Speaking on “The Tucker Carlson Tonight Show” on Wednesday (Feb. 24), former Deputy Secretary of Commerce Corey Stewart said AT&T Inc. pressured the Commerce Department to remove China Telecom from the U.S. sanctions list. China Telecom, which is notorious for its human rights abuses against the Uighur people.
The allegations were first reported by National File last week, and Stewart confirmed the allegations.
Carlson described AT&T’s efforts to get China Telecom off the Commerce Department’s “entity list” and explained that U.S. officials believe China Telecom is backed by the Communist Party’s military and is effectively “under the control” of the Communist Party.
Stewart said in the interview that AT&T’s practices are troubling, “We have a lot of indications, based on accurate intelligence, that the Chinese (Communist) government is tracking and spying on ethnic minorities through cell phone and telecommunications technology, and then turning that information over to the police department, which is rounding up Uighurs …… “
He cited intelligence that the CCP was putting Uighurs in concentration camps and subjecting them to brutal persecution such as torture, gang rape and possibly death, and that China Telecom was assisting in these atrocities, so “we were shocked when AT&T Executive Vice President Ed Gillespie contacted us and urged us not to place them on the entity list .”
“They were effectively putting profits ahead of human rights and U.S. national security concerns.” Stewart added.
Later that evening, AT&T issued a statement on “The Tonight Show with Tucker Carlson” calling the show “misleading,” but in the statement AT&T acknowledged that it did not want China Telecom to be sanctioned, saying, “If No non-Chinese telecommunications provider can provide services to U.S. companies operating in China without going through a licensed Chinese telecommunications company.”
“Such services can only be provided through a Chinese state-owned company, not AT&T or any U.S. company. We and other companies explained this to the Commerce Department and other government officials, informing them of the potential, unintended consequences that would be triggered when placing Chinese telecommunications on the entity list.” The statement said.
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