President, Government Accountability Institute and NY Times best selling author, Peter Schweizer, shares details from his just released book Blood Money: Why the Powerful Turn a Blind Eye While China Kills Americans
Dan Proft: Nobody has pulled the curtain back on the political class more in the last decade than Peter Schweitzer. You know him from books like Clinton Cash or Secret Empires, Red Handed. Well, he’s got a new one. It’s called Blood Money: Why the Powerful Turn a Blind Eye While China Kills Americans. Pretty damning accusation. Peter Schweitzer is the president of Government Accountability Institute and again, the bestselling author of the book Blood Money: Why the Powerful Turn a Blind Eye While China Kills Americans, which is available now in all the usual spots. Peter Schweitzer, thanks so much for joining us again. Appreciate it.
Peter Schweizer: Good to be with you. Thanks for having me.
Dan Proft: So from … I’ve only had a chance to read some of the excerpts that have been made available to this point, but I’m looking forward to the full read. But from some of what I’ve read, it’s pretty interesting the connections you make, the historical connections, including with respect to fentanyl. China ostensibly doing to us what the British did to them during the Opium Wars.
Peter Schweizer: Yeah, it’s revenge for the Opium Wars. And I think the biggest misnomers that people have about the fentanyl crisis are twofold. Number one is it’s just another drug addiction problem. It’s not. Most of the people that die of fentanyl poisoning don’t even know they’re taking fentanyl. They think they’re taking an Adderall or a Vicodin. You know, some kids trying to study late night for a test. But the second one is that this is a problem caused by the Mexican drug cartels. The drug cartels are the junior partners. China runs this operation. They provide the precursors that come from Mexico. Ninety percent of those precursors come into a port in Mexico in Manzanillo. That international terminal is run by a Chinese company. That’s why people cannot seem to stop this flow. Those chemicals are sent to a town in northern Mexico where 2000 Chinese nationals, according to Department of Homeland Security documents I obtained … 2000 Chinese nationals create the fentanyl for the cartels. The cartels use Chinese pill presses to turn the fentanyl into the pills that they sell on the streets. When the drug cartels are operating in the United States, they use Chinese communication devices because they know the Chinese will not share those communications with U.S. law enforcement. And finally, the laundering of the money the Mexican drug cartels use to launder their money in Latin American banks. They launder them in Chinese state-owned banks. Now, with the help oftentimes of Chinese students here on education visas, so this is a Chinese operation just to kill as many Americans as possible. And federal poisoning is now the leading cause of death among Americans under the age of 45.
Dan Proft: And so when we say … so before we get to the government’s role in all this and the Biden family in particular … But so when we see, as everybody has seen over the last several weeks, thousands of military age, Chinese individuals coming through, for example, a hole in the fence in the San Diego sector, what are we to make of that?
Peter Schweizer: Well, you are to make of that, that, you know, some of them may be here just trying to seek a better life, but there is plenty of precedence for Chinese illegals engaging in criminal activity in the United States. One of the biggest problems we have in the country I talk about in the book is a massive increase in illegal marijuana growth operations. This is not the marijuana that’s legalized. This is far more potent, and these are run by Chinese illegals that are in the country. In the state of Maine alone, according to the Department of Homeland Security. there are more than 300 illegal marijuana operations being carried out by Chinese nationals involving Chinese organized crime. When you look at some of the social disruptions we’ve had in the country, you had a unit of Chinese military officers in the summer of 2020 that came, working out of the consulate, the Chinese consulate in Houston, Texas, that were trying to fan the flames of social protest. So, yeah, some of them may be coming here seeking a better life. The problem is you can’t distinguish them from those that are here to engage in illegal activities that are designed to do damage to America.
Dan Proft: And so with, you know, government knowledge, as you’re citing Department of Homeland Security as the source for a lot of this information, with federal government knowledge about what is going on, why does President Xi get treated with kid gloves when he comes to San Francisco? Why is this not … Why we’re not hearing this from elected officials, starting with the United States instead of Peter Schweitzer?
Peter Schweizer: Good question. So a lot of people in Washington don’t want to talk about it because they just go along to get along. If you accept the reality of what’s going on, you cannot have a normal relationship with China. You can’t talk about a trade agreement. You have to confront these realities. And there’s just a lot of people in Washington that don’t want to do that. Then you have a smaller, more narrow group of people that have massive conflicts because there are financial connections. Consider the Bidens, ummm … you know, the Sinaloa cartel. They are the kings of fentanyl in Mexico. They were set up by a Chinese criminal gang called UBG … established, well-documented in Mexico and elsewhere. One of the leaders of that gang is a guy named Chang An-lo, who goes by the name White Wolf. One of White Wolf’s business partners gave $5 million to the Biden family. Does Joe Biden really want to have a conversation about fentanyl and about China’s role? No, he doesn’t. So when he meets with Xi, he goes out of his way to say, “We want your help, but we’re not pointing fingers.” And he certainly does not call them out publicly. If you look at Governor Gavin Newsom of California, he has a long association with members of Chinese organized crime syndicates, going back to when he was mayor of San Francisco. You know, he appointed the head of Chinatown’s redevelopments in San Francisco. A guy that he appointed was a dragon head in Chinese organized crime. He became friends with another leader of Chinese organized crime who went by the name Shrimp Boy. He actually donated city taxpayer money to his nonprofit. He had a guy on his transition team that was later charged with a murder for hire plot for Chinese organized crime. When Gavin Newsom, as mayor, set up China S.F., which is a design to bring Chinese industrial investment dollars into the United States, he could have pretty much picked anybody in China. He picked a man named Vincent Lo, a Chinese businessman in mainland China, who was already known to have ties with Chinese organized crime. And as a result of that, that China S.F. program brought in into the United States Chinese companies with links to Chinese organized crime who were involved massively in the drug trade. So, again, does Gavin Newsom really want to confront China and have a conversation about this? No, because it’s deeply embarrassing and damaging to some of the choices that he’s made in the past.
Amy Jacobson: Well, I’ve been to two fentanyl funerals, sadly. Young kids that died way too early. One question that was asked was, “Why do they want to kill our children? Why did the Chinese and and people in Mexico want to bring harm to our kids?
Peter Schweizer: You know, it’s a great question. So China really, since 2010 has has carried out a policy called “disintegration warfare”. That’s not me saying this. This is … There’s actually a Chinese publication, and disintegration warfare says, kind of in the traditions of Sun Tzu, the famous strategist, the best way to defeat your enemy is by not actually fighting him. It’s by undermining him, and fentanyl is part of that. The Mexican cartels themselves, I don’t think, particularly want to kill their customers as they view it, but the Chinese certainly do. And from the standpoint of the cartels, the profit margins for fentanyl compared to cocaine or heroin or any of these other drugs, the profit margins with margins with fentanyl are ten or 20 times greater than they are if you’re selling cocaine. So for them, it’s just a loss that they’re prepared to accept because they’re driven by money. But as far as China is concerned, this is absolutely part of their strategy. I have another section in the book that looks at COVID. We know the people that died in COVID, but China actually carried out policies that exacerbated and magnify hide America’s body count during COVID. So this is very, very much intentional. And what their approach is, which is to defeat us without actually fighting a war.
Dan Proft: So what are some of the other prongs of their disintegration strategy? Because, you know, I mean, we we we talk all we talk about Confucius Institutes at colleges. We talk Tik Tok. I mean, what how integrated is it and in which which which of the things that we have discussed previously or are we discuss openly are also part of that same strategy that you’re describing?
Peter Schweizer: Well, let’s talk about violent crimes in the streets. In fact, in the book, I quote the sheriff of Cook County there in your area describing these small devices called Glock switches that China began smuggling into the United States in 2018. And again, I’ve got Homeland Security, FBI, Department of Justice documents on this, thousands of them. These are small devices, highly illegal in the United States, certainly highly illegal in China, where you can’t even own a firearm. These switches take a normal Glock handgun and turn it into a fully automatic machine gun. And I have a quote from from the sheriff of Cook County and from law enforcement around saying, these are flooding into our cities from China and we can’t do anything to stop them. And the Department of Homeland Security says that these devices are particularly being marketed and given to criminal gangs in the United States. So we’ve reached the point where from 2018 to now, the rate of machine gun fire on America’s city streets has risen by more than 1,000%. It’s like, you know, Al Capone in the 1930’s. And again, this is part of the disruptive practice. It sows chaos on the streets. And, of course, China state media has run several stories talking about look at all the chaos in America. They never mention, of course, the fact that they are the ones that have been smuggling these into the United States and distributing them to criminal gangs over the last five years.
Dan Proft: And on the use of technology and social media, is that part of it as well?
Peter Schweizer: It is. It is. You know, we obviously have divisions in our country. We all know that. But they are fanning the flames. One of the things they do is they have these large operations that involve thousands of Chinese military technical experts, and they set up hundreds or thousands each individually of social media accounts in the United States. And they’re posing as Americans. And what they do is very simple. Half of those social media accounts say America’s a hopeless … hopelessly racist society. Nothing can be done. The other half of these accounts posing as Americans say, “I only like white people.” So why are they doing this? They’re doing this because they want to magnify social conflict in the United States is an intentional strategy. I quote from them. Don’t take my word for it. I name the unit that’s doing this. And again, if there’s something that hopeful, honestly that comes out of this book, it’s that I don’t believe we’re actually as divided as we as we think we are. I think there’s a lot of the fanning of the flames that is taking place that is trying to magnify it and encourage us to be at each other’s throats. And I think this is part of the Chinese strategy.
Dan Proft: What’s your assessment of the job that House Republicans are doing as they’re, you know, pursuing their impeachment inquiries, plural, with respect to these relationships, specifically, of course, the Biden family and the Chinese Communist Party and all of their organs in addition to others. But but specifically on that, you know, Jim Comer keeps saying you’ve got documented $30 million in money that’s flowed from the Chinese communist to the Biden family. We don’t know what they got for it. Well, you’re sort of answering your own question, aren’t you? So. So what’s your assessment of of the progress being made there or or the direction that has taken?
Peter Schweizer: It’s a good question. I think they’ve done a good job of letting the evidence speak for itself. You know, they’re not just going on TV and popping off and giving theories. So I think they did … they handled that in a very good way. Disappointed, obviously, with Democrats. I mean, what Democrats are basically defending. Let’s just be clear here where this is headed. If what the Bidens did is okay, we’re saying in the future that a president, a vice president, a secretary of defense, can have their adult children collect tens of millions of dollars from our foreign adversaries for no discernible business purposes whatsoever. And we’re okay with that because that’s basically what the Bidens did. And I think the American people, in a way, are ahead of Washington, DC in this regard. I mean, I’ve watched the looked at the polls over the last couple of months. The New York Times, the Harvard Harris poll, ABC News, The Wall Street Journal, they have all asked the question, “Do you believe that Joe Biden engaged in highly unethical behavior or illegal behavior in order to help his family’s business dealings?” And in every single one of those polls, at least 65% of the American people say, “yes”. So the American people see what’s going on. I think the American people were ahead of it. I think that we’ve reached this binary point in American politics where you have elected Democrats. It doesn’t matter what what Joe Biden does because of their dislike for Donald Trump. They are not going to criticize him for it. And that’s a sad case because, again, one thing I’ve learned about studying corruption in Washington, if you allow something to happened to become normal, they’re all going to do it and they’re all going to start taking large payments from foreign entities because of the Biden rule. The Bidens did it. They got away with it. So why can’t I do it, too?
Dan Proft: How much of a governor on saying anything more pointed about the Chinese communist, the sort of things you’re documenting? How much of a governor on that among Republicans has Mitch McConnell been? I mean, you documented in your book Secret Empires, the, you know, his wife’s relationship to his wife’s family and thus his relationship to this Chinese shipping empire and the Chinese Communist Party. So, you know, our people, even you know, sort of China hawks, anti-communist hawks, the Mike Lee’s of the world, your Rand Paul’s of the world. Are they afraid to be as specific and as pointed as what you’re describing and because they feel like, well, I don’t want to create internal, you know, internal fights within the party than it’s just that’s distracting or for some other reason?
Peter Schweizer: Yeah. No, I think Mitch McConnell is part of that. I think the other part of it is, look, you have very powerful rich people who are major donors to the Republican Party who have deep pockets and have deep investments in Tik Tok. One of the biggest donors on the Republican side is a gentleman named Jeff Yass lives in Pennsylvania. He’s he’s the biggest single donor to the Club for Growth, which is a sort of free market libertarian investment firm. He owns 17% of ByteDance, which is the parent company of TikTok. And some people think this is a trillion dollar company, meaning that he his stake is $170 billion. And so because of that, frankly, the Club for Growth has taken a position that they don’t think anything should be done to Tik Tok. So it is … it is a business decision as it is, unfortunately, financial donor pressure. I think Mitch McConnell certainly has laid out pressure. And look, the fact of the matter is, I quote extensively from Chinese military journals describing how they view Tik Tok as a Trojan horse and the specific ways in which they are trying to manipulate our young people. And so the notion that, well, we should have a discussion about Tik Tok. “Aare they good or they bad?” … They’re not debating that in China. They’ve already decided this is a great potent tool to use against us and they are using it. And in my view, the only solution, Trump proposed it in 2020. It was reversed by Joe Biden. The only solution that works is to force the sale of that entity to an American company. You cannot have the CCP control the company that is literally piping all of these images and all of these ideas to our young people.
Dan Proft: What about our national security agencies? Are they compromised in a material way? I mean, what we’ve seen their performance over the last eight years, we’ve got a lot of the receipts, as they say from Taibbi and Shellenberger and others. But but I mean, if they’re focused on Fifth column actions against Trump and, you know, and Catholics who attend the Latin Mass in Virginia in the case of the FBI, then then they can’t be focused on these threats that are as focused on these threats that you’re describing. So I just wonder, you know, how you would describe the performance of of national law enforcement and intel agencies in reaction to the threats that you document.
Peter Schweizer: Well, I’ve I’ve received a lot of feedback from people that have worked or are working at FBI, ATF, Homeland Security, who see this every day. The problem is the political leadership that are running these institutions are ultimately political actors. I mean, we want to we want to think that the director of the FBI is just a great Joe Friday kind of guy. But the fact of the matter is that he’s appointed by a president and he’s making political calculations. And Joe Biden and his administration have made it clear they do not want to single out China. They do not want to challenge them on any of these issues. So it’s an enormous problem. You talk to those in the field that are seeing this, that are living it, that are experiencing it. The guys at DEA that tell me we know this is a Chinese operation, but the guys upstairs don’t want to say it for political reasons is really the crux of the problem. And that’s one of the reasons that I wrote this book, because you have to have this conversation and we need to, you know, speak earnestly about what’s going on, because it is literally killing people in all the corruption I’ve written about before. It was about, you know, political actors getting rich and taking actions. This is really a life and death issue and it’s costing us our best and brightest.
Dan Proft: Peter Schweitzer, president of the Government Accountability Institute, is The New York Times bestselling author of a number of books, the most recent, as we’ve been discussing, Blood Money: Why the Powerful Turn a Blind Eye While China Kills Americans. The book Blood Money, available now. Pick it up. Peter Schweitzer, thanks so much for your time. Appreciate it.
Peter Schweizer: Thanks so much for having me.