We have to survive two more years of Trump’s presidency (unless he’s impeached or or otherwise removed.) Meanwhile, he has blithely been allowing China to steal America’s chip secrets to China. It’s the oldest trick in the book–an egotistical man fell for a honey trap. Trump himself was warned about this and ignored all the warnings.
At The Bulwark, William Kristol has an excellent summary of what happened. He summarizes the latest articles, so you don’t have to read them individually: The Chips Are Falling Into China’s Lap.
Let’s take a quick look at what we’ve learned, or what’s been confirmed, in just the past couple of days. (And I’ll note that all of this is before any congressional investigations have begun, before there’s been sworn testimony from administration officials and others, before further other investigations into Nvidia and other actors, before lawsuits, before the deluge of leaks we’re likely to get from people within the Trump administration.)
Donald Trump Knew. The New York Times reported yesterday that President Trump was told directly by Marco Rubio aboard Air Force One en route to China in May that Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang was in a relationship with a Chinese spy. “It marked at least the second time in seven months that the president had been told of intelligence about Mr. Huang’s involvement with the woman.”
So for the last six months at least, Trump has been palling around with Huang, praising Huang, presumably sharing information and thoughts with Huang, and taking counsel and advice from Huang, all the while knowing it was very possible that everything he said was being passed on to the government of China and much of what he was hearing had been shaped by the government China.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang with girlfriend Alice Huang
Jensen Huang lied. The Times report also reminds us that in response to earlier reports that Alice Huang was a Chinese intelligence asset and in a relationship with Jensen Huang,
Nvidia executives and Mr. Huang both insisted that the relationship was a routine engagement with a customer. On Sunday, Mr. Huang admitted to a romantic relationship with Ms. Huang. Soon after, Nvidia announced that the company would conduct an independent investigation.
So Huang lied to others in the company, and the company dutifully lied to the rest of us. And there are some indications we’ll discover much more lying about various business matters and corporate relationships, not just personal ones.
Howard Lutnick Obstructed. Politico reports that officials in the Bureau of Industry and Security, the office that oversees tech exports, had warned in dozens of reports of the risk of Nvidia’s advanced chips being diverted to China. But the higher-ups in the Commerce Department, run by Trump’s buddy and business partner Howard Lutnick, chose not to impose meaningful new restrictions on the company.
And the Financial Timesreported yesterday that several U.S. government agencies pushed for Alice Huang’s company, Megaspeed, to be included on the so-called entity list of groups connected to China that posed national security risks. But again, the Commerce Department refused to act. The FT quotes Chris McGuire, a former senior U.S. government export controls official: “It is mind-boggling that [Commerce] knew months ago that Megaspeed is being run by a Chinese spy but did nothing to stop them from buying $4.8 billion worth of Nvidia chips.”
Keith Riggin, a former CIA station chief in Beijing who later advised U.S. companies on the Chinese intelligence threat, says he gave American executives a simple warning about beautiful women who might approach them in Beijing: “You don’t get any better-looking when you go to a place like China.”
But top American executives and government officials are often arrogant, says Riggin. They overlook warnings, and they sometimes think security rules don’t apply to them. That can make them easy marks for the increasingly sophisticated tradecraft of China’s spy service, the Ministry of State Security.
Jensen Huang with wife Lori
Jensen Huang, co-founder of the multitrillion-dollar chipmaker Nvidia, appears to be the most prominent American yet to fall into an MSS honey trap. At least two years ago, he was drawn into what became a sexual relationship with an alleged MSS contact named Alice Huang. But he’s hardly the first. Riggin told me that he knows of at least 20 others who were victims of similar operations.
The Nvidia case has rocked the intelligence world for several reasons. U.S. officials have been investigating Chinese dealings with the company for at least two years, according to an official who has been briefed on the case. President Donald Trump was personally advised about Jensen Huang’s vulnerability about a year ago, according to the New York Times. And Secretary of State Marco Rubio helped circulate an interagency warning about the case this past spring.
Why the slow roll? That’s the haunting question. Why wasn’t more done sooner to check what intelligence veterans tell me appears to have been a double-barreled Chinese intelligence exploitation of Alice Huang’s involvement with Jensen Huang? The evidence suggests the MSS was running both a supply-chain operation to obtain precious Nvidia chips and an influence operation to shape administration tech policy.
The closer you examine the case, the more puzzling the riddles become. Why did Trump continue his close relationship with Huang even after he was warned? Why wasn’t Huang given an FBI “defensive briefing” about his girlfriend’s intelligence ties if, as published reports say, he didn’t know about her MSS connection? Was Kash Patel’s FBI so busy with Trump’s political agenda that it failed to pursue Chinese spy operations aggressively?
Here’s the question that vexes CIA and FBI China hands: An intelligence investigation gathered information that a powerful friend of Trump was having an affair with a suspected Chinese agent, but the probe stalled. Why?
Trump is backing Jensen Huang in the spy scandal
Has it occurred to any of these “investigators” that the reason could be that Trump doesn’t want to stand up to China or Russia? Ignatius alludes to that fact:
Huang seemed to imagine that he was untouchable. More than a year ago, the New York Times published a photo of him with Alice Huang in a Taipei, Taiwan, bar in June 2024 and another of them together the following May at a Taipei trade show. Both photos had been posted on the internet. Nvidia was then selling advanced chips to a Singapore-based company named Megaspeed, where Alice Huang worked and which had been spun off from a Chinese gaming firm. But the alarm bells apparently didn’t ring in the Nvidia executive suite.
The public loves a good spy scandal, especially when it’s linked with sex. “Huang Huang Bang Bang” headlined the New York Post on Monday, after the Nvidia chief issued a public apology to his wife, family and company. But this one goes much deeper, because it involves artificial intelligence technology that is among America’s most precious national-security secrets, and a president who has pushed for closer ties with Chinese President Xi Jinping, whom he habitually describes as “my friend,” at a time when China poses a growing military and intelligence threat.
Trump also claims he doesn’t recall being warned a year ago. There’s more at the WaPo link. You can use the gift link to read the rest.
Exactly how Nvidia’s powerful chief, Jensen Huang, a married man and father of three, fell into the clutches of Alice Huang (no relation), a tech executive that U.S. intelligence identified last year as an agent of China’s MSS intelligence agency, has yet to be revealed. Nor has a coherent explanation from President Trump of why he continued to embrace the Nvidia boss long after U.S. intelligence came to suspect that Megaspeed, Alice Huang’s Singapore-based firm, was diverting restricted advanced AI chips to China. But if the affair goes to prove anything, it’s that—as Lawler said–even the most brilliant mind of a generation can lose its senses when targeted by a highly trained and sexy intelligence agent….
Imagine Alice Huang being left alone in Jensen’s bedroom with access to his phone and laptop, former China resident and expert Bill Bishop commented in his Sinocism Substack. “On the Jensen Huang-Alice Huang affair, you have to give the MSS credit for running another successful op. They are good and getting better…”
The Nvidia CEO “is (was?) text and phone buddies with President Trump,” Bishop added, “so if he divulged anything about his conversations with Trump to her, or his thoughts about Trump or chatter about China policy or frankly anything from Trump, that would be valuable to any foreign intelligence service, and especially to the MSS…”
“Alice was supposedly a media executive at Hunan TV and CCTV, but initial media checks reveal no such evidence,” Kenneth Decleva, a former State Department psychiatrist and intelligence analyst,” says. “And her social media including WeChat has been scrubbed. She has vanished. She will now be promoted by the MSS and further, honored by Xi.”
“Jensen and any company strategy/secrets have to be considered compromised until proven otherwise,” he added. “The FBI should seize his passport(s). He’s a huge flight risk.”
Please go read the whole thing. Trump is giving away our most valuable secrets.
Yesterday, KY Rep. Thomas Massie presented articles of impeachment against Pete Hegseth on the House floor. Unfortunately the effort failed, thanks to 11 Democrats who didn’t make it to work on time.
The House has voted 211 to 204 to refer the articles of impeachment filed against Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to committee, effectively killing the impeachment effort spearheaded by Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky.
Tuesday’s vote short-circuits any potential floor vote on the articles of impeachment, and virtually guarantees the measure will not be taken up before the current session of Congress expires.
Rep. Thomas Massie
The vote provided a surprise reprieve for President Trump’s embattled Defense Secretary, who was facing an impeachment vote by the full House as early as Wednesday.
Massie reintroduced the articles of impeachment on Monday, accusing Hegseth of high crimes and misdemeanors in connection to the war with Iran and U.S. strikes against Iran and on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean Sea and Eastern Pacific Ocean.
Massie’s impeachment resolution sought to oust Hegseth over the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro without congressional authorization, and the effort to punish Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., for a video telling service members they can refuse illegal orders.
The impeachment measure was Massie’s second attempt against Hegseth. He first sought to bring the impeachment resolution to the floor before the midterm elections, prompting Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., to call an early recess to avoid the vote. That caused the resolution to expire, which is why Massie reintroduced the resolution again this week.
While the impeachment push may be quelled for now, Hegseth’s troubles on Capitol Hill are not over. Democrats have promised vigorous investigations into Hegseth’s Pentagon once they assume the majority in January.
House Republicans came together Tuesday to shelve a measure to impeach Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, thanks largely to almost a dozen Democrats failing to show up for the early evening vote.
Pete Hegseth
Some of the Democrats who did cast a vote did not even try to hide their frustration.
“The people send us here to do a job. I don’t know if anyone had any real health issues or anything significant. So I want to leave room for that,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez (D-N.Y.) told CNN’s Manu Raju. “But that being said, at the end of the day, we’re here to do a job. And the same way I had to clock in when I worked at a restaurant, we got to clock in and do our work here.”
Some of the members missed the vote, which ended around 6 p.m. EST, due to gridlock on Pennsylvania Ave., caused by a traffic accident.
“Like other Members of Congress, Rep. Stansbury was blocked from entering the Capitol to vote due a traffic incident and a police escort of a bus during the vote,” Rep. Melanie Stansbury‘s (D-N.M.) office said in a statement on the social platform X. “When she reached the chamber, the vote had just gaveled out.”
“The Congresswoman was stuck behind a motorcade and missed the vote by 1 minute. She would have voted against the motion to refer,” Rep. Marilyn Strickland‘s (D-Wash.) chief of staff said….
The 11 Democrats who missed the vote were Stansbury, Strickland and Reps. Julia Brownley (Calif.) Lou Correa (Calif.), Laura Gillen (N.Y.), Steven Horsford (Nev.), Jonathan Jackson (Ill.), Nancy Pelosi, (Calif.), Brittany Pettersen (Colo.), Haley Stevens (Mich.) and Frederica Wilson (Fla.).
I don’t normally tell you to drop what you’re doing and watch a video. But tonight, I’m insisting.
My plan for the evening had been to write about the articles of impeachment against self-styled “Secretary of War” Pete Hegseth and analyze the process we could expect going forward. Then, despite the absolute shellacking they took Tuesday night, Republicans voted to send the resolution brought by Kentucky Republican Thomas Massie to committee, a parliamentary device for burying it. “At least for now,” says my guest tonight, Representative Dan Goldman. Dan knows a thing or two about impeachment. Before his election to Congress, he served as the lead counsel for the House Intelligence Committee investigation that led to Donald Trump’s first impeachment. Senate Republicans ultimately declined to convict.
Dan Goldman
“At least for now” is the text balloon that hangs over all of this, as Democrats prepare to take control of both the House and the Senate in January. The articles include eight charges against Hegseth, including violating the War Powers Resolution of 1973, dismantling protections against civilian casualties, extrajudicial killings in the Caribbean and the Pacific, retaliating against Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona for participating with other members of Congress who made a video reminding service members of their duty to refuse unlawful orders, unauthorized military action in Venezuela, and conducting an unauthorized military campaign in Yemen.
You may recall that Senator Kelly was censured, threatened with military prosecution and loss of rank and pension for exercising his First Amendment rights. This morning, when Hegseth took to the podium to reiterate that he’d engage in the conduct the articles specify all over again, and was proud of it, NBC reports that “Two Pentagon officials, including a member of Hegseth’s security detail, approached reporters while they were waiting for him to appear at the lectern … They said that if any reporters behave in a manner that is ‘not professional’ or ‘get out of line’ or ‘get out of hand,’ they would be ‘physically removed’ from the room.” Hegseth doesn’t want you to know what he’s doing, which is precisely why we have a First Amendment. The allegations in the articles of impeachment, even though well known, are still shocking, at least in the sense that it’s shocking that the supposedly pro-military Republican Party would tolerate them—they’ve just set a precedent for what behavior is tolerable if a Hegseth-like figure arises during a Democratic administration (unlikely, since today’s Democrats aren’t hardwired like that). All of the conduct described in the articles of impeachment is awful, but the First Amendment allegations sting to the core of our democracy.
Today is Veterans Day, and Trump visited the hallowed cemetery today, but don’t expect him to learn anything from the experience. He is still fighting to build a “triumphal arch” that will interfere with views of Arlington Cemetery and the Lincoln Memorial.
President Trump traveled to Arlington National Cemetery on Wednesday to lay a wreath in honor of fallen service members, a time-honored presidential tradition on Veterans Day at a site that could be dramatically reshaped by his proposal to build a 250-foot triumphal arch in a traffic circle just outside the cemetery’s main entrance.
A common thread throughout the suits is the contention that the giant arch, which would loom over the nearly 640-acre military cemetery in Virginia, would have a negative effect on it.
The planned site of the arch holds “symbolic significance as the physical and ceremonial connection between Washington, D.C. and Arlington National Cemetery — the final resting place of more than 400,000 active-duty service members, veterans, and their family members,” Virginia and the District of Columbia contended in their joint lawsuit.
A view along Memorial Bridge toward Arlington Cemetery, which would be blocked by Mr. Trump’s planned arch. Credit Eric Lee for the NYT.
“For more than a century, that direct sight line has stood as a testament to the reunification of the nation after the Civil War and a point of reflection for visitors,” Arlington County said in a legal filing.
For months, Mr. Trump has vowed to push forward and celebrated the proposed arch as one of his grandest contributions to the city, dwarfing similar triumphal arches around the world. The administration has argued that aesthetic concerns about the area are not enough to win a federal lawsuit, and that various historical proposals for the bridge linking Virginia to Washington at the entrance to the cemetery included proposals for an arch built in the same corridor.
But as plans to break ground have accelerated, government bodies on both sides of the Potomac River have said the idea would bring unwelcome service interruptions to the region — and overshadow the solemn site.
On the Lincoln Memorial issue:
The arch would sit on an island in the Potomac River at the southwestern boundary of the District of Columbia, just across a 2,100-foot bridge. The bridge was designed to trace a vista to the Lincoln Memorial from the Robert E. Lee Memorial, also known as Arlington House, which sits atop a hill in the cemetery.
There’s much more information about the Arch battle at the gift link.
President Trump’s planned 250-foot triumphal arch has come under legal fire on multiple fronts: from veterans, a historian and the governments of the District of Columbia, Virginia and Arlington County.
Now comes another legal challenge, from the storied Kennedy family.
John F. Kennedy’s grave site with the eternnal flame.
Arguing that the arch, with its golden angels and flame on top, would cast a shadow on their relatives’ graves in Arlington National Cemetery, nine members of the Kennedy family moved to join existing litigation in Washington on Tuesday seeking to block the project. They also say the arch would obstruct the intended sightline from the eternal flame at President John F. Kennedy’s gravesite, “destroying an essential element of the gravesite’s design.”
Construction of the arch, one of Mr. Trump’s favorite projects, has been temporarily paused by a judge in another case. If allowed to proceed, it would rise between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery. The filing claims that the placement would obstruct “a line of sight that was designed to represent the unification of the nation following the Civil War and that has existed for nearly a century.”
The arch “will permanently cast a shadow over plaintiffs’ parents’ graves and the graves of servicemen and -women who made the ultimate sacrifice for this country,” the filing added.
The plaintiffs are children or grandchildren of Senators Robert F. Kennedy and Edward M. Kennedy, the former president’s brothers, who are buried near him.
“A towering arch casting shadows across the graves of our father, mother and uncles, as well as the graves of so many who have served our country, would also cast a shadow over our democratic principles, undermining the safeguards established by our elected representatives to protect this hallowed ground for generations to come,” two of the plaintiffs, Rory Kennedy and Maxwell Kennedy, who are children of Robert F. Kennedy and Ethel Kennedy, said in a statement.
Read more at the gift link.
That’s all I have for today. What do you think? What else is on your mind?
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The White House’s top lawyer has warned the Democrat in line to lead the House’s chief investigative committee that aggressive oversight of the Trump administration “may cross the line into blatant criminality,” a threat that experts called legally dubious.
In a three-page letter to Representative Robert Garcia of California, the incoming chairman of the Oversight Committee, the White House counsel, Will Scharf, said Democrats had “evinced a clear intent to transgress” constitutional limits on congressional investigations. He predicted that their inquiries would be used “to harass and aggrandize, rather than to advance any legitimate legislative end.”
The warning from the White House was dated Monday, a day after Attorney General Todd Blanche said on CNN that members of Congress had “done nothing but threaten everything that’s happening in this administration.”
“That is not governing, that is not leading, that is not oversight,” Mr. Blanche said. He, like Mr. Scharf, once represented Mr. Trump as a defense lawyer.
Taken together, their statements signal that Mr. Trump’s administration is likely to follow the playbook his first administration used after Democrats took the House in 2019. Then, Mr. Trump vowed to fight “all” subpoenas, his administration routinely refused to comply and the disputes ended up in court.
What else is new? Trump and Blanche can fuck right off.
Trump is just ruining the DC landscape, just like he ruined some of the best streets of NYC. I cannot believe how his tacky decorating schemes are absolutely turning our national heritage into some kind of memorial to him, and it’s on every possible bit of public property. It’s maddening, revolting, and completely gross.
A US Army sentinel guarding the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier reprimanded Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and a group of his senior advisers Wednesday after some in the group laughed and talked near the solemn memorial following a Veterans Day ceremony.
“All visitors will maintain an atmosphere of silence and respect at all times,” the sentinel called out, stopping his patrol to face the group as they departed.
Hegseth was standing and taking photos in front of the tomb with his wife, Jennifer, chief of staff Ricky Buria, deputy chief of staff Patrick Weaver and senior adviser and deputy assistant Tami Radabaugh after the ceremony held at Arlington National Cemetery for Veterans Day. Some in the group were laughing and chatting after taking photos, prompting the soldier patrolling in front of the Tomb to yell out and correct them.
The Nvidia CEO “is (was?) text and phone buddies with President Trump,” Bishop added, “so if he divulged anything about his conversations with Trump to her, or his thoughts about Trump or chatter about China policy or frankly anything from Trump, that would be valuable to any foreign intelligence service, and especially to the MSS…”
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