A measure to ban Chinese drones was shot down after lobbying by former U.S. officials.
A measure to ban Chinese drones was shot down after lobbying by former U.S. officials.
R epresentative Mike Gallagher (R., Wis.) accused U.S. lobbyists for the drone manufacturer DJI — a Chinese military company — of selling out their country after they worked against a bill to prohibit federal agencies from procuring drones from hostile foreign countries. Earlier this week, these lobbyists’ efforts succeeded when a congressional committee blocked the measure, which Gallagher had sponsored.
According to publicly available disclosures, lobbyists from Squire Patton Boggs and the Vogel Group registered to work for DJI this year on the National Defense Authorization Act and the American Security Drone Act. For its efforts from April to June 2022, Squire Patton Boggs generated $150,000; the figure for the Vogel group is not yet available. Neither firm responded to a request for comment from National Review on whether they are concerned that their work for DJI is undermining U.S. national security.
“This is the latest example of how the CCP uses the swamp against us,” said Gallagher, the lead author of the amendment, in a statement to National Review. “There is bipartisan recognition that Congress needs to act to mitigate threats posed by DJI drones, but these efforts have been undermined by lobbyists who’d rather sell out the country than lose a lucrative contract.” The drone-ban measure’s other sponsors include Representatives Joe Courtney (D., Conn.), Vicky Hartzler (R., Mo.), Val Demings (D., Fla.), and Elise Stefanik (R., N.Y.).
The American Security Drone Act would have stopped federal agencies from buying commercially available drones from companies in countries deemed to pose a national-security risk and, specifically, from companies “subject to influence or control by” the Chinese Communist Party.
For years, U.S. officials have expressed concerns about DJI’s products, which are widely used in the U.S. and around the world. The Pentagon banned the purchase of DJI drones in 2017, citing security risks. Yet other agencies, such as the Secret Service and the FBI, have reportedly continued to purchase and use their products. DJI is reported to have received funding from four Chinese Communist Party entities, and independent audits of an app for its products have found glaring privacy issues, such as the undisclosed collection of certain user data.
Gallagher and the bill’s other proponents tried to get it inserted into the House’s version of the annual National Defense Authorization Act, but on Tuesday night, the House Rules Committee blocked it from moving forward.
The episode sheds new light on a glaring loophole that allows Chinese firms — even those blacklisted and sanctioned by the U.S. government — to buy access to the American political system. One expert, the American Enterprise Institute’s Eric Sayers, said on Twitter that DJI’s lobbyists are “running a legal influence operation inside the US that continues to successfully protect their client.”
In 2020, the Commerce Department placed DJI on its entity list, thus barring U.S. firms from selling to it, over its role in enabling the mass surveillance of Uyghurs in Xinjiang. In December of that year, the Treasury Department labeled DJI a Chinese military-industrial-complex company and barred Americans from holding investments in it.
According to its Lobbying Disclosure Act registration filing, which is dated June 1, the Vogel Group’s DJI team is led by Samir Kapadia, a former staffer to ex-Representative Frank Wolf and Senator Mark Warner. (Incidentally, Wolf is a vocal opponent of such lobbying, last year telling NR’s Jim Geraghty: “During the Reagan Administration, nobody would have ever represented the Soviet Union, now those who represent China are all over Washington.”)
The Vogel Group’s other DJI lobbyists include two Republican staffers: Alex Vogel, who served as chief counsel to former Senate majority leader Bill Frist, and Avery Williams Eagan, a former staffer to Senator John Barrasso.
Squire Patton Boggs registered to lobby for DJI with two former executive-branch officials, including one who worked on highly sensitive national-security issues. Clark Ervin served as inspector general for both the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security from 2001 to 2004. In the 1990s, he worked in the White House Office of National Service. Another lobbyist, Carolina Mederos, is a former Department of Transportation official who served in various roles across the department during the George H. W. Bush administration.
The other members of the firm’s lobbying team include Victoria Cram, John Flynn, and Kara-Marie Urban, all of whom are former congressional staffers.
Although the DJI team won this round, Gallagher said that he will continue to push for the drone ban.
“The threats posed by DJI drones are clear and well documented, and no matter how much the CCP spends on the swamp, we will continue to work to make sure these devices get nowhere near the federal government.”