom appointed Emily’s List Chief Executive Laphonza Butler, who later announced she wouldn’t run for a full term.
For Blain and other Lee allies, the goal was not to get a Black woman into that seat just to serve until the end of 2024 — but to have one win and serve an entire term.
“She did a great job of pushing, because the knots that Gavin tied himself up in needed to be exposed. He needed to be held accountable,” Blain said of Lee’s criticism of the governor.
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Lee’s political idealism and moral clarity rose from a life beset by heartache, personal injustice and misfortune.
Born in El Paso, Lee recalls often how her mother, Mildred, nearly died during childbirth. When Lee was a teenager, her family moved to the San Fernando Valley, where she became the first Black cheerleader at her high school after her mother urged her to enlist the support of the local chapter of the NAACP, the civil rights group.
Lee later became pregnant, and since abortion was then illegal in California — as it is now in many conservative states — her mother sent her back to Texas to cross the border with $200 to obtain an abortion in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico.
When she was just out of high school, she married an Air Force serviceman and moved to England, where they lived for two years before divorcing. She landed in the Bay Area with their two sons and began dating a man who abused her, she recounted in her autobiography, “Renegade for Peace and Justice: Congresswoman Barbara Lee Speaks for Me.”
Lee at a civil rights and nuclear disarmament march on the National Mall in Washington in 1978.
(Barbara Lee)
In the aftermath of this trauma, she floated in and out of homelessness — staying in cheap hotels to keep her young boys off the streets.
It was around this time when Lee arrived on Mills College’s campus and became enmeshed in the activist culture of the Black Panthers. By 1971 the organization had become famous — and heavily criticized — for its founders’ view that Black Americans needed to arm and protect themselves from law enforcement agencies targeting Black communities.
In the late 1960s, violent confrontations between the Black Panthers and police across the nation left organization leaders dead. The Black Panther Party’s armed patrols of Oakland neighborhoods to protect residents from police brutality, and their armed protest at the state Capitol, led to a 1967 California law that made it illegal to carry a loaded firearm in public without a permit — a law signed by the Republican governor, Ronald Reagan.
Images of armed Black Panther Party members in leather jackets and berets outside the Capitol swept the nation and brought the group more fame, funding and notoriety.
Lee never formally joined the party but served as a community worker at a time when the group was pulling back from its more global revolutionary goals and focusing on volunteer work and building local political power in the East Bay Area.
Lee with her former boss, the late Rep. Ronald V. Dellums of Oakland, right, a progressive icon whom she would succeed in Congress, in an undated photo.
(Barbara Lee)
“It was mainly community service, and political awareness,” Lee said.
Previously, Lee had been an underclassman at Mills who brought her two sons to statistics class and led the Black Student Union. She had never registered with a political party, much less voted. Her focus — very much at the behest of her parents — was good grades and stability. She bought her first home near campus for about $19,000 through a federal program while she was still a student.
When she took a class that required students to volunteer on a 1972 presidential campaign, none of the candidates appealed to her.
“I said, ‘Flunk me, I’m not working in any of these guys’ campaigns,’” she recalled.
That winter, faced with the prospect of failing the class, she invited then-Rep. Shirley Chisholm, a New York Democrat, to speak on campus to the Black Student Union. Chisholm, described by the Oakland Tribune as “the dynamic little woman with the big voice,” spoke about the need for big countries to limit arms sales, stopping aid to countries that repress their citizens, and reducing discrimination in housing.
All of these subjects would become signature policy issues for Lee.
“America is at a crossroads today and it is going to take a combination of men, women, young people, Blacks, Chicanos and Indians — everything put together, not in a melting pot but in a salad bowl — to straighten it out,” Chisholm told the crowd.
After Chisholm announced her plans to run for president, Lee walked up to her and volunteered for her campaign. Eventually she rose to become the campaign’s organizing director in Northern California and one of the 28 delegates representing Chisholm at the 1972 Democratic National Convention in Miami Beach.
Lee on the campus of her alma mater, Northeastern University Oakland (formerly Mills College), last month.
(Loren Elliott / For The Times)
“Barbara had never even registered to vote before. But in the end they were to be responsible for a 9.6 percent vote for me in Alameda County,” Chisholm wrote in her memoir of Lee and another Mills College student, Sandra Gaines.
Lee and Gaines, Chisholm wrote, “could operate without having the aura of power and authority that an outside leader would have relied on.”
The 20-something Lee had begun to straddle the worlds of activism and more mainstream political work. The Chisholm campaign taught her how to organize and to be a sophisticated fundraiser — training that would stay with her. But the experience also alienated her from some of the Black Panthers activists she worked with, Lee recounted in her book.
“There were Black Panthers who accused me of being an FBI agent or simply part of ‘The System,’” she wrote.
She’d arrived in the Bay Area in the late 1960s as a single mom to two children and had survived a violent and abusive relationship. By the middle of the next decade, her activism and organizing work would help her overcome the pain she’d experienced and give her a sense of purpose from which to build.
Lee said the Panthers and her time at Mills College served as a bridge from a young adulthood marked by insecurity and grief, and molded the political worldview that would carry her into elected office.
“Being a part of the Black Panther movement toughened me up,” she wrote.
“It made me realize that racism, sexism, economic exploitation, poverty … are a by-product or result of a system of capitalism that relies on cheap labor and keeping people fighting each other rather than uniting and working together for the common good.”
Mourners gather for the funeral of Black Panther George Jackson at St. Augustine’s Episcopal Church in Oakland in 1971.
(Harold Adler / Underwood Archives / Getty Images)
This foray into politics launched a career in which she was able to maneuver inside the system as well. After Chisholm lost, Lee worked as fundraising coordinator for the 1973 Oakland mayoral campaign of Black Panther founder Bobby Seale, who took the Republican incumbent to a runoff but lost.
As Lee fell more fully into political work, she obtained a master’s degree in social work from UC Berkeley in 1975 and helped start Community Health Alliance for Neighborhood Growth and Education, or CHANGE Inc., a nonprofit that offered mental services to East Bay residents.
Elaine Brown, a former Black Panther Party chair, said Lee was driven to help people, whether inside the political system or outside it.
“You have a Joe Biden today, who would pretend that he is doing something, but he’s not. Barbara was true to her word,” Brown said. “She wanted to be elected so she could vote for things that would serve our interests. It wasn’t very complicated. It was very deep and very sincere.”
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During a recent drive to St. Augustine’s Episcopal Church in west Oakland, Lee passed by large homeless encampments and boarded-up storefronts. The Black Panthers had served free breakfast for kids at the church — an experience that impressed upon her how government didn’t sufficiently care for the country’s neediest while focusing on military interventions abroad.
“It was always on my mind that what I saw then and now is because of systemic policies and institutional racism,” Lee said. “Back then I really felt I wasn’t just putting a Band-Aid on something.”
It was through political education classes, she said, that she’d come to understand “the circumstances that gave rise to this” system, but that “in the meantime, we had to help people survive.”
Lee poses outside St. Augustine’s Episcopal Church in Oakland, where she had participated in Black Panther Party events including serving free breakfast to kids.
(Loren Elliott / For The Times)
Lee eventually became chief of staff for Rep. Ronald V. Dellums (D-Oakland), a progressive icon whom she would succeed in Congress. In the mid-1990s, after she had returned to Oakland to run a facilities management company, it was Dellums’ political network that lured her back to politics, urging — really cajoling — her to run for an open state Assembly seat.
“She pays attention to what people’s needs are and hears them. She’s intellectually brilliant at composing solutions for problems both at an individual and social scale,” said Lee Halterman, who spent 27 years working for Dellums and advised some of Lee’s early campaigns.
“We wanted to continue the coalition idea,” Halterman said, “that in districts that can send people of color to Congress, that should be a priority.”
In 1998, after Dellums resigned midway through his term, Lee won a special election for his House seat.
Sitting in a coffee shop around the corner from St. Augustine’s Church, Lee doused a slice of avocado toast in hot sauce and sipped a honey oat lavender latte. Three constituents of Ethiopian descent came up to thank her for her office’s help dealing with some paperwork problems on a citizenship application.
Lee in front of her former home in Oakland last month.
(Loren Elliott / For The Times)
There’s been less time in recent years for Lee to visit these moments from her past and connect with this history. The COVID-19 pandemic meant that she spent less time at in-person events. The Senate campaign has meant she’s traversing the state more when she’s not in Washington for votes.
She recalled a piece of advice from Dellums: “He would always say this to me: ‘Stand on the corner — by yourself. Just stand there. Sooner or later, everybody is going to walk to you if you’re on the right side of the issue.’”
Politics
Emotion and feelings: How Democratic Socialists’ congressional insurgency could come back to bite them
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Democratic Socialists of America are on the charge, running hot off their wins in the New York Democratic primaries last week. Their victories in multiple Congressional seats – felling both Reps. Adriano Espaillat, D-N.Y., and Dan Goldman, D-N.Y. – signals that the party is ready to move on from the same old, same old.
Espaillat chaired the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. Goldman was a key House staffer during the first impeachment of President Donald Trump.
“Even Dan Goldman’s not good enough for them,” said House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, on Fox. “That is how radical it’s become.”
Some moderate Democrats are trying to distance themselves from the left.
MAMDANI-BACKED SOCIALISTS LOOK TO TAKE NEW YORK PLAYBOOK NATIONWIDE AFTER PRIMARY VICTORIES
The left flank of the Democratic Party has surged to the top of the nation’s most hotly-contested primaries. (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
“That’s not the same brand of politics that we have. We’re not those type of Democrats,” said Rep. Tom Suozzi, D-N.Y., who represents a battleground district.
“There’s a new group of Democratic Socialists who are socialists who are not commonsense Democrats. Who are not interested in getting things done. They’re interested in throwing bombs. Not actually solving problems,” said Rep. Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J.
LURCHING LEFT: MAMDANI-BACKED CANDIDATES OUST ESTABLISHMENT DEMOCRATS
Some Democrats are worried how far left candidates command more attention than those in the middle. Rep. Kristen McDonald Rivet, D-Mich., worries that the outsized attention garnered by the left sends the wrong impression to voters.
“What they don’t want is divisiveness. They don’t want screaming and yelling,” said McDonald Rivet.
Mainstream Democrats feel trapped in the middle as the left – specifically the New York City left – wields an outsized media and political megaphone.
“Those candidates would not have won in Virginia where I live,” said Rep. Suhas Subramanyam, D-Va.
Rep. Tom Suozzi, D-N.Y., is among the moderate Democrats trying to distance themselves from the party’s insurgent wing. (Nathan Posner/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Republicans believe they are primed to nationalize the midterms. Republicans can do that by highlighting the extreme views of Democratic Socialists who captured primary victories in New York City. The GOP wants to portray their opponents as veering left.
“These are board-certified communists, right?” asked Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan. “They want no police. They want no private property.”
President Trump capitalized on the Democratic outcomes in his home city.
“The Democrat party is in big trouble because this isn’t stopping with New York,” he forecast.
VICTORIES BY MAMDANI-BACKED CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATES SPOTLIGHTS GROWING RIFT IN DEMOCRATIC PARTY
This shakeup has progressive leaders demanding transformation at the top.
“You’re going to see, I think, people voting for new leadership and to change their representation,” said Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y.
The Democratic Party tapped Sen. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., to deliver their official response to President Trump’s 2025 State of the Union speech. Slotkin is a moderate who won in a battleground race in 2024 – even as the President prevailed in the Wolverine State. But during an appearance on SiriusXM, Slotkin insists on a Democratic Party management switch.
“If people can’t understand that the game has fundamentally changed and they can’t adapt, then they need to let others,” said Slotkin. “The old models do not work for people.”
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., is perceived by Republicans as vulnerable after his preferred candidates failed in their congressional primaries. (Roberto Schmidt/Getty Images)
Republicans believe House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., is vulnerable after the DSA elected their candidates over his preferred picks in New York City.
“I think Hakeem Jeffries’ friends and neighbors gave him a big middle finger,” said House Oversight Chairman James Comer, R-Ky. “If you lose three elections in your hometown, that’s a pretty big slap in the face.”
He added that Democrats “are going further and further to the left to the point where they are full-blown, card-carrying socialists.”
And then there is the anti-Israel, anti-Jewish, and in some cases, antisemitic take by some of these candidates. Rep. Greg Landsman, D-Ohio, is a moderate Democrat from a swing district. He’s Jewish and one of the most pro-Israel Democrats in the House.
“There are some on the left who use Israel the way that some on the right use immigrants or trans kids as a way to divide. And I think it’s terrible. It’s also just not what voters want us talking about,” said Landsman.
HOUSE DEMOCRAT LASHES OUT WHEN GRILLED ON WHETHER SOCIALIST VICTORIES WOULD THREATEN DEM UNITY
Yours truly tangled with Rep. John Larson, D-Conn. – who once chaired the House Democratic Caucus. I pressed him about what the party would do about some candidates “who are too far to the left.”
“What does that mean? That’s your statement. Did the people of New York vote?” queried Larson.
I assured him that they did.
“Is that democracy?” asked Larson.
“But if some of them are antisemitic,” I countered.
“Is that a democracy?” continued Larson.
“Will you stand by people if they have antisemitic views?” I followed up.
Larson finally addressed my inquiry. His answer crystallized the schism the Democratic Party now faces.
“I’m against antisemitism, if that’s your question,” Larson declared.
Rep. John Larson, D-Conn., got into a heated exchange with Fox News’ Chad Pergram over the views of some likely members of his party’s next freshman class. (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
The fact that Democrats are now facing this debate robs them of valuable time on economic issues.
Landsman argued that voters would prefer candidates to stick to groceries and the price of gas.
Gottheimer echoed Landsman on kitchen table subjects.
“We should be focused on ways to actually solve problems like that. Not coming in here and using tea party tactics and trying to divide up the country and pray to socialist ideals,” said Gottheimer.
So what is the party to do?
DEMOCRACY ’26: STAY UP TO DATE WITH THE FOX NEWS ELECTION HUB
“They’re our nominees. We’re going to support them. We’re going to welcome them. They’re going to be part of our caucus and we’re going to unite behind Leader Jeffries,” said Rep. Robert Garcia, D-Calif., the top Democrat on the Oversight panel.
But that doesn’t address the fissures. It doesn’t address how voters may perceive the party. And it doesn’t establish if these new Democratic nominees will work on behalf of the party to raise money and advocate for Democrats across the board. Or, will they become professional bomb throwers – ala what the right has endured for a while.
“It’s going to be a lot harder to get things done when you get more and more extreme candidates who are here because they’re interested in political celebrity. They are interested in fighting. They’re interested in making points,” asserted Rep. Dusty Johnson, R-S.D.
Republicans have had an abysmal week themselves – President Donald Trump and Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., for instance, got into a shouting match over Iran. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images; Tyler Kaufman/Getty Images)
Republicans suffered through an absolutely abysmal week. House GOP leaders had to yank multiple bills off the floor and send lawmakers home early because of internal disputes. President Trump and Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., got into a shouting match about Iran. And the president even threatened to veto a bipartisan housing bill. President Trump then refused to sign the bill at the Capitol, despite his aides touting the bill and House Republicans tricking out Statuary Hall for a signing ceremony.
The President characterized the housing bill as “a yawn.”
But the Democrats’ internal fractures may have superseded any internecine fighting among Republicans.
“While it’s not been a great week for Republicans, I think it’s been a much worse week for Democrats because of these primary elections,” observed Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, R-Fla.
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Democrats will certainly run on economic issues and capitalize on statements by the President about basic issues like housing. But will a genuine policy debate outweigh fears about progressives nationwide?
Emotion and feelings rule in politics. And it could be a problem for Democrats if Republicans appropriate what happened in New York and Xerox it onto battleground districts across the country.
Anthropic teamed up with California to get more state workers to use its artificial intelligence assistant Claude as part of an effort to leverage technology to make the government more efficient.
Gov. Gavin Newsom, who announced the partnership on Monday, said state agencies will be able to access Claude at a 50% discount. Free training and other assistance will also be available to the workers. California’s local governments will also get the same discount under the agreement.
Government workers can use Claude to draft and summarize documents, analyze information and do other tasks.
Anthropic, an AI company based in San Francisco, has a version of its AI assistant for government clients that provides more security than what it provides other consumers.
The new partnership shows how AI is playing a bigger role at work as tech companies market their tools as ways to complete tasks more quickly. Last year, San Francisco made Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat, which is powered by OpenAI’s model, available to nearly 30,000 city employees.
Still, the rise of automation at work has heightened concerns that people will lose their jobs. There are also worries that there are not yet adequate guardrails in place to mitigate data privacy and security risks.
Anthropic and the governor said that they’re focused on the responsible use of AI.
“AI should not replace the human work of government; it should help our workers move faster, solve problems more effectively, and deliver better results for Californians,” Newsom said in a statement.
The remarks didn’t appear to comfort union leaders.
“Wow. Look local government, the Gov is giving you a 50% off coupon to give up your residents’ private data, outsource your jobs to big tech. Isn’t that cool? Because California basically invented AI slop!” said Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher, president of the California Federation of Labor Unions, AFL-CIO, in a post on X.
Anthropic has faced political hurdles as it pushes to get more companies and government agencies to use its products.
Most notable, it’s sparred publicly with the Trump administration, which ordered the company to cut off foreign access to its most powerful AI systems this month.
The Trump administration cited potential national security risks, but Anthropic disagreed with the findings. Last week, tensions decreased after the U.S. government gave Anthropic permission to restore access to its AI model Mythos to certain clients.
Valued at nearly $1 trillion, Anthropic has also signaled it plans to become a publicly traded company.
California has already started using Claude more in state government to develop tools to get the public to engage more in AI policy discussions and assist state workers, the governor’s office said in its news release.
State agencies, including the Department of Motor Vehicles, are also using AI to reduce wait times and improve customer service.
“As state employees, our goal is to provide our fellow Californians with the best possible service,” Government Operations Agency Secretary Nick Maduros said in a statement. “To do that, we need to make sure our teams have access to the best modern tools, including Claude and other emerging technologies.”
Politics
DOJ launches grand jury probe into Marxist mogul Neville Roy Singham’s funding of leftist groups
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FIRST ON FOX: A federal grand jury is investigating alleged financial crimes by Neville Roy Singham, the China-based tech tycoon whose fortune has funded a sprawling network of socialist, communist and Marxist organizations across the U.S. over the last decade.
According to sources familiar with the matter, the grand jury in Manhattan has issued subpoenas as part of a probe launched by U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton for the Southern District of New York, one of the country’s most powerful districts for federal prosecutions. Acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche authorized the investigation as the Trump administration seeks to crack down on fraud, money laundering and other financial crimes in the multibillion-dollar nonprofit industry.
The grand jury action follows a Fox News Digital investigation published in mid-March, documenting how Singham pumped $285 million from his base in Shanghai into a Goldman Sachs philanthropy fund and two shell corporations that then fed the money into a constellation of nonprofit organizations, media operations and activist groups pushing sectarian division, identity politics and support for socialist politicians.
The investigation is examining the movement of the money in Singham’s financial network and attempting to determine if Singham, the organizations he funded or their leaders committed wire fraud, bank fraud, money laundering or other financial crimes, according to sources familiar with the matter.
HOUSE OF SINGHAM: READ FOX NEWS DIGITAL’S 5-PART INVESTIGATION
On Feb. 14, 2018, Jodie Evans, co-founder founder of CodePink, and Neville Roy Singham, founder of Thoughtworks, attend V20: The Red Party, a 20th anniversary celebration of V-Day and The Vagina Monologues, featuring a performance by playwright Eve Ensler and an after-party at Carnegie Hall in New York City. (Dave Kotinsky/Getty Images)
Prosecutors have presented evidence to the grand jury, which has issued subpoenas seeking bank records and other financial documents from organizations in Singham’s network. Federal prosecutors use grand jury subpoenas as an investigative tool to compel the production of documents and testimony as they determine whether sufficient evidence exists to pursue criminal charges.
Nicholas Biase, spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, declined to comment.
Showdown with Goldman Sachs
According to sources, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent traveled to New York City earlier this year for a meeting with Goldman Sachs Chairman and CEO David Solomon. The men discussed the role of a Goldman Sachs philanthropic arm — GS Donor Advised Philanthropy Fund For Wealth Management Inc. — that facilitated the movement by Singham of millions of dollars into a network of U.S. nonprofits.
A Treasury Department spokesman declined to comment. A person familiar with the meeting confirmed that it occurred, saying that Bessent has regular meetings with business leaders, and declined to comment further on the substance of the meeting.
At that meeting, sources said, Bessent delivered a blunt ultimatum: Goldman Sachs could face scrutiny for alleged conspiracy in the funneling of the Singham money and urged Solomon to cooperate with federal investigators.
Like many U.S. companies, Goldman Sachs has had a long business relationship with the Chinese Communist Party, with Solomon participating in a meeting, for example, on Nov. 4, 2025, with He Lifeng, a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and director of the Office of the Central Commission for Financial and Economic Affairs.
Solomon pledged his cooperation, according to sources.
WALL STREET BANKS HELPED CHINESE MILITARY-LINKED FIRM RAISE BILLIONS DESPITE RED FLAGS, LAWMAKERS FIND
By mid-May, with the Southern District of New York investigation in full throttle, Solomon joined a delegation of powerful American business leaders who accompanied President Donald Trump, Bessent and other administration officials to China to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping and other leaders of the Chinese Communist Party.
On Nov. 4, 2025, He Lifeng, a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and director of the Office of the Central Commission for Financial and Economic Affairs, meets in Beijing with David Solomon, chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs Group. (Cai Yang/Xinhua News Agency via Getty Images)
In a five-part investigative series published earlier this year, Fox News Digital unearthed a four-minute-13-second speech in which Singham stood on a stage at the Golden Tulip Hotel on Nov. 13, 2025, for a conference of the “Global South Academic Forum,” coincidentally just days after the Goldman Sachs’ chief was in Beijing. Tricontinental Ltd., a Singham-funded nonprofit, co-sponsored the event with academic institutions administered by the Chinese Communist Party.
On stage, Singham openly supported a “new world order” promoted by Chinese President Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party. During the speech, he called the United States a “fascist” nation, echoing the propaganda of the Chinese Communist Party now also parroted on the streets by communist, socialist and Democratic Party activists.
WATCH THE NOVEMBER 2025 SINGHAM SPEECH:
The series revealed a 172-page report in which Singham outlined his theory of change, invoking 20th century Chinese communist leader Mao Zedong’s battle plan to wage a “people’s war” to spread communism. Mao was inspired by communist leaders Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin.
LAWMAKERS RAISE ALARM OVER NEVILLE ROY SINGHAM’S $278M NETWORK SPREADING CCP PROPAGANDA IN THE U.S.
Singham’s rise as a global political financier accelerated after his February 2017 marriage to Jodie Evans, the co-founder of Code Pink, a far-left activist group that has aligned itself with authoritarian regimes including the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Communist Party of Cuba and the Chinese Communist Party. According to sources, Evans is also a target of the investigation, emerging as a board member in the U.S. on many of the organizations that Singham funded.
That same year, Singham sold his company, ThoughtWorks, for an estimated $785 million to a London-based private equity firm, Apax Partners. A spokeswoman for Apax Partners said the company wouldn’t disclose the names of the investors who pumped money into that sale, but sources told Fox News Digital that federal investigators are looking for potential ties to the Chinese Communist Party.
After that sale, Fox News Digital found, Singham began directing large sums of money into a network of organizations that now form part of a broader activist infrastructure in the United States and abroad.
In its investigation, Fox News Digital mapped 223 transactions from 2017 through 2025 that moved $591 million across five continents through 67 core groups in the Singham network. They partner with hundreds of groups worldwide, resulting in a network of about 2,000 groups, amplifying anti-U.S., pro-China messages.
Of that money, Fox News Digital established a documented $278 million flowed directly from Singham into organizations that “sow discord” in the U.S., as House Ways and Means Chair Jason Smith put it earlier this year at a hearing a dynamics called “foreign malign influence.”
Following the Money
In money-laundering investigations, prosecutors typically examine three stages of alleged impropriety called “placement,” “layering” and “integration.” Placement refers to the introduction of funds into the financial system. Layering involves moving money through multiple entities or transactions to allegedly obscure its origin. Integration is the point at which the money reemerges as apparently legitimate funding, grants, payments or organizational support.
Step 1: Alleged Placement
Singham allegedly funneled $278 million from Shanghai into the United States through three key channels — the philanthropic arm of Goldman Sachs and two shell corporations that have since gone defunct.
- $164,040,000 to Mutod LLC, a now-defunct shell corporation established in 2017, based in Chicago.
- $110,376,701 to GS Donor Advised Philanthropy Fund For Wealth Management Inc., a philanthropy arm of Goldman Sachs, based in New York City.
- $3,500,000 to Likewise Conceptions LLC, a now-defunct shell corporation established in 2017, based in Crystal Lake, Ill.
Step. 2: Alleged Layering
The three entities then pumped the $278 million into six nonprofits:
- $167,540,000 to People’s Support Foundation Ltd., a 501(c)(3) nonprofit established with a hotel address in 2017 in Chicago and Singham’s wife, Evans, on the board.
- $68,748,701 to Justice and Education Fund Inc., a 501(c)(3) established with a UPS Store address in 2018 in New York City with self-avowed communists, including Manola De Los Santos, on the board.
- $22,440,000 to People’s Forum Inc., a 501(c)(3) established in 2017 on W. 37th Street in New York City with Evans and De Los Santos on the board.
- $16,760,000 to Tricontinental Ltd., a 501(c)(3) established in North Hampton, Mass., in 2017 by Singham friend and fellow Marxist ideologue Vijay Prashad.
- $1,330,000 to CodePink Women For Peace, a 501(c)(3) established in 2009 in Marina Del Ray, Calif., by Singham’s wife, Evans, and her friend, Susan Medea Benjamin.
- $1,098,000 to Breakthrough BT Media Inc., a 501(c)(3) established in New York City in 2020 at the People’s Forum headquarters with longtime American communist leader Brian Becker’s son, Ben Becker, as editor-in-chief of its pro-communist propaganda outlet, Breakthrough News.
Step 3: Alleged Integration
The six nonprofits then funneled at least $223 million and other forms of support into a global network of organizations including:
- People’s Welfare Association, a 501(c)(4) established in 2019 with the address of a UPS store in Madison, Wisc., today reporting about $12 million in revenues transformed into grants to undisclosed groups around the world.
- Countless unidentified organizations in six regions around the world, including Subsaharan Africa, Central America and even North America, receiving tens of millions of dollars.
- The ANSWER Coalition, a communist organization whose Chicago address has been listed as the location of the Green Mill Restaurant, a regular haunt for 20th century gangster Al Capone, whom federal prosecutor Elliott Ness prosecuted and convicted for tax evasion.
- The Party for Socialism and Liberation, a loosely-structured organization with shared leadership from the House of Singham, like the Becker father-son duo.
FLASHBACK: INSIDE THE POLITICAL MOVEMENT THAT PUT A SOCIALIST IN CHARGE OF NEW YORK CITY
Socialist New York congressional nominees Darializa Avila Chevalier (L), Claire Valdez (C) and Brad Lander. (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images; Michael Nagle/Bloomberg via Getty Images; Adam Gray/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Singham and Evans haven’t responded to repeated requests for comment from Fox News Digital. In January, Becker and De Los Santos refused to respond to questions by Fox News Digital outside the People’s Forum headquarters. Benjamin refused to respond to questions during a protest in May.
The ANSWER Coalition, Breakthrough BT Media Inc., CodePink Women for Peace, Justice and Education Fund Inc., Party for Socialism and Liberation, People’s Forum Inc., People’s Welfare Association and Tricontinental Ltd. also haven’t responded to repeated requests for comment. Representatives for Mutod Ltd. and Likewise Conceptions LLC couldn’t be located.
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