Welcomed with Open Arms: Lobbyists for China’s TikTok Have Repeatedly Visited the Biden White House

Lobbyists for the China-owned app TikTok and its parent company ByteDance have repeatedly landed visits with President Joe Biden’s White House, according to recently revealed records.

TikTok and ByteDance lobbyists have visited the Biden White House at least eight times between July 2021 and August 2022, according to White House visitor records obtained by the Washington Examiner.

While it remains unclear what the lobbyists discussed at the White House, their visits are “unequivocally” worrisome, says Heritage Foundation’s director of Tech Policy Center, Kara Frederick.

“These people are doing the dirty work of the Chinese party state,” Frederick told the Examiner. “I don’t think we should mince words when it comes to that. They know what they’re doing.”

One of the ByteDance lobbyists, Paul Thornell, from the firm Mehlman Castagnetti Rosen & Thomas, made three trips to the White House in 2022, according to the visitor logs.

After being asked by Washington Examiner if he can comment on whether or not TikTok was discussed during his visits, Thornell said, “I’ll take a pass on that.”

Meanwhile, Congress is mulling over legislation that would ban TikTok in the United States, as national security experts have long sounded the alarm over the Chinese app and its parent company ByteDance, which admitted last month that obtained private user data on American journalists.

Moreover, TikTok has proven itself to be dangerous for U.S. teens, meddling in U.S. elections, and a national security threat. The app has also been banned from government-issued devices in more than a dozen states, with government agencies in general, such as the U.S. military and TSA, also banning its employees from having the app on their devices.

In November, FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr declared that “TikTok is China’s digital fentanyl” and banning it “is a basic IQ test for the [Biden] administration,” adding that China shows a “very, very different” version of the app in China than it does in the United States.

This week, it was reported that Seattle Public Schools is suing TikTok, among other social media platforms, accusing them of creating a “mental health crisis among America’s youth,” resulting in students engaging in self-harm.

You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Facebook and Twitter at @ARmastrangelo, and on Instagram.