Obama’s “Vote Protection Director” Now Lobbies For A Firm The State Department Flagged As A ‘Tool’ Of Chinese Communist Party.

Brian McKeon, Barack Obama’s Deputy Director For Voter Protection, now serves as a lobbyist for Tencent – a tech platform flagged by the U.S. State Department as a “tool” of the Chinese Communist Party.

First retained by Tencent in August 2020 to lobby against the Trump administration’s proposed ban on its platform WeChat, McKeon is still registered as an active lobbyist on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party-linked tech firm.

In the first three months of 2021, McKeon’s firm, Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, received $200,000 in recorded compensation from Tencent. During that time period, the Biden White House also dropped the Trump administration’s efforts to ban the platform due to national security concerns.

According to The Washington Post, McKeon was a “deputy director for voter protection for Obama for America, helping oversee the effort to recruit and organize attorneys to be poll watchers in the 2012 election.”

And McKeon’s profile at the firm – where he has also lobbied for the controversial Dominion Voting Systems – highlights the position:

Brian served in senior roles for both Shaheen and Boxer’s Senate campaigns, and as a deputy voter protection director to Obama for America.

The State Department’s Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation has described Tencent as a “tool of the Chinese government,” noting the company has “no meaningful ability to tell the Chinese Communist Party ‘no’ if officials decide to ask for their assistance.” Even the progressive group Amnesty International rated Tencent’s data encryption capabilities zero out of 100, noting it hadn’t “stated publicly that they will not grant government requests to the backdoor.”

It provides “a foundation of technology-facilitated surveillance and social control” as part of the Chinese government’s broader crusade “to shape the world consistent with its authoritarian...

Read More HERE