A new report has revealed that Boston Mayor Michelle Wu’s (D) 2021 election campaign received over $300,000 from a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) intelligence official. Wu is the latest in a growing list of U.S. government officials who have been infiltrated by operatives of Xi Jinping’s communist regime, a trend that experts say must be combated by the Trump administration.

A report published Monday by The Daily Caller detailed how Yu Guoliang, who also goes by the name Gary Yu, helped to raise over $300,000 for Wu’s mayoral campaign via a Chinese civic association. Yu is publicly known as the founder of Boston International Media Consulting but is also listed as an official by two regional branches of an arm of the United Front Work Department (UFWD) and “has repeatedly met with high-ranking CCP intelligence leaders in China,” according to “Chinese government announcements, state media reports and records from Chinese civic associations led by Yu.”

“The CCP’s United Front Work Department, which contributed to Mayor Wu’s 2021 election campaign, is a Chinese state security entity — a spy agency for Beijing,” Lt. Col. (Ret.) Bob Maginnis, Family Research Council’s senior fellow for National Security, told The Washington Stand. “Therefore, the UFWD’s contributions to Wu’s campaign is evidence of a foreign government interfering in a U.S. election, which might be illegal.”

Wu is far from the only U.S. elected official who has been linked to the CCP. In September 2024, a former top aide of New York Governor Kathy Hochul (D) and former Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo was arrested along with her husband for accepting millions of dollars in bribe money from the CCP in exchange for working as government agents for Beijing.

As if to underscore these developments, a new warning was issued on Monday by the National Counterintelligence and Security Center stating that “Foreign intelligence entities, particularly those in China, are targeting current and former U.S. government employees for recruitment by posing as consulting firms, corporate headhunters, think tanks and other entities on social and professional networking sites.” The FBI issued a similar announcement on X, stating, “China and other foreign intelligence entities are targeting former and current U.S. government employees on social and professional networking sites.”

The counterintelligence report highlighted the case of Navy Chief Petty Officer Thomas Zhao, who was “sentenced to prison in January 2024 for providing sensitive U.S. military information to a Chinese intelligence officer in exchange for more than $14,000 in cash. Zhao was recruited through a social media chat group on stock trading.”

China experts like author Gordon Chang say the federal government must investigate cases like the Michelle Wu incident. “The Communist Party’s UFWD never rests,” he told The Daily Caller. “There is no ethnic Chinese official in America who is not targeted. It’s time for law enforcement to investigate the CCP’s ties to Gary Yu and Yu’s ties to Mayor Michelle Wu.”

Maginnis concurred. “The Chinese communist regime has a robust presence and influence inside the U.S.,” he told TWS. “One of its most maligned Chinese programs is called ‘elite capture,’ a truly diabolical manipulation of America’s rich and powerful. The term was popularized by Peter Schweizer in his book, ‘Red Handed.’ ‘Elite capture’ is a Chinese communist operation that involves quasi-private business ventures that tempt our elite — entertainment, business, sports, military, and political leaders — to do their bidding in exchange for money, access to Chinese markets and in some instances sexual favors. We need to reset our relationship with China economically, ideologically, security-wise, geopolitically, and technologically. ‘Elite capture’ touches several of these reset areas. “

Maginnis further contended that Congress should strengthen laws that combat China’s infiltration tactics. “We must also silence CCP dirty money from its malign influence on the U.S. political system such as in the case of Mayor Wu,” he argued. “We do this by strengthening laws like the Foreign Agents’ Registration Act. Further, there are federal laws against foreign government interference in our elections, such as 52 USC 30121 contributions and donations by foreign nationals, which must be rigorously enforced. The American people deserve to know about Chinese influence and disinformation meant to confuse and disrupt our free-election process.”

Maginnis concluded by commending President Trump’s China-targeted tariffs and urging the administration to prosecute illegal China-related activity by U.S. officials. “Fortunately, President Trump is getting tough on China. His tariff approach against China’s unfair economic practices is long overdue. Our recognition of China’s security threat and geopolitical activities are gaining fresh attention and push-back from Trump. Now, it is long overdue that China’s influence on our media and especially our political figures must stop. That will require identification, perhaps new laws but also prosecution of key leaders suspected of violating American laws to benefit Beijing.”