Trump faces potential bipartisan congressional probe over Nvidia Chinese espionage scandal - report

The House oversight committee plans to investigate points of national security matters in the Nvidia scandal, including why Trump continued to disregard intelligence reports about Alice Huang.

Members of Congress are planning a potentially bipartisan investigation into the Trump administration’s handling of the Nvidia scandal due to its national security implications, The Washington Post reported on Sunday.

This comes after former Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang resigned from the tech giant after he revealed he had an affair with Alice Huang, a Chinese businesswoman who allegedly has connections to Beijing’s espionage agency.

The House oversight committee is planning to investigate several points of national security matters in the Nvidia scandal, including why Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick decided not to blacklist tech companies suspected of smuggling Nvidia chips to China.

The committee also plans to investigate why US President Donald Trump brought Huang onto Air Force One and continued to talk to him after he was warned by US intelligence services about Alice Huang’s alleged recruitment by China’s State Security Ministry, The Washington Post noted. 

“We really want to get to the bottom of this. Was there some type of quid pro quo there?” said Rep. Stephen F. Lynch (D-Massachusetts), who serves on the House Financial Services and Oversight committees.

Lynch noted that Nvidia pledged over $25 million for Trump’s White House ballroom project.

Why did Trump continue to talk to Jensen Huang after US intelligence revealed his mistress was a spy?

The Nvidia co-founder has emerged in recent years as one of Trump's most prominent allies in Silicon Valley and an influential adviser on technology and artificial intelligence.

Trump has continued to back him after the scandal became public.

"He told me he had no idea she was a spy, and I really believe him," Trump told the press last week.

The scandal has since raised questions about Trump’s handling of intelligence concerns involving one of the most important companies to US technological security.

According to The New York Times, Trump received at least two intelligence warnings concerning Huang's relationship with Alice Huang and her involvement with Chinese intelligence services. 

The first warning was delivered to the president late last year, and the second came in the spring. Despite the warnings, Trump took no action against the Nvidia CEO and even included him in his visit to China in May.

Notably, advanced chips are the backbone of the US AI boom, and government officials have previously tried to restrict China's access to them through export controls to stifle its AI capabilities.

Democrats and Republicans call to investigate national security risks in Nvidia scandal

This comes as Democrats flipped both the House and the Senate during the November midterm elections. Many of them campaigned against Trump’s special favors for billionaires and handling of the economy.

After the election, several incumbent members of Congress, as well as incoming members, have begun planning investigations.

"I’m pushing to investigate Jensen Huang and Nvidia to determine whether our national security was compromised," said Senator Chris Coons (D- Delaware) in a post on X last week. "We need answers about the relationship between AI billionaires and the Trump administration, who's making these decisions, and who's really got their hand on the wheel."

Since then, the White House has publicly grown concerned about the extent of Congress’s plans for investigations.

In a letter to incoming House Oversight Committee chair Rep. Robert Garcia (D-California), White House lawyer William Scharf warned him of the “foundational limits that the Constitution imposes on congressional investigations and subpoenas.”

“Beyond being inconsistent with the clear, well-recognized constitutional limitations on your investigative functions, threats to executive branch officials designed to deter them from public service, or process designed merely to abuse or instill fear in the recipient may cross the line into blatant criminality,” Scharf wrote.

However, the call to investigate the White House’s knowledge or role in the Nvidia scandal appears to be a bipartisan effort.

In a notable break from the White House, House Republicans have called for Jensen Huang to come in for a transcribed interview and threatened to subpoena him.

Bipartisan leaders from the House Intelligence Committee asked Lutnick for a classified briefing.

Senate Banking Committee Chairman Tim Scott (R-South Carolina) called on Huang and Lutnick to testify, the report noted.

“If you’re in bed with a Chinese spy and you’re an individual with top-secret clearances developing these things related to everything from military tech to AI across the board to data crunching and everything else, this is a very big concern,” House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Brian Mast (R-Florida) told The Washington Post.

“It’s painful to see this happen to Nvidia because they are one of the most important American tech companies, probably the most American tech company right now,” he added.

Mast, along with House Select Committee on China Chairman John Moolenaar (R-Michigan) and House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rick Crawford (R-Arkansas), sent two requests to Huang to brief Congress on the matter.

“We need to know the full extent to which our national security has been put at risk. This situation is a prime example of why Congress must immediately pass the AI OVERWATCH Act, Chip Security Act, MATCH Act, and Remote Access Security Act in the NDAA,” a statement from the three representatives stated.

Lutnick has since agreed to appear before the Senate Banking Committee, the report noted.

“We’ve seen the tip of the iceberg,” he told reporters on Thursday, as per the report.

“We need to know whether or not the Chinese government got any additional information, what information it was, how much, and then who knew what when.”

AI data centers, government corruption helped decide Blue Wave midterms

In the midterm elections, voters gave Democrats their largest congressional majority since the 1990’s. Those polled told exit polls that Trump’s policies on AI, corruption, and the war in Iran were crucial to their vote.

An NBC exit poll found that 56% of voters said that AI and data centers were a crucial or major factor in deciding their vote. As many as 90% of those polled said that government corruption was a crucial or major factor in deciding their vote.