Congressman Ro Khanna has been in the news lately.
In November 2025, his bill the Epstein Files Transparency Act was signed into law. He grabbed many headlines thereafter by calling for the release of those Epstein files. In early March of this year, he cosponsored the federal Make Billionaires Pay Their Fair Share Act. This irritated his Silicon Valley constituents, who generated more headlines by threatening to primary him. In early April, he demanded Article 25 action to remove President Trump from office.
Less dramatically, in January of this year he took the chair as ranking Democrat on the House Select Committee on Strategic Competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party. The Democrats on this committee tend to join their Republican counterparts in criticism of China. Let’s look at some of the press releases and statements since Khanna took his position.
These are from March:
● Khanna, Moolenaar Slam China’s Interference After Taiwan Blocked from WTO Ministerial Conference
● Ranking Member Ro Khanna and Select Committee Democrats Question Witnesses During Hearing on How China is Cornering the Market on Our Medicines
● Khanna, Moolenaar Investigate U.S. Underwriters That Helped Chinese Businesses Rip Off Americans
There is some slop mixed in as well:
● Ranking Member Khanna Responds to Trump’s Attacks on Birthright Citizenship
● Ranking Member Khanna Statement on Trump’s Iran Conflict Weakening U.S. Readiness Against China
● Khanna Warns U.S. Must Strengthen Strategy on China After Economy Loses 92,000 Jobs
Khanna (shown above) is going to put a little heat on Red China, but he’s going to put some on President Trump and the Republicans as well. It’s all part of running for president, which can tempt a politician into staging crazy stunts.
But what if a congressman took the Select Committee seriously?
Entanglement
The biggest problem with having a California Democrat doing any work on this committee is the state party’s hopeless entanglement with the Chinese Communist Party and its proxies.
Consider a few recent scandals.
In 2025, the Washington Examiner and the Daily Caller published exposes on how “individuals tied to Chinese Communist Party influence operations and employed by Beijing-linked companies have poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into the campaign accounts of California Democrats, including to [Governor Gavin] Newsom and his key allies….
“State, local, and Federal Democrats in California have received well over $200,000 from top staffers at the following companies: BYD, Baidu, Alibaba, ByteDance, Huawei, Tencent, DeHeng, and Wanxiang Corporation. All were singled out by lawmakers and the press for their purported collaborative relationships with the CCP….”
The Select Committee on the CCP got some much-needed but possibly unwanted help from the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform in June when Oversight decided to investigate “the financial and political activities of Neville Singham, a U.S. billionaire with ties to the Chinese Communist Party, that may be linked to the ongoing riots and violence in Los Angeles, California, as well as the far-left organization Code Pink.”
Talking points
This U.S. billionaire lives in Red China. In a letter to Singham, the Oversight Committee notes that in 2019, he “started a consulting business with [communist] Chinese partners ‘active in the propaganda apparatus’ of the CCP.” He supports “BreakThrough Media, a platform known for promoting pro-CCP talking points and geopolitical interests.” Reporters “tracked hundreds of millions of dollars to groups linked to you that mix progressive advocacy with Chinese government talking points.”
Last year, former Congresswoman Michelle Steel gave an interview explaining how “China is quietly expanding its control over California’s ports, universities, and technology.”
Also last year, Jedd McFatter and Susan Crabtree wrote extensively about Newsom’s relationship with the Chinese community in the Bay Area and his ties to CCP businesses in their book Fool’s Gold: The Radicals, Con Artists, and Traitors Who Killed the California Dream and Now Threaten Us All.
And lately the matter of Chicom spy Fang Fang and her ex-boyfriend Congressman Eric Swalwell have been back in the news as Swalwell ran for governor of California, until other scandals intruded.
Sitting duck
So for a reality-based Select Committee on the CCP, California’s CCP connections would be one of its most natural targets, a sitting duck at this point. But it would also require any Golden State Democrat on that committee to risk harming one of his own. Which seems unlikely.
Get a non-Californian to serve as ranking Democrat and the committee can begin hearings to expose the extent of California’s communist rot.
And as Ro Khanna runs for president, let’s keep a close eye on the sources of his finances. Let’s see if he stands above the California rot himself. □
James Roth works for a major defense contractor in Virginia.
Also see:
The Hill: “Khanna endorses Mamdani in NYC mayoral race” (July 7, 2025)
“Khanna said he doesn’t agree with Mamdani on every issue but…”
