{"id":315775,"date":"2026-08-07T03:30:13","date_gmt":"2026-08-07T03:30:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/315775\/"},"modified":"2026-08-07T03:30:13","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T03:30:13","slug":"progressive-groups-decry-houses-investigation-into-nyc-leftist-org","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/315775\/","title":{"rendered":"Progressive groups decry House\u2019s investigation into NYC leftist org"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The influential union 32BJ SEIU and dozens of progressive groups released a joint statement on Thursday in opposition to the Republican-controlled House Ways and Means Committee\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/gothamist.com\/news\/the-peoples-forum-nyc-based-activist-group-hit-with-house-subpoena\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">subpoena of The People\u2019s Forum<\/a>, a nonprofit leftist activist group based in Manhattan.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe House Ways and Means Committee\u2019s investigation of The People\u2019s Forum is part of a broader effort by the Trump regime and its minions in Congress to intimidate organizations whose speech they disagree with, and to threaten the very values that are essential to a free and open civil society,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.documentcloud.org\/documents\/28541113-joint-statement-on-subpoena-of-the-peoples-forum\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">reads the statement<\/a>, shared first with City &amp; State, which was signed by 71 groups. \u201cThis subpoena is an effort to chill speech and association, taking a page straight out of the authoritarian playbook.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The New York Immigration Coalition and New York Civil Liberties Union organized the joint statement. Other groups that signed on include VOCAL-NY, New York Communities for Change, NAACP Legal Defense Fund, Jewish Voice for Peace and the New York City chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America.<\/p>\n<p>The powerful House Ways and Means Committee <a href=\"https:\/\/waysandmeans.house.gov\/2026\/07\/24\/icymi-chairman-smith-issues-subpoenas-to-ccp-linked-singham-network-nonprofits-after-their-refusal-to-comply-with-committee-oversight\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">issued a subpoena<\/a> to The People\u2019s Forum on July 21, demanding information about its donors and its communications with China-based tech entrepreneur Neville Roy Singham, who is a <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/PeoplesForumNYC\/status\/1473312812944531457\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">major funder<\/a> of the group. The People\u2019s Forum must turn over the documents by Friday or risk being held in contempt of Congress.<\/p>\n<p>Republican Rep. Jason Smith, chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, said in a statement accompanying the subpoenas that they are designed to \u201cexpose how America\u2019s tax laws and charitable sector may have been exploited to advance the (Chinese Communist Party\u2019s) influence operations inside the United States\u201d \u2013 using rhetoric that NYIC and NYCLU said evoked McCarthy-era witch hunts against leftists.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The influential union 32BJ SEIU and dozens of progressive groups released a joint statement on Thursday in opposition&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":315776,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[9,56,63,65,64,119107,1211],"class_list":["post-315775","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-new-york","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news","tag-read-first","tag-socialism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315775","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=315775"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315775\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/315776"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=315775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=315775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=315775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}