Joe Biden’s nominee for heading the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) failed to inform the Senate that he had appeared on Chinese Communist Party (CCP) run TV network CGTN in 2012.
As The National Pulse has previously reported, the China Global Television Network (CGTN) is a CCP-run propaganda spreader. It relies on American experts to provide it with a “facade of credibility.” CGTN airs forced confessions and propaganda aimed at discrediting the credible accusation that the CCP is committing genocide in China’s Xinjiang province.
David Chipman joined CGTN in 2012 for a discussion about the Unites States’ response to the deadly shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Chipman was working at the time for Mayors Against Illegal Guns and Everytown for Gun Safety, “an anti-firearm group dedicated to sparking more gun control in the United States.”
In the course of his interview with CGTN, Chipman stated his belief that “unless we do something about it” there would be more shootings. Fox News said Chipman’s interview about “U.S. failures to contain gun violence” was used by CGTN as a distraction from a mass stabbing in China’s own Henan Province of 23 children in a school.
Chipman gave the US Senate at least 16 pages detailing his past media hits but did not list CGTN, even though in 2019 the US started to classify the Communist network as a “foreign agent,” under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. Chipman wrote the Senate a disclaimer, saying, “I have done my best to identify all interviews given, including through a review of my personal files, and searches of publicly available electronic databases. Despite my searches, there may be other materials that I have been unable to identify, find, or remember.”
Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) said that Chipman’s TV hit on CGTN raises “very serious concerns,” and added that there is with Chipman a “consistent pattern of focusing on partisan priorities of Democrats at the expense of fulfilling our responsibility to the American people.” Cruz condemned the ATF nominee for the TV hit, saying that the Senate committee did not have a chance to ask or receive answers to important questions such as “Did [Chipman] know that [his interview] would be used as propaganda to cover up the atrocities in Communist China?”
Cruz further deplored the fact that the Senate committee leadership does not seem to care about the CGTN interview and alleged racist comments the ATF nominee has made. Cruz criticized Democrat Chairman Dick Durbin for refusing to hold a second hearing after allegations of Chipman’s racism while an ATF agent surfaced. “So what this committee is saying is that allegations of racism, if you’re a partisan Democrat, no problem at all. Not even worth asking about,” Cruz said.
