‘McCarthy trials’: Hasan Piker, far-left figures erupt over subpoenas in $39M Singham probe

Prominent far-left figures, including livestream influencer Hasan Piker, are rallying around a pro-China media outlet within the sprawling network bankrolled by communist tech tycoon Neville Roy Singham – casting recent congressional subpoenas as leading a "McCarthy-style" witch hunt against the left.

As Fox News Digital first reported Wednesday, the House Ways and Means Committee sent subpoenas to three nonprofits, including media outlet BreakThrough News, as part of a wider investigation into alleged malign foreign influence by China in U.S. politics. The three groups have received about $39 million from Singham, who left the U.S. several years ago to live in China.

The other two groups are the People’s Forum Inc., a New York-based activist and political-education hub, and Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, a think tank that says its work is anchored in "national liberation Marxism."

The committee said it is examining whether nonprofit laws adequately protect against foreign influence and whether Congress needs to strengthen them. It also accused the three groups of failing to produce "a single responsive document" following earlier requests for information.

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Piker, CodePink rally behind subpoenaed outlet

Hours after Fox News Digital reported the subpoenas, pro-communist influencers and organizations mounted a social media defense of BreakThrough News, echoing similar-phrased attacks on the congressional investigation.

Among them were Piker, a prominent Twitch streamer and political commentator, and Medea Benjamin, co-founder of CodePink, a pro-communist, pro-China nonprofit that has received Singham money.

Piker called the subpoenas "the McCarthy trials," invoking the anti-communist Congressional investigations of the 1950s, led by Sen. Joe McCarthy.

"They will come for you," Piker warned on X.

Responding to BreakThrough News host Rania Khalek appeal for support and donations, Benjamin called the move a "terrible attack on independent journalism," adding, "We stand with you!!!"

Benjamin co-founded CodePink with Jodie Evans, who married Singham in 2017, the year he sold his technology company, ThoughtWorks, for an estimated $785 million. He has subsequently poured money into a network of pro-communist, pro-China organizations.

In March, Piker, Benjamin and Evans traveled to Cuba to rally support for the island nation’s communist government. Fox News Digital previously reported that the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control is investigating whether they violated U.S. sanctions restricting dealings with Cuba, according to sources familiar with the inquiry.

Their warnings about political repression come despite longstanding restrictions on dissent and independent media under the communist governments of Cuba and China.

The three organizations occupy different roles within the Singham network.

Breakthrough BT Media Inc., which runs BreakThrough News, is based at the People’s Forum W. 37th Street address in Manhattan. It serves as a propaganda arm of the network, producing media and protest coverage and "agitprop," or agitation propaganda. It’s often the first on the scene of major hotspots, like Glam Doll Donuts in Minneapolis, where a local activist, Alex Pretti, was killed by U.S. immigration agents earlier this year.

The People’s Forum organizes demonstrations and political programming, often the first to arrive at protests, handing out pre-printed signs from an affiliated group, the Party for Socialism and Liberation. Tricontinental, led by Singham friend Vijay Prashad, supplies Marxist research and ideological material and hosts events like a "Global South" conference last November in Shanghai, where Singham spoke, expressing support for the "new world order" of the Chinese Communist Party and Chinese President Xi Jinping.

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As Fox News Digital first reported, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Jay Clayton from has separately launched a grand jury investigation into alleged wire fraud, bank fraud, money laundering and other financial improprieties by Singham in financing these organizations. Meanwhile, the State Department issued a report on Monday, naming People’s Forum and CodePink as "fellow travelers" in Cuba’s foreign influence campaign to sell communism.

The synchronized defense illustrates how organizations and personalities tied to the Singham network can rapidly mobilize around a common message, just as they’ve done in the past to oppose everything from data centers to President Donald Trump, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the war with Iran, Israel and the U.S. arrest of Venezuela strongman Nicholas Maduro.

Rather than addressing the committee’s allegations about foreign-linked funding, financial transparency and compliance with congressional document requests, many of the network’s most prominent voices characterized the investigation as political persecution, invoking themes of the "red scare," "McCarthyism," "censorship" and a broader "war on the left."

Messaging and fundraising push spreads

The wider campaign began Wednesday evening with a coordinated petition and fundraising push, before spreading through the Singham-linked network overnight and into today.

At 5:40 p.m. on Wednesday, the People’s Forum launched the messaging counterattack, sharing a new petition and a fundraising appeal on the platform Give Lively LLC, requesting tax-deductible donations to finance its legal response and "mass organizing work."

A few hours later, at 9:44 p.m, Khalek, the BreakThrough News host, urged her social media followers to "sign, share, donate" to the outlet’s new fundraising campaign on the GoFundMe platform and sign a petition, "Tell Congress: Drop the Witch Hunt Against BreakThrough News!"

The petition is hosted on Action Network, a big Democratic Party organizing platform. BreakThrough News said it sought "emergency funds to fight back."

"We’re not going anywhere," Khalek wrote on X. "We’re going to fight this assault on our journalism. The only rights we have are the ones we’re willing to defend."

According to Breakthrough BT Media’s tax filings, Khalek received $101,449 in 2024 and $108,160 in 2023 for "consulting."

Khalek hosts the outlet’s "Dispatches" program and co-hosts "The Freedom Side." Fox News Digital previously reported that she promoted the Chinese government’s claimed "eradication of extreme poverty" during a 2021 program with Tings Chak, a China-based researcher at Tricontinental, linking the media output of one subpoenaed organization to the ideological work of another.

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About an hour later, at 10:52 p.m, Hartzell Gray, a congressional candidate in Missouri supported by Democratic Socialists of America and CodePink’s Benjamin, declared: "Truth isn’t partisan. Journalism isn’t a crime."

Soon after, at 11:45 p.m., Benjamin replied to Khalek, expressing her support, and at 11:51 p.m., Piker posted his condemnation of the subpoenas.

By 2:11 a.m. the next day, socialist congressional candidate Kshama Sawant, a former Seattle City councilwoman, shared Khalek’s message and told followers she had signed the petition supporting BreakThrough News. She described the subpoenas as a "shocking increase in repression of independent media and left activists."

Later that morning, at 9:34 a.m., the campaign had spread to propagandists for the Islamic Republic of Iran. Seyed Mohammad Marandi, a University of Tehran professor and former adviser to Iran’s nuclear negotiating team, shared BreakThrough News’ response and declared: "The US is an intolerant and authoritarian regime."

Marandi’s accusation comes against the backdrop of Iran’s own crackdown on dissent. A United Nations fact-finding mission said the Iranian government had intensified its repression in a "concerted effort to crush dissent," while Reporters Without Borders ranked Iran 177th out of 180 countries for press freedom in 2026.

About an hour later, at 10:39 a.m, Craig Mokhiber, a former senior U.N. human-rights official who previously directed the New York office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, called the subpoenas an "outrageous attack" by the "US-Israel Axis." He said they threatened freedom of opinion, expression and information.

Foreign-linked funding at heart of probe

At the heart of the committee’s inquiry is the network’s layered financial architecture.

The panel alleges that Singham’s money traveled through shell companies and donor-advised funds before reaching the three tax-exempt organizations. Such arrangements, the committee said, can move foreign-linked funding through layers of intermediaries that "by design, obscure the original source of the contribution."

Fox News Digital previously documented $278 million flowing from Singham into six core nonprofits in a wider transnational network spanning media operations, activist organizations and ideological think tanks. The committee’s current investigation focuses on about $39 million it says reached BreakThrough News, the People’s Forum and Tricontinental.

The committee requested records concerning foreign-linked funding and projects whose finances the groups managed. It also sought contracts involving foreign individuals or organizations, communications with Singham about the groups’ finances or operations, contacts with other foreign interests, information about foreign donors who contributed more than $5,000 and records of grants sent overseas.

By Thursday night, the counterpropaganda campaign went global with the World Socialist Website, a pro-communism platform, parroting the rhetoric of the Singham network and blasting the "anti-communist witchhunting" to its readers.