TikTok Lobbyists Visited White House at Least 40 Times in Past Year
Visits show TikTok's extensive clout inside the Biden administration
Alana Goodman
April 20, 2023
Executives at high-powered firms hired by TikTok for lobbying and strategic consulting visited the White House at least 40 times in the past year, according to official White House visitor records.
The Chinese social media platform and its parent company, ByteDance, are mounting a massive public relations blitz as lawmakers are seeking to ban the app due to national security, espionage, and data privacy concerns. ByteDance and TikTok have spent $13 million on federal lobbying since 2019 and hired heavyweight firms such as influential Democratic public relations shop SKDK.
Those hired guns have had the ear of the White House, the records show. Former Louisiana Democratic senator John Breaux, a TikTok lobbyist at Crossroads Strategies, visited the White House at least three times last year, most recently for an event on Dec. 21. Stephanie Leger Short, another TikTok lobbyist who works with Breaux, attended a June 23 meeting with White House adviser Mitch Landrieu. Breaux also met with White House official John Podesta last November.
Other visitors included former Tennessee Democratic congressman Barton Gordon, a ByteDance lobbyist who attended White House events on Dec. 1 and last September, and Lauren Aronson, a ByteDance lobbyist who visited twice in September.
None of the lobbyists and firms responded to requests for comment. The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
https://freebeacon.com/biden-administration/tiktok-lobbyists-visited-white-house-at-least-40-times-in-past-year/
