President-elect Joe Biden announces his cabinet at the Queen’s Theatre in Wilmington, Delaware, Jan. 8, 2021.
President-elect Joe Biden’s inaugural committee, which returned former Sen. Joe Biden’s inaugural committee returned a $500 donation from former Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA). The California Democrat is registered as a foreign agent for a Chinese surveillance company, Hikvision, which is accused of assisting the Chinese Communist government in the mass surveillance and detention of Uighurs.
According to a Jan. 12 filing with the Justice Department by Mercury Public Affairs, Burkholder will provide “strategic consulting services” to the U.S. subsidiary of the Chinese surveillance company Hikvision, according to a Jan. 8 report in the U.S. media. Burkholder is currently co-chair of Mercury Public Affairs’ Los Angeles office.
Burkholder, who served in the Senate from 1993 to 2017, has registered as a foreign agent to lobby for Hikvision USA, the U.S. subsidiary of Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology Co. (Hikvision), a Chinese surveillance company that has been blacklisted by the U.S. government.
But Burkholder told Axios, “When I was asked to provide strategic advice to help the company operate in a way that was more responsible and humane, and in spirit and literally in compliance with U.S. law, it was an opportunity to improve the situation while helping to protect and create American jobs.” .
Burkholder’s disclosures were filed under the Foreign Agents Registration Act and were first reported by the U.S. media outlet Daily Caller. After the report revealed that she donated $500 to the Biden inaugural committee in late December of last year, a spokesman for the committee told Axios that the donation would be refunded.
The spokesman said the donation violated the inaugural committee’s policy of not accepting contributions from registered foreign agents. The spokesman added that Burkholder’s contribution was made on her own volition and that the inaugural committee did not ask for it.
During his presidential campaign last year, Biden strongly condemned the Chinese Communist government’s treatment of the Uighur people, calling it “genocide. Beijing has denied human rights abuses in Xinjiang, but an Associated Press investigation in 2020 found reports of forced sterilization and abortions of Uighurs.
Hikvision’s Situation in the U.S.
In 2019, the Trump administration banned Hikvision from doing business with U.S. companies that did not have a U.S. government license, citing the parent company’s alleged involvement in the repression of Muslim minorities in China’s Xinjiang region. The U.S. Department of Commerce added Hikvision to its trade blacklist on October 8, 2019
In 2020, the Trump administration accused Hikvision of having ties to the Chinese Communist Party military and barred Americans from investing in the company. The Trump administration has cracked down on investments in companies with ties to the Chinese Communist government and military, including Hikvision and huawei.
China Electronics Technology Group, owned by the Communist government, is the controlling shareholder of Hikvision, with a 42 percent stake. Hikvision cameras have been installed in internment camps in Xinjiang, where it is estimated that more than a million Uighurs are imprisoned or subjected to forced labor.
Hikvision also makes many of the cameras used to monitor U.S. military bases, American streets and houses, according to a Nov. 12, 2017, report in the Wall Street Journal.
Burkholder’s relationship with Biden
According to Axios, Burkholder’s registration indicates that Mercury Public Affairs is strengthening its Hikvision communications team with the goal of more effectively guiding the incoming Biden administration.
Burkholder’s work for Hikvision at Mercury Public Affairs may indicate that the lobbying firm, founded by former Republican Rep. Vin Weber (R-Texas), is looking to use a veteran Democrat to broaden its government reach.
Biden was a colleague of Burkholder’s in the Senate for more than two decades, and Burkholder embraced Biden as a candidate on March 1, 2020, according to a Biden campaign statement released ahead of the California primary. She also spoke favorably of Biden during the 2020 presidential election.
Burkholder served as a senator from 1993 until her retirement in 2017. Vice President-elect Kamala Harris was elected to succeed her as senator in November 2016, making the two the equivalent of a former and junior relationship for a district’s senate seat.
According to Axios, Burkholder is one of two former senators lobbying for Hikvision, the other being former Republican Sen. David Vitter (R-Pa.).
The Washington Post reported in October 2019 that Vitter complained about the Trump administration’s “attacks” on Hikvision during a company conference call. Vitter said, “From the very beginning, all of our focused goals in this anti-China trade war environment have really been to make sure that Hikvision survives.”
Mercury Public Affairs Lobbies for Authoritarian Government
Mercury Public Affairs has lobbied on behalf of several controversial foreign clients, including the governments of Turkey, Libya and Kazakhstan, Daily Caller reported.
Federal prosecutors have also investigated Mercury Public Affairs’ ties to lobbying efforts conducted by former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort. Manafort worked with several lobbying firms, including Mercury Public Affairs and the now-defunct Podesta Group, to lobby on behalf of the Ukrainian government in 2014.
Mercury Public Affairs and the Podesta Group were never charged in the investigation.
Mercury Public Affairs signed an agreement with Hikvision in August 2018 to provide Hikvision with “strategic advice and management” related to lobbying, government relations and public affairs in accordance with the National Defense Authorization Act. Mercury Public Affairs said in its registration statement, “These services will include liaison with U.S. officials.”
According to Mercury Public Affairs’ most recent financial disclosure, Hikvision paid the firm more than $914,000 in fees in the first half of 2020.
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