Representative Liz Cheney’s husband’s law firm represents several Chinese Communist Party-linked clients – including firms tied to the regime’s military – and employs former party officials to undergird its massive China practice, The National Pulse can reveal.
Phillip Perry – the husband of the House Republican Conference Chair who looks set to be ousted over her outlandish criticisms of her own party and its leader Donald Trump – serves as a Partner at Latham & Watkins. The firm, which has offices in Shanghai and Beijing, has worked with companies labeled “tools” of the Chinese Communist Party by the U.S. State Department and People’s Liberation Army collaborators.
Landing the position after working in the George W. Bush administration, Perry has defended the “revolving door” between government officials and lobbying and legal firms:
“The term ‘revolving door’ implies people going in and out of government in order to obtain monetary gain. The reason people go into government is to serve their country. It’s not appropriate to describe that as a ‘revolving door,'” Perry has previously claimed.
Communist Clients.
While Perry claims to have gone into government to serve his country, his colleagues are servicing the needs of a foreign, hostile nation.
As part of its “Greater China Practice,” Latham & Watkins describes itself as “advising” Chinese Communist Party-linked technology firm Tencent on its investment in an American company.
Tencent has been described by the State Department’s Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation as a “tool of the Chinese government,” noting the company has “no meaningful ability to tell the Chinese Communist Party ‘no’ if officials decide to ask for their assistance.” It provides “a foundation of technology-facilitated surveillance and social control” as part of the CCP’s broader crusade “to shape the world consistent with its authoritarian model,” the State Department report adds.
Even the left-wing Amnesty International rated Tencent’s data encryption capabilities zero out of 100, noting it hadn’t “stated publicly that they will not grant government requests to backdoor.”
Latham & Watkins has also boasted how it successfully “persuaded” the U.S. government to lift Trump-era sanctions on state-owned China COSCO Shipping Corporation Limited (COSCO). COSCO is a controversial, Shanghai-based logistics company labeled as a “thinly veiled arm of the Chinese military” by a task force of the U.S. House of Representatives. Eleven of its 13 executives boast of high-level Chinese Communist Party affiliations on COSCO’s website.
“On January 31, the US Department of State and the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control removed a COSCO subsidiary and one of its former executives from OFAC’s Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List,” the firm’s press release reads.
Communist Colleagues.
To bolster the firm’s China practice, Latham & Watkins also employs former Chinese Communist Party apparatchiks.
One of Cheney’s husband’s fellow Partners, Hui Xu, describes himself as previously working for China’s Ministry of Commerce in his bio:
Prior to private practice, Mr. Xu was a member of the in-house legal department at the China Chamber of Commerce under the Ministry of Commerce of China, where he handled trade remedy, intellectual property, and World Trade Organization matters.
The firm tracks legislative developments in the Chinese Communist Party, often praising the regime’s “vigorous” environmental laws, even noting “President Xi’s announcement signals a renewed effort to improve the fragmented political infrastructure of environmental governance in China.”
Latham & Watkins, which has also published pamphlets titled “Doing Business in China,” has also praised China’s Five-Year Plans for its “increased focus on climate change and a more open trade environment.”
The discovery follows The National Pulse’s exposé into Douglas Emhoff, husband to Kamala Harris and Second Gentleman of the United States. Emhoff previously worked for DLA Piper, another large, global law practice with Chinese communist clients.
DLA Piper boasts of “long-established and embedded “China Desks” in both the U.S. and Europe” to assist their China-focused consulting, prompting questions about how the firm’s potential proximity to the White House could be leveraged by DLA Piper, exploited by the Chinese Communist Party, or represent a financial conflict of interest for the Vice President.
