House panel to probe foreign Trojan horses as Singham scrutiny widens

FIRST ON FOX: Congressional scrutiny of foreign influence operations in the United States is widening, with a powerful panel of lawmakers set to hold a hearing next week examining how nonprofits and activist networks serve as potential "Trojan horses" for foreign adversaries.Fox News Digital has learned the House Foreign Affairs SubCommittee on South and Central Asia has scheduled an open hearing for Tuesday titled "Trojan Horses: Covert Foreign Malign Influence Operations in America.""This is a critically important topic right now because the vectors for foreign influence in our public discourse are greater than they've ever been before, in large part because of social media," Sam Lyman, head of research at the Bitcoin Policy Institute and one of the hearing's planned witnesses, told Fox News Digital."Social media acts as a gain-of-function for mind viruses that are incubated overseas and oftentimes find their way over to the United States," said Lyman, a former senior advisor and speechwriter to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.Medea Benjamin (right) and Olivia DiNucci (center) of CodePink protest against the U.S.war in Iran.

(Fox News Digital)The planned hearing, which takes its name from the mythological horse Greek soldiers hid inside of to infiltrate the fortified city of Troy, is expected to include a scrutiny of influence from China and Cuba to the Islamic Republic of Iran and pro-Palestinian groups.It marks an expansion of congressional scrutiny of foreign influence beyond the tax and financial questions already being pursued by the House Ways and Means Committee, which has subpoenaed three nonprofits in a network funded by Neville Roy Singham, an American-born communist tech tycoon now based in Shanghai.Mike Gonzalez, a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation who is scheduled to testify as a witness, told Fox News Digital the threat is real."Adversaries and outright enemies of the United States such as China and Cuba, shadowy non-government organization...