“Wonderful People.”
Hasan Piker Defends a CCP-Linked Network Now Under Federal Investigation.
On Saturday, May 31, 2026, the country’s biggest political Twitch streamer stood outside an ICE facility in Newark, New Jersey, in a Democratic Socialists of America cap, and made a choice. Asked by a Fox News Digital reporter about the activists around him — and about the China-linked money some lawmakers say funds them — Hasan Piker did not distance himself. He defended them.
“They’re wonderful people in general,” Piker said of the network tied to Neville Roy Singham, the U.S.-born tech mogul who now lives in Shanghai and whom a 2023 New York Times investigation described as the hub of a global web of Chinese propaganda. “None of it is actually hidden or illegal in any way, shape or form.”
He is, on the facts so far, correct about one thing: nobody in the Singham orbit has been charged with a crime. These are investigations, not indictments. But there are now several of them — two House committees probing the network’s tax-exempt status and possible foreign-agent registration violations, and a Treasury sanctions office that issued administrative subpoenas over a trip to Cuba. The question Piker waved off is the one Congress is asking in writing.
- $278Minto 6 nonprofitsSingham-linked funding to U.S. nonprofits since 2017, per Fox's investigation (a $285M variant also cited) — Fox News
- $785MThoughtWorks saleSingham's 2017 sale of his software firm to Apax Partners, the source of the fortune — NYT (2023)
- ~40Americansunder OFAC scrutiny over the March 2026 'Nuestra América Convoy' to Cuba — Fox News / Jerusalem Post
- ShanghaiSingham's homewhere the funder resides, beyond the reach of a U.S. subpoena — NYT (2023)
The setting was the Delaney Hallimmigration detention center in Newark — a roughly 1,000-bed facility run by the private prison operator GEO Group and used by ICE — where a wave of escalating protests had run for nine days by the end of May 2026. Piker appeared in person, wearing a DSA cap and, by his own account, canvassing for Adam Hamamy, a DSA-endorsed congressional candidate. The crowd was the audience; the cameras were the message.
It was there that Michael Dorganof Fox News Digital approached Piker and asked about the activists’ ties to the network funded by Neville Roy Singham — a network that includes the antiwar group CodePink, the New York — based People’s Forum, and the international organizing platform Progressive International. Piker did not hedge. The Fox story on the exchange was co-bylined by Dorgan and Asra Q. Nomani, the outlet’s senior editor of investigations.
“They're wonderful people in general. They're activists.…None of it is actually hidden or illegal in any way, shape or form.”
Hasan Piker, outside Delaney Hall, Newark · May 31, 2026 · via Fox News Digital
Piker went further, framing the scrutiny of Singham itself as the real problem. The attention, he said, reflected an “environment of suspicion” that was taking a “sinister shape” even though the funding was, in his telling, “totally above board and totally legal.” On the matter of the federal subpoena reported by Fox, he was dismissive but precise: “Fox News Digital says I have a subpoena, but I have yet to be served one.”
Fox is trying to manufacture a scandal out of nothing — these are activists doing legal, above-board work, and the so-called subpoena is something I haven't even been served. This 'environment of suspicion' is the actual story here.
Piker, who streams as “HasanAbi,” is the most-followed political broadcaster on Twitch, with roughly 3.1 million followers on the platform. An openly socialist commentator and the nephew of The Young Turksfounder Cenk Uygur, he began at TYT before building an independent audience large enough to make him one of the left’s most durable digital figures. His reach is the reason a wire reporter sought him out at a protest in the first place.
That reach has come with a long record of controversy. In 2019 he said on stream that “America deserved 9/11” — a remark he later characterized as satire. In December 2021 Twitch banned him briefly for using a slur. In May 2025 he was detained at Chicago’s O’Hare airport by Customs and Border Protection. And in November 2025 he traveled to China, where he appeared on CCP state media, including the English-language outlet CGTN, describing the country in terms critics said echoed Beijing’s own messaging.
Neville Roy Singham made his fortune in software. He founded the consultancy ThoughtWorks and sold it to the private-equity firm Apax Partners in 2017 for $785 million. From 2001 to 2008, according to the reporting, he also worked as a consultant to the Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei. He now lives in Shanghai. In 2017 he married Jodie Evans, a co-founder of CodePink.
On August 5, 2023, The New York Times published an investigation headlined “A Global Web of Chinese Propaganda Leads to a U.S. Tech Mogul.” Reporters Mara Hvistendahl, David A. Fahrenthold, Lynsey Chutel, and Ishaan Jhaveri traced hundreds of millions of dollars flowing through a constellation of U.S. nonprofits whose messaging, the Times found, consistently mirrored Chinese Communist Party talking points. Singham, through his representatives, denied being a CCP agent and said he acts on his own beliefs.
“A Global Web of Chinese Propaganda Leads to a U.S. Tech Mogul.”
The New York Times · August 5, 2023
Fox News’s subsequent five-part investigation put figures on the flow. By its accounting, roughly $278 millionmoved since 2017 into six U.S. nonprofits in the network — a figure Fox elsewhere renders as $285 million. The itemized breakdown included $68.7 million to a Justice and Education Fund, $22.44 million to The People’s Forum, $16.76 million to the Tricontinental Institute, and $1.33 million to CodePink. None of those transfers has been found unlawful; the dispute is whether they trigger disclosure obligations the recipients have not met.
- →Funder: Neville Roy Singham — ThoughtWorks founder (sold to Apax, 2017, $785M); Huawei consultant 2001–08; resides in Shanghai
- →Spouse: Jodie Evans, CodePink co-founder (married 2017)
- →U.S. recipients cited: a Justice and Education Fund ($68.7M), The People's Forum ($22.44M), Tricontinental Institute ($16.76M), CodePink ($1.33M)
- →Total flagged: ~$278M into six U.S. nonprofits since 2017 (Fox; $285M variant)
- →Origin of scrutiny: NYT investigation, Aug. 5, 2023; Singham denies being a CCP agent
The May 31 defense was not the first time Piker addressed the matter. Five days earlier, on May 26, 2026, he opened a roughly six-hour Twitch broadcast titled “FEDS ARE AFTER ME” and, in the course of it, named Singham directly as the money behind the movements he runs in.
“[Roy Singham is] a funding vehicle for a lot of political movements in the country, like a lot of activism.”
Hasan Piker, 'FEDS ARE AFTER ME' Twitch stream · May 26, 2026
The admission matters because it is Piker, not a critic, drawing the line from Singham’s fortune to on-the-ground organizing. Where his detractors see a foreign-influence pipeline, Piker sees ordinary philanthropy of a kind he regards as legitimate. Both descriptions can begin from the same fact: the money is real, and Singham is the source. What is contested is what the law requires of the people who receive and deploy it.
Our investigation laid out the money trail — hundreds of millions from a Shanghai-based mogul into U.S. nonprofits behind the anti-ICE organizing. Hasan Piker calls them 'wonderful people.' We're happy to debate the documents anytime.
The scrutiny Piker dismissed is, in fact, multi-front — and it is a set of investigations, not charges. The House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, chaired by Rep. John Moolenaar (R-MI), and the House Committee on Ways & Means, chaired by Rep. Jason Smith (R-MO), are examining whether entities in the Singham network should have registered under the Foreign Agents Registration Act and whether their tax-exempt status is consistent with their activities. In September 2025, Smith’s committee publicly characterized The People’s Forum as a “likely CCP-funded propaganda arm.”
The interest predates the current Congress. Back in 2023, then-Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL)— now Secretary of State — urged the Justice Department to open a FARA inquiry into the network. None of these efforts has produced a criminal charge against Singham or anyone in his orbit, and the committees characterize their work as allegations and findings, not adjudicated facts. A central obstacle is geography: Singham’s Shanghai residence places him beyond the practical reach of a U.S. subpoena.
- →House Select Committee on the CCP (Chair: Rep. John Moolenaar, R-MI) — FARA and foreign-influence questions
- →House Ways & Means (Chair: Rep. Jason Smith, R-MO) — tax-exempt status; called People's Forum a 'likely CCP-funded propaganda arm' (Sept. 2025)
- →Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL, now Secretary of State) — sought a DOJ FARA probe in 2023
- →OFAC (Treasury) — administrative subpoenas tied to a March 2026 Cuba convoy
- →Status: no criminal charges filed; the network's lead funder lives in Shanghai, outside subpoena reach
We are examining whether U.S. nonprofits financed by a Shanghai-based mogul tied to Huawei have complied with foreign-agent and tax-exempt law. The American public deserves to know who is funding political movements on U.S. soil.
The federal subpoena Piker mentioned is real and separate from the congressional work. In late May 2026 — around May 23–25— the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) issued administrative subpoenas to Piker and to CodePink co-founder Medea Benjamin in connection with the March 2026 “Nuestra América Convoy” to Cuba. Roughly 40 Americanswho took part are under scrutiny; the trip was organized in part through Progressive International and The People’s Forum.
An administrative subpoena is a demand for records or testimony, not an accusation of a crime, and U.S. sanctions law tightly restricts travel-related spending in Cuba. Both Piker and Benjamin say they were never formally served — the email notice, according to the reporting, landed in the spam folder of Jodie Evans. So the posture is narrow and specific: OFAC issued administrative subpoenas, which Piker says he has not been served.
At an anti-ICE protest in Newark, Hasan Piker — the largest political streamer on Twitch — defended a network of activists funded by Neville Roy Singham, a Shanghai-based mogul whom a 2023 New York Times investigation tied to a global web of Chinese propaganda, calling them “wonderful people” and the scrutiny “above board.” Days earlier he had named Singham himself as the financier.
Two House committees are examining roughly $278 million in Singham-linked nonprofit funding over FARA and tax-exempt questions, and OFAC has issued administrative subpoenas over a Cuba convoy. These are investigations, not charges; nobody in the network has been criminally accused, and all parties are entitled to the presumption of innocence. What is not in dispute is who is asking the questions Piker says do not need asking — and that the man at the center of the money is in Shanghai, where no subpoena can reach him.
