Neal Opening Statement at Full Committee Hearing on Foreign Influence in American Non-profits
(As prepared for delivery)
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
WASHINGTON, D.C. – RealEstateRama – We are here today as a government built for the people. Today, you are holding this hearing on the pretense of what happens when tax-exempt dollars funnel from or to groups that you disagree with. But much more pressing, what happens when decisions are no longer being made for the people, but in service to the President’s greed? Greed that expands across affiliated nonprofits and for-profits alike and into wide-ranging transactions with foreign governments, including real estate, cryptocurrency, and numerous business ventures.
Right now, it’s impossible to talk about nonprofits in America without acknowledging those tied to Trump: the Presidential Library Foundation, Inaugural Committee, and the Trust for the National Ballroom, to name a few.
Let me walk you through a few high dollar examples:
$400 million donation: in the form of a private jet to Trump’s Presidential Library Foundation, a tax-exempt organization, from Qatar. Since this donation, Qatar has received several sweetheart deals from this Administration, including a $142 billion arms deal and a deal for AI chips despite national security concerns.
$5 million donation: the largest to the Trump Vance Inaugural Committee was from a U.S. subsidiary of a foreign company, circumventing direct contribution bans. The contribution came from Pilgram Pride, a subsidiary of a Brazilian meat-packing company (JBS), to the tax-exempt, Inaugural Committee. Shortly thereafter, its Brazilian parent company (JBS) was approved in June 2025 for trading on the New York Stock Exchange after years of failed attempts to be listed.
This pattern on foreign influence continues to the hundreds of millions being funneled to the Trust for the National Mall, a tax-exempt organization collecting contributions for Trump’s ballroom. Among the donations that have been publicly disclosed, there is one notable from, Tether America, a U.S. subsidiary of an El Salvador-based company.
Certainly, Trump has put the “For Sale” sign up, and other countries now have the roadmap for buying similar influence.
As my colleague on the other side of the aisle stated, “Americans deserve assurance that presidents won’t be ‘bought and sold’ before leaving office, particularly as they still hold immense international power and influence over U.S. policy.” We could not agree more.
All of this is just the tip of the iceberg of his profiteering. According to estimates from the New York Times—which they acknowledge is only based on what’s publicly available and likely an underestimate, this President has used the office to enrich himself by $1.4 billion since taking office last year.
That’s 16,822 times the average income of an American.
How’s that serving the people?
Real national security threats are going unexamined on Republicans’ watch right now. Trump has put the government up for sale while his administration admits to mishandling the people’s sensitive data. When will they ask questions about the real corruption and threats happening right under their noses?
Last year, one of the Republican witnesses here today went on Fox News and couldn’t be more impassioned about the national security risk foreign governments, specifically Qatar, presented with “the lack of transparency” regarding donations to American universities. We all agree there’s an important interest in identifying a foreign actor with shady motivations, and I look forward to hearing your perspective on the President pocketing a $400 million private jet from a country that gave you such pause.
We need a serious and good-faith conversation about corruption and foreign influence that’s bending politics to benefit the well-connected and costing taxpayers. What Republicans are doing is a disingenuous, cherry-picked exercise to legitimize the White House’s crusade to silence the opposition by branding anyone who disagrees with them as a threat, or even a domestic terrorist.
We’ve already seen the President weaponize the power of government to target his perceived opponents and enemies. We can’t be party to another performative effort that continues to ignore the President’s abuses.
With that, I yield back.
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