Rep. Liz Cheney’s (R-WY) husband’s law firm, Latham & Watkins, has advised a Chinese Communist Party-linked technology company named Tencent Music Entertainment or “TME.” Liz Cheney is up for reelection in Wyoming’s August 16 primary against Trump-endorsed Harriet Hageman, who has been outspoken against the CCP.
While Cheney campaigns for another two years in office, her husband, Philip Perry, has connections to one of the United States’ greatest adversaries. Perry’s law firm has a close working relationship with TME, which the State Department in 2019 dubbed a tool of the Chinese government.
Christopher Ashley Ford, assistant secretary of the U.S. State Department’s bureau of international security and nonproliferation, told Quartz about the dangers of TME’s relationship with CCP. “Whether de facto or de jure, such giants can in some important respects or for some purposes act as arms of the state—or, more precisely, the Chinese Communist Party, to which the Chinese state apparatus is itself subordinate,” he said about Latham & Watkins’s client and the CCP.
According to Latham & Watkins’s press release, the firm has advised TME on acquisitions and has celebrated its client as the “market leader in interactive virtual entertainment experiences” in Communist China. TME has positioned itself as the “leading online music and audio entertainment platform in China,” Yahoo Finance reported.
TME is not just a music company, it is “a foundation of technology-facilitated surveillance and social control” for Communist China, which is built upon the “China Dream” or “China Model,” Ford further explained. Along with Chinese companies like Alibaba, Ford said, “these companies export their products and services to the rest of the world, the security and human rights problems associated with this ‘China Model’ are progressively exported with them.”
Cheney’s husband’s law firm has not only advised TME, a CCP-linked company, but has lobbied on behalf of companies with ties to the CCP. Latham & Watkins has earned fat checks from their lobbying efforts linked to the CCP. According to the Center For Responsive Politics, between 2001 And 2004, Latham & Watkins was paid $145,000 to lobby on behalf of Exelon Corporation.
In 2011, Exelon Corporation agreed to provide consulting and training services to an arm of the state-owned China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC), according to the Wall Street Journal. The state-owned CNNC’s president and vice president are appointed by the highest administrative position in the Government of China, the Premier of the People’s Republic of China. The CNNC supervises all facets of China’s nuclear programs.
“Exelon Corp. will provide consulting and training services to an arm of state-owned China National Nuclear Corp., in a signal that China’s secretive state-owned nuclear companies are determined to learn Western safety practices and other expertise in the aftermath of Japan’s nuclear incident in March,” the Journal reported in 2011. “As part of the deal disclosed on Friday, instructors from Chicago-based Exelon will be stationed at Qinshan Nuclear Power Station in China’s eastern Zhejiang province.”
“The initial consulting deal is a small one and is slated to last only through mid-December, though Exelon said it could subsequently grow to include a variety of services for China’s nascent nuclear industry,” the article added.
Republican congressional candidate Harriet Hageman meets attendees at a rally at the Teton County Fair & Rodeo Grounds on June 14, 2022, in Jackson, Wyoming. (Natalie Behring/Getty Images)
Liz Cheney’s opponent, Hageman, has slammed Cheney and her husband for his connections to the CCP-liked companies. Hageman believes the Perry family is “personally” and “financially benefiting from working for China,” Hageman told Just the News.
“He has a choice, he can either work with his firm and take the stand that his wife is apparently advocating publicly, and say, ‘We’re not going to represent countries or companies that, number one have problems with human rights abuses, and number two, who are really kind of in a soft war with the United States.’ Or you can go to another law firm,” Hageman added. “Have some integrity.”
Cheney’s track record seems to be disappointing Wyoming voters. The incumbent is down about 30 points to Hageman, who is predicted to win the race after Cheney allied herself with Democrats. Cheney has raised money from Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton donors and has solicited votes from Democrats.
Cheney’s alliance with Democrats also extends to the partisan January 6 Committee, which has sought to investigate the January 6 incident without focusing on the alleged FBI informants at the Capitol. Cheney is one of ten Republicans who voted to impeach former President Donald Trump. If she loses the August 16 primary, only two pro-impeachment Republicans will remain in office.
Cheney’s alliance with Democrats and fixation on Trump caused the Wyoming Republican Party in 2021 to excommunicate their representative from the state in which she is no longer recognized as a Republican. Since then, Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), and former Wyoming Rep. Barbara Cubin have all endorsed Hageman.
According to PredictIt odds, Cheney has only a four-cent chance on the dollar of winning. Trump-endorsed Harriet Hageman is favored by 97 cents on the dollar.
Follow Wendell Husebø on Twitter @WendellHusebø. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality.