Secure Freedom Minute

This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute.      

Donald Trump rightly says he’s a “wartime president.” Only our enemy is not an “invisible,” viral one. Rather, it’s the Chinese Communist Party that deliberately unleashed a pandemic on us – arguably causing more damage to this country than any conflict in our history.

Today, Mr. Trump will tell the nation what he is going to do in response to freedom’s first strategic defeat at the hands of the CCP’s “unrestricted warfare” against it.

He must put America on a war-footing.

After all, as things stand now, the CCP’s creeping destruction of Hong Kong will surely be followed shortly by the kinetic kind against Taiwan. Our only chance to stave off that disaster – and probably worse – is to take decisive actions now. There is no time for symbolic gestures or grandiose, but hollow, rhetoric.

Mr. President, summon your inner Churchill. And defend freedom.

 

This is Frank Gaffney.

This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute.      

Yesterday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo declared that Hong Kong no longer can function autonomously from the Chinese Communist Party-ruled mainland. That statement sets the stage for American responses that will hopefully both punish the CCP for its freedom-crushing aggression and protect people in the Western Pacific and here from Xi Jinping’s ambitions to do the same to the rest of us.

Congress appears anxious to help. It just sent to the President a bill retaliating for the CCP’s ruthless oppression of Uighur Muslims. Legislators and executive branch officials alike need now to impose sanctions impeding such unacceptable behavior towards all faith communities in China and dire threats to our nation and others.

The Committee on the Present Danger: China yesterday recommended twelve steps that would help. Visit PresentDangerChina.org to learn more about realistic, actionable options we should exercise at once.

This is Frank Gaffney.

This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute.      

Americans reeling from the effects of the Chinese Communist Party’s virus are coming to grips with the myriad threats we face from the perpetrators – and how unprepared we are to deal with them. The question occurs how did this happen?

Consider the role played by Joe Biden and his principal surrogate at the moment, Barack Obama, in what is euphemistically called “China’s rise.” On their watch, the CCP secured, for example, the following: trillions of dollars, thanks to preferential access to our capital markets; the unimpeded opportunity to build fortified islands to control the international waters of the South China Sea; a highly favorable climate deal; and expanded latitude to acquire assets and technology in our country – even ones of strategic relevance.

In November 2017, Chinese state media equated dictator Xi Jinping and Obama as “veteran cadre.” With good reason.

This is Frank Gaffney.

This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute.      

Thank heavens, President Trump recently blocked the investment of retirement savings of U.S. military personnel and other federal employees in Chinese Communist Party companies. 

There are three justifications: First, such companies don’t comply with our rules designed to protect investors against fraud and material risk. Second, some pose a threat to our national security. And third, some help the CCP violate the human rights of its own people and, increasingly, others around the world. 

Unfortunately, Wall Street indexes that guide many exchange traded funds are investing in those same Chinese companies other savings belonging to our servicemen and women and their civilian counterparts. 

Worse yet, no one – not the indexes, not the exchange traded funds and not the Securities and Exchange Commission – is doing due diligence on these CCP corporations. Or reliable audits. What could possibly go wrong? 

That must stop, too. 

This is Frank Gaffney.

This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute.      

Sen. Tom Cotton has correctly concluded that the Chinese Communist Party deliberately, consciously and malevolently allowed a lethal virus to spread worldwide. At a minimum, the CCP has fully exploited the damage done by its pandemic.

Look no further than Hong Kong – the former British colony surrendered in 1997 on the promise that its autonomy would be respected for fifty years. But the Chinese Communists are using the virus-induced lockdown to finally dispense with that commitment, suppressing the massive demonstrations that thwarted its recent efforts to impose instead what amounts to “one-country, one-system.”

Now, the CCP is preparing to put mainland troops in Hong Kong to crush what remains of freedom there. Since that is unlikely to be Beijing’s last act of aggression, we must do everything possible to deter it – and to punish the perpetrators if it nonetheless happens.

This is Frank Gaffney.

This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute.      

Yesterday, something almost unimaginable happened. On a major public policy initiative – one with profound national security, as well as financial implications, for millions of Americans – the United States Senate spoke with one, powerful voice.  

Every Senator voted to ensure that the Chinese Communist Party can no longer garner trillions of dollars from American investors without conforming to our laws, accounting standards and regulations.

Who knows if the House will follow their lead as the bill’s Senate sponsors, Louisiana Republican John Kennedy and Maryland Democrat Chris Van Hollen, are urging.

Either way, what must occur is that the Trump administration formally notify the CCP that, to continue having access to our capital markets, it has to play by our rules. Period. A 2013 bilateral Memorandum of Understanding that waived requirements for US-standard audits for Chinese registrants in our markets must be terminated, now.

This is Frank Gaffney.

This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute.      

Author Franz Kafka’s name has become synonymous with nightmarish judicial proceedings. Kafkaesque barely begins to describe, however, what federal Judge Emmet Sullivan is doing to Mike Flynn after Attorney General William Barr decided to terminate the general’s prosecution for lying to the FBI.

After Gen. Flynn finally got competent counsel, the case against President Trump’s first National Security Advisor has proven to be not just groundless, but a scandalous abuse of power.

Yet, Emmet Sullivan is refusing to recognize that, as Flynn attorney Sidney Powell puts it, “The case is over.” With the official prosecutor standing down, the judge has appointed his own to continue what is actually the persecution of a heroic three-star general, whom he once asserted could have been tried for treason. 

Sidney Powell’s request yesterday for the Appeals Court to remove Judge Sullivan should be approved immediately.

This is Frank Gaffney.

This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute.      

How is it that Chinese Communist Party companies get preferential treatment in our capital markets? Unlike American corporations, they don’t have to disclose their financial condition or material risks – leaving investors unprotected from fraud and needless losses. 

Worse yet, American investors may be putting their money into CCP companies that help the regime threaten our country and violate the human rights of Christians and millions of others in China.  

It turns out that the CCP’s companies have been able to tap Wall Street for some $3 trillion to date because the Obama administration let them violate our securities laws, accounting standards and regulations. Reporter John Solomon revealed yesterday that in 2013, then-Vice President Joe Biden personally helped make that happen.

On Sunday, fifty-one of us wrote securities regulators urging them to end this arrangement. Help us do that at PresentDangerChina.org.

This is Frank Gaffney.

This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute.      

Opinion polls show an unmistakable trend: Americans are increasingly clear-eyed about and hostile towards Communist China. A new one found that 78% percent said they’d be willing to pay more for products no longer made in the PRC.

So how would they feel about Chinese Communist Party companies getting preferential treatment in our capital markets? Unlike American corporations, they don’t have to disclose their financial condition, governance arrangements or material risks. Wall Street just sends them our money anyway – by some estimates $3 trillion in recent years.

What could possibly go wrong?

Fifty-one former officials, military leaders and other patriots wrote our capital markets’ regulators yesterday urging them to require the CCP to play by our rules. If they don’t, U.S. investors are not only underwriting our enemy, they’re likely to lose their shirts.

This is Frank Gaffney. Learn more at PresentDangerChina.org.

This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute.      

You don’t have to look far to find examples of the malevolence of the Chinese Communist Party. After all, every American has suffered from the virus it deliberately, consciously and malevolently unleashed on all of us.

But the CCP has just exhibited again its contempt and hostility towards us and others. The Chinese government allowed a large booster rocket stage used recently to test part of its ominous manned space program to make an uncontrolled return to earth.

As a result, New York and Los Angeles were two of the American metropolitan areas that were overflown as that huge metal object crashed through the atmosphere. Had it landed on either of them at speeds of over 100 miles per hour, there could have been loss of life and much destruction.

The Chinese Communist Party is our enemy. We can’t pretend otherwise any longer.

This is Frank Gaffney.