A Chinese tech executive with ties to a Communist Party advisory body was given VIP access to a Trump-hosted cryptocurrency dinner and White House tour, raising new questions surrounding national security and ethics in the White House, the New York Times reported Friday.
The buyer, He Tianying, is a delegate of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference – an official advisory body that serves to extend the influence of the Chinese Communist Party, the Times found in an examination of government documents in China. He was one of the top purchasers of Trump’s memcoin, scooping up $3.7 million worth under the “self-adopted” nickname “Sky” – which earned him a seat at a private dinner with Trump and a gold-colored wristband for a VIP White House tour.
“The buyers used self-adopted nicknames that disguised their identities, but The Times obtained copies of several pages of an official sign-in sheet for the dinner and over the past two weeks has been examining the biographies of many of the attendees,” the outlet said.
The revelation comes as the Trump White House “has repeatedly sounded an alarm about visitors with ties to China’s Communist Party coming to the United States, arguing that they are a potential security threat,” the Times pointed out in the Friday report.
But in this case, the administration “appears to have literally left the door open to a member of a Chinese government group.” The incident was described as “unfortunate” by a senior White House official, who asked not to be named in the report.
According to the Times, the event “illustrates inconsistencies in the Trump administration’s approach to how it handles Chinese nationals, as well as potential weaknesses in the background checks the Trump administration did on the guests who bought his memecoin.”
Ethics experts and critics say it also blurs the line between Trump’s political life and personal profit.
“The memecoin dinner engendered strong criticism from Democrats, government watchdogs and even some Republicans about the appearance of monetizing the presidency for personal gain,” the outlet said. “The event was arranged by the president’s business partners to directly enrich the first family, even as Mr. Trump spoke that evening behind a stand emblazoned with the presidential seal.”
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt downplayed the new reporting.
“As the White House has always maintained, this was not an official White House event,” she told the Times in an interview.