The House Ways and Means Committee has subpoenaed three left-wing nonprofits that allegedly received more than $39 million from a Marxist tech tycoon now living in Shanghai, after all three refused to hand over a single document.
Chairman Jason Smith, a Missouri Republican, signed the subpoena letters on July 21, targeting People's Forum Inc., BreakThrough News, and Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. The committee says the groups stonewalled months of requests for financial records tied to Neville Roy Singham, an American-born activist who sold his software company ThoughtWorks for an estimated $785 million in 2017 and has since funneled hundreds of millions of dollars through a sprawling international network of nonprofits, shell companies, and donor-advised funds.
The subpoenas mark the sharpest escalation yet in a congressional investigation examining whether U.S. tax-exempt law has been exploited to channel foreign-linked money into domestic activist organizations, and whether Congress needs to rewrite the rules to stop it.
The committee first sought records from People's Forum, a New York-based activist hub, in September 2025. It followed up with requests to BreakThrough News, a left-wing nonprofit media outlet, and Tricontinental, an organization anchored in what it calls "national liberation Marxism," in February. Attorneys for all three groups raised objections and produced nothing. The committee narrowed its requests on May 4. Still nothing.
The subpoena letters, obtained by Fox News Digital, used nearly identical language for all three organizations:
"Your responses have failed to include a single responsive document and misrepresented both the scope and purpose of the Committee's oversight. Accordingly, the Committee is invoking compulsory process to obtain the requested materials."
The groups now face an August 7 deadline to turn over records covering foreign-linked funding, contracts tied to foreign people or organizations, communications with Singham about finances or operations, contacts with other foreign interests, foreign donors who gave more than $5,000, and grants sent overseas.
Attorneys for People's Forum compared the investigation to a "witch hunt" by the House Un-American Activities Committee of the 1950s. BreakThrough News invoked freedom-of-the-press protections. The committee rejected both arguments and moved to compulsory process.
Singham is no minor donor. A Fox News Digital five-part investigation published in March documented $285 million flowing from Singham into an international network of activist organizations. The investigation mapped 223 transactions totaling $591 million and identified 67 core organizations spread across five continents, with an estimated 2,000 nonprofits, activist groups, think tanks, and media organizations in the wider web.
Of the three subpoenaed groups, People's Forum allegedly received the largest share, $22.44 million. Tricontinental received $16.76 million. Breakthrough BT Media Inc., the parent company of BreakThrough News's media arm, received $1.098 million. The New York Post reported that the probe examines whether Singham used shell companies and donor-advised funds to funnel money into U.S. tax-exempt organizations.
The broader investigation documented $278 million flowing from Singham through a Goldman Sachs donor-advised fund and two now-defunct shell companies to six core U.S. nonprofits. Donor-advised funds, essentially charitable accounts managed by financial institutions, allow contributors to direct grants to nonprofits while the fund itself files the public paperwork, making it harder to trace who is behind the money.
The pattern is worth watching for anyone concerned about foreign influence hiding behind the nonprofit tax code. It is not the first time investigators have found that foreign entanglements can lurk behind domestic political activity.
Smith told Fox News Digital that the committee's work goes beyond bookkeeping.
"The American people deserve to know whether the CCP has exploited America's tax-exempt sector to advance its agenda."
At a hearing earlier this year on malign foreign influence on U.S. nonprofits, Smith stated that Singham maintains business ties with people and companies linked to the Chinese Communist Party and works alongside a Chinese propaganda company. Singham now lives in Shanghai.
Smith framed the committee's mission in two parts. As he put it to Fox News Digital:
"The Ways and Means Committee is acting on two fronts: exposing the networks that exploit our tax laws and advancing legislation to close those loopholes for good."
The letter to People's Forum spelled out the committee's legislative interest directly: "The Committee's inquiry here is directed at financial arrangements and organizational structure, specifically whether existing tax-exempt law adequately guards against foreign-influenced funding networks of the kind documented in public reporting about Mr. Singham's activities."
Congress is not the only institution looking at Singham's money. Fox News Digital reported on June 29 that U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton in the Southern District of New York, which covers Manhattan, launched a federal grand jury investigation examining alleged wire fraud, bank fraud, money laundering, and other financial crimes involving Singham and organizations he funded. Just The News confirmed the subpoenas came after the nonprofits allegedly failed to comply with earlier document requests, describing an ongoing pattern of obstruction.
No charges have been announced in the grand jury investigation. But the dual-track scrutiny, congressional subpoenas and a federal criminal probe, puts the three nonprofits and Singham's broader network under a level of pressure that silence alone will not relieve.
The Singham case fits a wider pattern of accountability failures in the nonprofit sector. The Feeding Our Future fraud case in Minnesota, which resulted in a 41-year prison sentence for its ringleader, showed how easily tax-exempt structures can be exploited when oversight is weak and questions go unasked.
The subpoenas land during a broader federal push to confront foreign influence operations on American soil. Secretary of State Marco Rubio convened a summit of 65 nations last week to counter what the administration calls "far-left terrorism." The State Department also released a 100-page report on Monday detailing a network of U.S. organizations that allegedly promote propaganda for the communist regime in Cuba.
People's Forum itself has drawn attention beyond the Singham funding questions. The organization was described as actively involved in organizing and promoting national student walkouts and protests on March 10, 2025, in support of Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian student activist and Columbia University student detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Protesters gathered in Foley Square and marched through Lower Manhattan that day.
Adam Sohn, CEO of the Network Contagion Research Institute, has discussed the grand jury investigation and alleged that Singham's funding network has fueled anti-American activism. Sohn warned that the case extends beyond nonprofit finances into broader questions about foreign influence on domestic protest movements.
The committee's investigation and the organizations' refusal to cooperate raise a question that should concern every taxpayer, regardless of party. Foreign Agents Registration Act compliance, donor-advised fund transparency, and the basic obligation of tax-exempt organizations to account for their funding are not partisan issues, they are the minimum requirements for operating under a system that grants special legal privileges in exchange for public trust.
The organizations' attorneys invoked the specter of McCarthyism. But a congressional committee asking a tax-exempt nonprofit to explain where $22 million came from is not a witch hunt. It is the most basic form of oversight, and the fact that all three groups refused to produce even one document only sharpens the question of what, exactly, they are protecting.
Congressional investigations into institutional accountability have gained momentum across multiple fronts this session. The Singham probe may prove to be one of the most consequential.
When nonprofits take tens of millions from a man who lives in Shanghai and works alongside CCP-linked companies, and then refuse to show Congress a single receipt, the American taxpayer is entitled to more than silence.