Published Jul 9, 2026, 12:36 PM EDT
Two House Republicans are calling on Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche to act regarding vandalism at a California museum.
Follow
Published Jul 9, 2026, 12:36 PM EDT
Two House lawmakers are calling on the federal government to step in following reported vandalism of a California museum. Reps. Chris Smith (R-N.J.), co-chair of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC), and John Moolenaar (R-Mich.), chair of the House Select Committee on China, sent a letter on Wednesday to acting Attorney General Todd Blanche calling on the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to investigate the recent vandalism of the June Fourth Massacre Memorial Museum in El Monte, Calif., as a potential act of transnational repression involving the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) or People’s Republic of China (PRC). The museum honors the Tiananmen Square Massacre, which occurred on June 4,1989. A report last month from Domino Theory claimed that unknown individuals broke into the museum shortly before the 37th anniversary of the event, spray-painting walls and exhibits, damaging property, and interfering with the museum’s surveillance system. “The museum preserves the irrefutable, brutal truth about the Tiananmen Massacre—the same truth that the CCP has spent nearly four decades actively denying and trying to bury,” Smith said in a statement. “That is why the DOJ must treat this attack with the seriousness it deserves and determine whether it was more than ordinary vandalism. “If this attack was planned, supported, or carried out by anyone acting on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party, it would be an attack on free speech, historical memory, and the safety of Chinese democracy advocates living in the United States."
