TikTok Hires Communications Firm with Deep White House Ties: Report

TikTok has contracted with SKDK, a communications firm with extensive and profound ties to the Biden administration, Politico reported yesterday, citing two people familiar with the arrangement. According to the report, SKDK is providing communications support to the Chinese tech company as it lobbies against a ban of the app, or forced divestment by TikTok owner ByteDance — a Beijing-based tech giant with extensive links to the Chinese Communist Party.

The New York Times has described senior White House adviser Anita Dunn — a founding partner at SKDK who left the firm to work in the administration full time — and her husband Bob Bauer as two of President Biden’s “most leaned-upon advisors.” Several senior White House and Biden administration communications officials have previously worked for the firm. SKDK was brought in to work for TikTok “in the last few months,” according to Politico.

TikTok has already spent millions in an aggressive lobbying push to counter congressional work toward legislation banning the app, and to shape the administration’s ongoing national-security review of its ownership by ByteDance. In addition to an in-house lobbying and public-affairs team helmed by former congressional staffers, ByteDance has hired former members of Congress from both sides of the aisle, including Trent Lott, the former GOP Senate majority leader, and Representative Bart Gordon, a Tennessee Democrat. Firms working for TikTok include K&L Gates, Crossroads Strategies, LGL Advisors, and Mehlman Consulting. Frequent CNN commentator and campaign veteran David Urban also lobbies for TikTok; Politico previously characterized him as “close to numerous potential 2024 contenders” on the GOP side.

The decision to bring on SKDK comes amid a string of stinging losses for TikTok — in Washington and around the world. In December, Congress approved legislation to ban the app from federal government devices, and a number of other governments, such as Taiwan and the European Union, implemented similar bans .

While the Politico report characterized SKDK’s work for TikTok as primarily focused on communications, it could be forced to register under domestic or foreign lobbying laws as more information comes to light.

Currently, all of TikTok’s lobbyists, both in-house and otherwise, use a legal loophole to register under the domestic law, rather than as foreign agents, despite the fact that ByteDance hosts an internal Chinese Communist Party committee that studies “Xi Jinping thought.”

TikTok chief lobbyist Michael Beckerman also dodged repeated questions about his view of the Chinese Communist Party’s mass atrocities against Uyghurs, refusing to acknowledge the situation during an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper last December:

During the interview, Tapper said, “A viewer might see this and think this guy won’t even acknowledge that the Chinese are committing genocide against their own people.” Beckerman responded, calling the remark “not fair,” but still declined to acknowledge the human-rights abuses.

Beckerman’s employer ByteDance has reportedly partnered with the CCP authorities in the Xinjiang region on propaganda efforts.

Congress is currently weighing several bills that could variously ban TikTok outright or create a framework that could lead to bans or other such restrictions on Chinese tech firms.

Top U.S. intelligence officials expressed their concerns — during congressional hearings this week on threats facing the U.S. — that TikTok’s ties to the Chinese government could make it a vector for a foreign adversary’s propaganda.

General Paul Nakasone, the director of the National Security Agency, called TikTok, in view of its potential use by the Chinese regime as a megaphone for its messaging, a “loaded gun,” during an appearance before the House Intelligence Committee yesterday.

TikTok CEO Shou Chew is scheduled to testify before the House Energy and Commerce Committee later this month.