US media is expectedly playing down Garcetti’s contacts with the CCP, but has reported on how Eric Garcetti was alleged to have covered up an appalling sexual harassment scandal in the Los Angeles mayor’s office.
After a rocky two-year campaign, the White House managed to get Eric Garcetti confirmed as US Ambassador to India on 15 March 2023, thanks to a handful of Republican Senators who chose to vote aye on the former mayor of Los Angeles, who has not shown much interest hitherto in the Indian subcontinent but has been accused by his detractors of having connections to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
US media is expectedly playing down Garcetti’s contacts with the CCP, but has reported on how Eric Garcetti was alleged to have covered up an appalling sexual harassment scandal in the Los Angeles mayor’s office. Los Angeles police officer Matthew Garza, who served as Garcetti’s bodyguard for seven years, has filed a lawsuit claiming he was taunted and groped by top Garcetti advisor and fundraiser Rick Jacobs. The lawsuit alleges that Jacobs tried to fondle Garza saying, “I love me my strong LAPD officers” and that “Garcetti was present on approximately half of the occasions when Jacobs behaved in this way, and witnessed Jacobs’ conduct, but he took no action to correct Jacobs’ obviously harassing behavior…On some occasions, the mayor would (allegedly) laugh at Jacobs’ crude comments.” Garcetti’s former communications director, Naomi Seligman, claimed that she was told by staff that the mayor protected Jacobs. Seligman called Garcetti’s confirmation as Ambassador to India “heartbreaking” for victims and whistleblowers.
Such chronicles alone would have disqualified Garcetti from consideration as envoy to India, a vital US ally and strategic partner, but what is more disturbing is Garcetti’s long history of meetings with officials from the CCP’s United Front Work Department, the CCP agency which “coordinates and conducts influence operations,” according to a report from the National Counterintelligence and Security Center (NCSC). The Daily Caller News Foundation (DCNF) launched an investigation into Garcetti’s China connections, and discovered a mayoral fund set up by Garcetti in 2014 which received over $1 million in donations from business tycoon Walter Wang and East West Bank CEO Dominic Ng. In April 2022, President Biden appointed Ng to represent the United States at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC). Ng has now been castigated by lawmakers after the DCNF exposed his ties to CCP influence and intelligence front groups.
Shortly after being sworn in as Los Angeles mayor, Garcetti led a trade delegation to the People’s Republic of China in 2014, where Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries (CPAFFC) vice chairman Xu Kuangdi hosted a banquet for Garcetti, purportedly to discuss “climate change.” In 2020, the US Department of State designated the CPAFFC a UFWD “affiliate” that “sought to directly and malignly influence state and local leaders to promote the PRC’s global agenda.” In February 2015, Garcetti returned the favour, hosting CPAFFC president Li Xiaolin and other CCP officials at Los Angeles’ city hall.
Garcetti made official trips to China in 2009 and 2016 with the Center for American Progress, run by Clinton operative John Podesta, meeting with China-US Exchange Foundation (CUSEF) leaders. In 2013, Garcetti attended the CUSEF’s “U.S.-China 2022” event at the Asia Society in New York on “bilateral cooperation.” Scott McGregor, a Canadian intelligence expert and the co-author of “The Mosaic Effect: How The Chinese Communist Party Started A War In America’s Backyard” claimed that Garcetti “would be considered leveraged and available for manipulation that favoured CCP strategies against India. These could include gaining trust and targeting key entities for exploitation. Geopolitically speaking, the efforts made by the US in India could be undermined and countered by China.”
When the Republic of India commenced diplomatic relations with the US, many distinguished statesmen were sent to New Delhi, men who fostered lifelong relations with India. One of them was my late father, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, so I came to know many of these ambassadors. I never met the 2nd US envoy, Loy Henderson, but admired him greatly, as he saw the CCP capture of Tibet as a dire threat to India and tried to get the US government and UN to do something about it. Chester Bowles adored India and served two terms as US envoy, his wife Steff was known for riding around Delhi on a bicycle in a sari and was the first ambassador’s wife to host Indian classical music concerts at the residence. Our neighbours and friends in Cambridge, Ken and Kitty Galbraith filled the residence with artists, filmmakers and scholars and visited India every year into their late 80s. Ambassadors John Sherman Cooper and Ellsworth Bunker loved India and we often joined them at receptions at the Indian embassy in Washington. Ambassador Moynihan brokered the famed Rupee Deal and created the Indo-US Sub-commission on Art & Culture, which was a huge success, but was shut down by Clinton appointee Frank Wisner in 1995, against the wishes of the Government of India.
There followed some less impressive envoys. Bush appointee Blackwill was a China Hand who frequently called China the “superior civilization.” Obama appointee Timothy Roemer was flummoxed when he was summoned to South Block after Obama snubbed the Dalai Lama. I paid him a call at the Roosevelt House residence and endeavoured to explain why such a snub might cause great offence to India, which protects the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan refugees, with the bellicose CCP bearing down upon India from Tibet, but his only interest was promoting smokeless chulas. Two envoys of recent times were true friends of India: Dick Celeste had served as an aide to Chester Bowles and always wore FabIndia kurtas at his memorable receptions filled with Delhi glitterati. Peter Burleigh had been a consular officer in Calcutta during Ambassador Moynihan’s tenure and had great admiration for India.
But in the view of his numerous critics, Garcetti has been a witness to atrocious disrespect for his own staff, and has made public his support for strong ties with the CCP, which is India and America’s mortal enemy. I do hope that the Indian government pushes back hard should Garcetti follow the CCP playbook that is designed to undermine India-US relations. And if he does, President Biden needs to place the interests of the world’s two biggest democracies over his friendship with the former mayor of Los Angeles.
Maura Moynihan is a New York based journalist and author, specialising in the Chinese Communist occupation of Tibet. Her website is: mauramoynihan.net