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Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee have issued subpoenas to three left-wing groups, including a news outlet, demanding that they turn over their communications and financial records as the Trump administration escalates its McCarthyist crackdowns on those with left-wing views.
The committee has demanded documents from BreakThrough News, a left-wing news outlet; the People’s Forum, a political organizing group based in New York City; and Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, which describes itself as “a network of research institutes in the Global South.”
According to Fox News, the committee previously sought records from the People’s Forum in September 2025 and BreakThrough News and Tricontinental in February 2026, but the groups did not comply, with the People’s Forum’s attorney likening the efforts to a “witch hunt” akin to the actions of the Joe McCarthy-era House Un-American Activities Committee.
People’s Forum and BreakThrough News have asked for support after the subpoenas, saying that they are being targeted for their work on Palestine, ICE, and Cuba, as part of the Trump administration’s sweeping attacks on the left. People’s Forum says that the committee has demanded its “internal communications, organizational records, and financial documents.”
“We call on all people of conscience to join us in defending democratic rights and civil liberties. We say NO to the New McCarthyism,” People’s Forum said in a statement.
“For years, Republican lawmakers have painted a target on our backs, falsely claiming that our political views and reporting are part of some foreign plot,” BreakThrough News said. “Make no mistake, this is a flagrant abuse of power, and a direct attack on our work as journalists and on the First Amendment generally.”
As Fox notes, the lawmakers say they are investigating the groups for allegedly getting funding from wealthy left-wing activist Neville Roy Singham, citing a previous series of articles by the far right news outlet. Reports last week said that Singham is being criminally investigated by a grand jury in New York for supposed violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act in relation to Singham’s alleged business and diplomatic ties to China, but he has not been charged with wrongdoing and the investigation is reportedly ongoing.
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In letters to the organizations, as reported by Fox, the committee’s chair, Rep. Jason Smith (R-Missouri) says that their cooperation is necessary for the group to examine whether there is a “gap in existing law” that “legislative reform may require to close.”
“The American people deserve to know whether the [Chinese Communist Party] has exploited America’s tax-exempt sector to advance its agenda,” Smith told Fox.
In recent months, Republicans have also urged the federal government to investigate left-wing activist group CodePink, whose co-founder Jodie Evans is married to Singham.
The subpoenas come as top Trump administration officials, in particular Secretary of State Marco Rubio, are conducting a campaign to combat leftists and left-wing thought in the U.S. and around the world.
At a meeting of allied governments convened by Rubio’s State Department on combatting supposed “political terrorism” last week, top Trump aide Stephen Miller boasted that the administration is working to “disrupt, identify, defund, debank, arrest, and prosecute these political terrorists,” referring broadly to the left.
Then, this week, the State Department published a wide-ranging report dubiously claiming that the small, impoverished island state of Cuba is fomenting a global left-wing movement with the goal of overthrowing Western civilization. In this report, officials name numerous left-wing individuals and groups supposedly working under Cuba’s auspices. The document has been likened to a blacklist, pointing to figures like Hasan Piker and Zohran Mamdani, and groups like the Democratic Socialists of America and CodePink.
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