International
New U.S. Intelligence: ‘Endemic’ CCP Corruption, Organized Crime, and Graft Tied to Xi’s Network
WASHINGTON — An explosive new disclosure by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence has pulled back the curtain on endemic corruption in the Chinese Communist Party—reaching the top echelons of power, including President Xi Jinping. Released as an unclassified document and drafted by ODNI’s National Intelligence Council, the report explains how graft, bribery, and political favoritism are an essential feature of CCP power structures, festering for decades, involving organized crime and factional struggles—even under Xi’s trademark anti-corruption campaign.
By publicly releasing these findings, U.S. officials are signaling a readiness to reveal what intelligence agencies have long documented but kept classified. Sources with knowledge of the matter indicate Washington appears increasingly willing to trace corruption and international money laundering directly to the Politburo, citing explosive cases such as a Western intelligence investigation that allegedly linked Xi Jinping’s cousin, Ming Chai, to a casino money-laundering junket in Australia.
In an era of sharply escalating tensions—spanning trade, technology, and territorial disputes—Washington’s move seems aimed at exposing internal vulnerabilities in Xi’s regime while also undermining the offshore money laundering and strategic corruption Beijing is believed to use for influence-building across the Western Hemisphere and the South Pacific. It offers American citizens a transparent glimpse into what the U.S. government views as key fault lines within China’s ruling party, as the world’s two most powerful states appear set on a collision course—driven in no small part by Xi’s urgent push to subsume Taiwan.
In a striking detail, the ODNI cites journalistic research, initially blocked by Bloomberg before eventually being reported by The New York Times in 2012, that tied immense family wealth to both then-Premier Wen Jiabao and the incoming President Xi. The Times reported that Wen’s immediate family controlled at least $2.7 billion in assets, while Xi’s siblings, nieces, and nephews collectively held more than $1 billion in business and real-estate holdings. Beijing promptly tightened its censorship apparatus in the report’s aftermath, curtailing foreign news outlets that delved into elite wealth.
“Xi may have urged family members to divest holdings as he came into power. However, industry research provides evidence that, as of 2024, Xi’s family retains millions in business interests and financial investments,” the ODNI report says. It adds that corruption cases reaching the highest levels—relying on open-source rather than classified U.S. intelligence—“shows corruption cases within the CCP Central Committee span leading officials overseeing a range of portfolios and projects.”
Among the examples cited is Zhang Wei, a Chinese businessman arrested in 2020 for “organizing, leading, and participating in organized crime; illegal detention; and illegal possession of firearms and ammunition,” before being found guilty the following year of illegally absorbing public deposits.
Another high-profile instance is Chen Gang, who was accused in 2019 of accepting over $18 million in bribes—some tied to his oversight of 2008 Beijing Olympics construction projects. More recently, in April 2024, Yao Qian, Director of the China Securities Regulatory Commission was investigated for “serious violations of discipline and law,” possibly connected to China’s Central Bank Digital Currency initiative.
The fact that Xi—who carefully cultivates an image of austere probity—has family members reportedly retaining millions of dollars in investments remains a deeply sensitive topic for Beijing. In highlighting these details, U.S. intelligence appears to be drawing attention to a broader governance model that incentivizes graft, even as Xi’s “tigers and flies” campaign claims to have taken down nearly five million officials since 2012.
The ODNI’s document underscores how Xi’s crackdown is not merely a legal imperative but also a party-directed instrument for punishing “political indiscipline and ideological impurity.”
“Although Xi has not used the campaign primarily to target his political rivals, a drive to eliminate competing power centers factored significantly into decisions made in the initial phases of the campaign. Early in Xi’s tenure, senior officials with ties to his predecessors were targeted with investigations and arrests,” the report says. “More significantly, political connections to high-ranking officials have not protected officials from prosecution, including those with close personal ties to Xi himself; the anti-corruption campaign has purged top officials considered loyal to Xi and who had risen under his patronage.”
Significantly, the ODNI highlights persistent corruption in the People’s Liberation Army—and a surge of high-level purges driven by Xi’s effort to consolidate control before the PLA’s target of full combat readiness by 2027, with Taiwan looming as the central focus. “In 2024, Xi stressed during a speech to military commanders that ‘the barrels of guns must always be in the hands of those who are loyal and dependable to the Party,’” the report states, adding that Xi’s emphasis on PLA loyalty “may also reflect concerns that corrupt practices will prevent the military from acquiring the capabilities and readiness he has directed it to achieve by 2027, in preparation for a potential conflict over Taiwan.”
The ODNI’s broader assessment emphasizes that corruption is not merely an occasional lapse but a systemic challenge to China’s governance, facilitated by centralized CCP power, a Party-centric concept of law, and minimal transparency. Studies suggest that corruption has persisted in China since its founding, intensified by rapid economic growth in the 1980s and 1990s, and has been so pervasive since 2000 that it threatens the very legitimacy of the regime.
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From the Daily Caller News Foundation
I’ve written frequently here in recent years about the financial fiasco that has hit Ford Motor Company and other big U.S. carmakers who made the fateful decision to go in whole hog in 2021 to feed at the federal subsidy trough wrought on the U.S. economy by the Joe Biden autopen presidency. It was crony capitalism writ large, federal rent seeking on the grandest scale in U.S. history, and only now are the chickens coming home to roost.
Ford announced on Monday that it will be forced to take $19.5 billion in special charges as its management team embarks on a corporate reorganization in a desperate attempt to unwind the financial carnage caused by its failed strategies and investments in the electric vehicles space since 2022.
Cancelled is the Ford F-150 Lightning, the full-size electric pickup that few could afford and fewer wanted to buy, along with planned introductions of a second pricey pickup and fully electric vans and commercial vehicles. Ford will apparently keep making its costly Mustang Mach-E EV while adjusting the car’s features and price to try to make it more competitive. There will be a shift to making more hybrid models and introducing new lines of cheaper EVs and what the company calls “extended range electric vehicles,” or EREVs, which attach a gas-fueled generator to recharge the EV batteries while the car is being driven.
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“The $50k, $60k, $70k EVs just weren’t selling; We’re following customers to where the market is,” Farley said. “We’re going to build up our whole lineup of hybrids. It’s gonna be better for the company’s profitability, shareholders and a lot of new American jobs. These really expensive $70k electric trucks, as much as I love the product, they didn’t make sense. But an EREV that goes 700 miles on a tank of gas, for 90% of the time is all-electric, that EREV is a better solution for a Lightning than the current all-electric Lightning.”
It all makes sense to Mr. Farley, but one wonders how much longer the company’s investors will tolerate his presence atop the corporate management pyramid if the company’s financial fortunes don’t turn around fast.
To Ford’s and Farley’s credit, the company has, unlike some of its competitors (GM, for example), been quite transparent in publicly revealing the massive losses it has accumulated in its EV projects since 2022. The company has reported its EV enterprise as a separate business unit called Model-E on its financial filings, enabling everyone to witness its somewhat amazing escalating EV-related losses since 2022:
• 2022 – Net loss of $2.2 billion
• 2023 – Net loss of $4.7 billion
• 2024 – Net loss of $5.1 billion
Add in the company’s $3.6 billion in losses recorded across the first three quarters of 2025, and you arrive at a total of $15.6 billion net losses on EV-related projects and processes in less than four calendar years. Add to that the financial carnage detailed in Monday’s announcement and the damage from the company’s financial electric boogaloo escalates to well above $30 billion with Q4 2025’s damage still to be added to the total.
Ford and Farley have benefited from the fact that the company’s lineup of gas-and-diesel powered cars have remained strongly profitable, resulting in overall corporate profits each year despite the huge EV-related losses. It is also fair to point out that all car companies were under heavy pressure from the Biden government to either produce battery electric vehicles or be penalized by onerous federal regulations.
Now, with the Trump administration rescinding Biden’s harsh mandates and canceling the absurdly unattainable fleet mileage requirements, Ford and other companies will be free to make cars Americans actually want to buy. Better late than never, as they say, but the financial fallout from it all is likely just beginning to be made public.
- David Blackmon is an energy writer and consultant based in Texas. He spent 40 years in the oil and gas business, where he specialized in public policy and communications.
International
House Rejects Bipartisan Attempt To Block Trump From Using Military Force Against Venezuela
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
By Adam Pack
The House of Representatives rejected a bipartisan attempt Wednesday evening to reign in President Donald Trump’s authority to use force against Venezuela.
Lawmakers voted 211 to 213 against a war powers resolution that would have blocked Trump from using military force against Venezuela absent congressional authorization. The failed vote comes a day after Trump designated the Maduro regime as a foreign-terrorist organization and ordered a “total and complete blockade” of all sanctioned oil tankers entering and exiting Venezuela.
Under U.S. law, Congress can restrict the president from using military force against a country or entity without the legislative branch’s explicit approval.
The resolution, sponsored by Democratic Massachusetts Rep. Jim McGovern, attracted the support of two leading anti-foreign intervention voices in the Republican Party, Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Thomas Massie of Kentucky. Republican Nebraska Rep. Don Bacon, a retiring, moderate Republican who has frequently criticized Trump, also sponsored the war powers resolution.
Texas Rep. Henry Cuellar was the lone Democratic lawmaker to oppose the resolution checking Trump’s powers. On Dec. 3, Trump pardoned the embattled congressman, who was set to face trial in 2026 on federal bribery charges.
“When war-making power devolves to one person, liberty dissolves,” Massie wrote on X. “Congress needs to vote before the President attempts regime change.”
Republican Florida Rep. Brian Mast, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, countered that Trump does not need permission from Congress to execute “precise, limited strikes.”
Trump has ordered the military to rapidly build up its presence in the waters around Venezuela, amounting to more than 15,000 troops. The administration has also been engaged in a months-long campaign against alleged Venezuelan drug vessels in the Caribbean and Pacific, killing nearly 100 reputed traffickers in more than two dozen strikes.
The president told Politico that socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro’s “days are numbered” and has suggested that land strikes on the country could commence soon.
The House also rejected a resolution Wednesday from Democratic New York Rep. Gregory Meeks that would block the president from using force on any “presidentially designated foreign terrorist organization in the Western Hemisphere” unless authorized by Congress. The measure failed 210 to 216.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune voiced approval Wednesday of the escalating pressure campaign against Maduro.
When asked by reporters whether the Trump administration is pursuing regime change in Venezuela, the majority leader said “I don’t know if that’s a publicly stated policy position, but I don’t — I would certainly not have a problem if that was their position. I mean, I think Maduro is a cancer on that continent.”
White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles clarified Trump’s strategy toward Venezuela in an explosive set of interviews with Vanity Fair published Tuesday.
“He [Trump] wants to keep on blowing boats up until Maduro cries uncle,” Wiles told the outlet. She also conceded that Trump would need approval from Congress for a land war with Venezuela.
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