Press Freedom Groups Oppose House Committee Threat To Subpoena BreakThrough News Staff

Several press freedom groups demanded that a House committee stop issuing “unlawful and retaliatory subpoenas,” and drop their “unconstitutional inquiry into BreakThrough News.” 

The letter, sent to House Committee on Ways and Means Chair Jason Smith on October 19, was motivated by the committee’s threat to subpoena individual BreakThrough News staff members. 

As the groups emphasized, "The threatened subpoenas are clearly designed to target BreakThrough for reporting and editorial viewpoints with which the Committee disagrees. Subpoenas of journalists and newsrooms obstruct First Amendment activity by forcing cash-strapped news outlets to spend time and money defending their rights, and by intimidating not only reporters but also sources, donors, and readers.”

BreakThrough News is a nonprofit media and educational organization aligned with grassroots social movements throughout the world, and The Dissenter previously covered the House committee’s effort to force the outlet to turn over financial records and records of internal communications. It subpoenaed the organization in July.

On October 6, the committee threatened to subpoena the outlet’s chair and director Karla Reyes, chief correspondent Rania Khalek, news director Zoe Alexandra, and other staff if BreakThrough News did not provide sensitive documents.

The outlet was issued an October 20 deadline. Staff would be forced to give depositions to the committee if the outlet did not comply with the request.

Smith claimed that the committee is merely engaged in an inquiry into “Chinese Communist Party” influence “in the American non-profit sector.” But the request for records identified the outlet’s coverage of Israel’s bombing of Gaza and opposition to ICE operations as evidence of “content that aligns with pro-CCP rhetoric”—a clear sign that the committee is pursuing a partisan witch-hunt. 

“Although your justifications have repeatedly shifted in your various letters and subpoenas to date, you have admitted the true impetus for the inquiry is the groups’ viewpoints, stating they have ‘amplified anti-American, foreign-aligned narratives on social media, and pushed messaging that mirrors hostile government propaganda,’” the press freedom coalition noted. “You further stated, ‘I will absolutely not stand by and allow our tax code to be abused to push anti-American rhetoric on our home soil.’”

The groups mentioned that the committee had said they were merely “pursuing a tax-related probe into donations from Neville Roy Singham, a U.S. citizen based in Shanghai.”

“Those demands and subsequent ones were outrageous in and of themselves, but serially subpoenaing employees of a small left-wing news outlet to compel them to personally appear before you, for no reason other than to further a vindictive political stunt, is beyond the pale and reminiscent of some of the darkest chapters in our nation’s history.”

Smith called attention to BreakThrough News’ “alleged connections to a lawfully organized domestic political party, the Party for Socialism and Liberation.” Yet the groups noted, “Such connections are not illegal and, like receiving donations from a U.S. citizen living abroad, cannot come close to supporting broad subpoenas seeking a news entity’s internal documents or depositions from its entire staff.”

The Freedom of the Press Foundation, American Society of Journalists and Authors, Defending Rights & Dissent, First Amendment Foundation, National Coalition Against Censorship, National Press Photographers Association, PEN America, Society of Environmental Journalists, Society of Professional Journalists, and the Media and Democracy Project all signed on to the letter. 

Back in July, the committee insisted that it was unfair to suggest that the committee was acting like a modern-day House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). 

Attorneys for BreakThrough News responded, “Such protestation is belied not only by the open attacks that smear and vilify viewpoints disfavored by the Committee leadership in its letters to its targets, making plain that First Amendment-protected speech is a core part of the inquiry, but also by the Committee’s public statements.” 

Since early 2025, President Donald Trump and Republicans have backed legislation that would make it easy to “revoke tax-exempt status” for groups or organization that do not “abide” by Trump’s “directives or agree with his views.” 

“Whatever the Committee’s general interest in foreign funding, it has no legitimate interest in the viewpoint of a domestic news organization,” the attorneys further stated. “The First Amendment does not tolerate inquiry into American opinion.”

Later, the attorneys added, “The government may not condition a tax exemption on the surrender of First Amendment rights, and a revenue committee therefore acquires no license, by invoking the tax code, to demand an accounting of a nonprofit’s viewpoint. Whatever the Committee’s authority may be over legislation relating to foreign-source funds, it may not convert the issues relating to revenue into an inquest into speech.”

The House committee’s subpoenas are obviously a part of a concerted political agenda to root out opposition to Trump and Republicans, and in this particular case, they have targeted a grassroots-aligned media organization for incorporating ideological viewpoints into their coverage of U.S.-sponsored wars and state-backed violence.