Joe Biden’s nominee to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives had another round of bad press when it was discovered that he didn’t disclose his media hit with Chinese communist television. The state media apparatus, which is viewed as a propaganda arm of Beijing and had to register as a foreign agent in 2019, invited David Chipman into their spin machine to discuss the Sandy Hook shooting in 2012. Chipman seemed to play the part of the good soldier and go along with the propaganda (via Fox News):
President Biden’s nominee to head the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) failed to disclose to the Senate a media appearance on Chinese state TV, which may have been used as propaganda by the communist state to cover up a mass stabbing of children.
Biden’s ATF nominee David Chipman appeared on a Chinese state-run media network, China Global Television Network (CGTN), previously known as CCTN, in December 2012 to discuss the government’s response to the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre, one of the deadliest shootings in U.S. history that killed 28 people and injured two.
CGTN, which reaches 30 million households within the U.S., “is an arm of China’s propaganda machine. It is controlled by the Communist Party and serves as part of what Mr. Xi has called Beijing’s ‘publicity front.’” as described by the New York Times. In 2019, the Department of Justice (DOJ) required CGTN to register as a foreign agent under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, or FARA.
[…]
Chipman did not disclose his 2012 appearance on CGTN in written responses to the Senate’s questions for the record.
However, he listed at least 16 pages of previous interviews and quotes he provided to media, including at least two events and interviews in which he spoke about the Newtown Massacre. None of the information listed included the CGTN media appearance.