WASHINGTON, D.C. — In a series of exclusive interviews with Fox News Digital, lawmakers on the House Foreign Affairs Committee sounded the alarm on a sprawling network of "Trojan horse" activists, nonprofits and social media influencers allegedly amplifying the hostile messages of foreign adversaries straight through the open gates of American democracy. The warning came into sharp focus Tuesday when CodePink co-founder Medea Benjamin and two fellow activists walked into House Rayburn 2172 for a hearing on covert foreign influence operations, then strategically positioned themselves behind witnesses in T-shirts supporting the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Communist Party of Cuba. About 30 minutes into the hearing, South and Central Asia Subcommittee Chairman Bill Huizenga, R-Mich., stopped the hearing and had Capitol Police escort them out.
"They're coming in, trying to look like one thing, but we know that once they're inside the gates that those doors are going to spring open and there's a whole other motivation for what they're trying to do," Huizenga told Fox News Digital. At the center of the controversy is communist tech tycoon Neville Roy Singham, who married CodePink co-founder Jodie Evans in a tropical wedding in Jamaica in 2017, soon after funneling $285 million to six pro-China, pro-communist, anti-American nonprofits in the U.S., including CodePink, according to a Fox News Digital investigation. Lawmakers say the answer is transparency: following the money and exposing who finances the alleged "Trojan horse." In their series of interviews, Huizenga and other committee members explained how the modern "Trojan horse" isn't made of wood but rather a network of activists, nonprofits, social-media influencers and other ostensibly American voices that foreign governments and foreign-linked actors can allegedly fund, amplify or exploit to carry their messages through the open gates of American democracy.
LAWMAKERS THROW OUT 'TROJAN HORSE' ACTIVISTS THEY SAY ARE ENGAGED IN AMERICAN SUBVERSION At the hearing, devoted to "Trojan Horses: Covert Foreign Malign Influence Operations in America," lawmakers expressed concern about how the Communist Party of China, Russia, the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Communist Party of Cuba spread their propaganda and influence in the U.S. The phrase "Trojan horse" comes from the ancient Greek story of soldiers concealed inside a wooden horse presented to the city of Troy. Once the horse was brought behind the city's fortified walls, the soldiers emerged and opened the gates, destroying Troy.
Huizenga stressed that Americans can hold sincere beliefs while also having those messages funded or amplified by foreign actors without necessarily knowing it. He argued that the answer to foreign influence is exposing the origins of the messaging through transparency and robust debate. Inside the hearing room, as Fox News Digital reported, Benjamin and her fellow CodePink activists offered a vivid illustration of the debate over how political messages are created and amplified.
They sat directly behind the witnesses, placing their T-shirts in the sightline of the official committee cameras. Benjamin then turned toward a television monitor on the side of the hearing room displaying the official video feed. She pulled out her phone, zoomed in on the image of herself and a fellow activist appearing behind the witnesses and took photo after photo of the screen.
HOUSE PANEL PROBES FOREIGN ‘TROJAN HORSES’ AS SINGHAM SCRUTINY WIDENS Huizenga said he viewed the episode as political theater designed for an audience beyond the committee room. "This isn't about discourse. This is about disruption," Huizenga told Fox News Digital.
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