Representative Mike Gallagher (R-WI), speaks during a hearing held by the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party.
AFP via Getty ImagesCorrection: This story previously stated that Rep. Gallagher had not filed a disclosure related to conflicts of interest. It has been updated to reflect that the disclosure is not public.
Last month, the Republican Chair of the House China Committee, Mike Gallagher, achieved one of his highest priorities in Congress: getting the House to pass a bill requiring that TikTok’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, divest from the popular app — or see it banned in the United States.
He did it just days before people familiar with the matter confirmed to Forbes that he was accepting a job at Palantir, a U.S. defense contracting firm whose executives have been vocal in their opposition to the Chinese-owned social media app. Their vehement anti-TikTok position could have been a potential conflict of interest for Gallagher, a longtime China hawk, who did not recuse himself from the proceedings.
Under the House rules that govern financial disclosure, members are required by law to disclose job negotiations to the House ethics office, and to recuse themselves from any activity that might create a conflict of interest, or the appearance of a conflict of interest, during them. If and when a member of Congress recuses from a matter, the negotiations disclosure becomes public — which, according to a Monday check of the House Legislative Resources Center portal — Gallagher’s is not.
The Intercept previously reported on the potential conflicts of interest present in Palantir employees’ advocacy about TikTok. Palantir executives, including CEO Alex Karp and U.S.–China Economic and Security Review Commissioner Jacob Helberg, have called on Congress to ban TikTok in recent years. The company, which sells military tools to the U.S. government, could also benefit financially from increased tensions with the Chinese government.
It is rare for employment negotiation disclosures to actually appear in the House records system — the last two filings to appear in the system were by Texas Rep. Filemon Vela in 2022, and before that, by Virginia Rep. James Moran in 2014. But it is equally rare for members to resign from Congress in the middle of a term, as Gallagher announced he would do last month.
A representative for Rep. Gallagher told Forbes: “Congressman Gallagher knows and complies with the House Rules, which includes those about negotiating outside employment.”
The bill championed by Gallagher last month marked a major escalation in legislative action against TikTok, the Chinese-owned social media app with more than 170 million users in the U.S. It would require TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, to divest from the app within 180 days or face a ban in the U.S. The House passed it by an overwhelming 352-65 margin with support from President Joe Biden, who said he would sign the bill if it reached his desk. Its fate appears less clear in the Senate, where lawmakers are now debating whether to pass a comprehensive privacy law that would govern TikTok, but also its major U.S. competitors, including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube.
Brett Kappel, an attorney and campaign finance expert at the law firm Harmon Curran, told Forbes that the rules around disclosing employment negotiations in Congress are “pretty loose.” He said that a member would have to actually “be in the process of negotiating the terms of employment,” and that ”preliminary contacts” wouldn’t trigger the reporting requirement.
TikTok and Palantir did not respond to a request for comment by press time.
Zach Everson contributed reporting.
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