Sen. Tim Scott calls on Lutnick and Huang to testify over national security concerns

Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) called on Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and former Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang to testify before the Senate banking committee as a scandal involving the onetime chief executive and a Chinese spy has begun to boil over.Scott, chairman of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, sent letters to Lutnick and Huang on Thursday requesting they appear before the panel on Dec. 3 or be subject to “all tools at our disposal, including subpoenas.”In his letters, Scott notes that his calling the two men to testify is due to “recent public reports that raise significant national security concerns.” Huang resigned Thursday morning after he was revealed to have had two separate affairs, one with an alleged Chinese spy. The FBI launched an investigation into the former CEO’s relationship with Alice Huang, an executive at Singapore-based data center company Megaspeed, which U.S. intelligence officials appear to believe holds suspicious links to the Chinese government.As the world crumbled around Huang, Lutnick became embroiled in the scandal as two Axios reports detailed his actions and decisions regarding Nvidia, suggesting they specifically jeopardized national security.One report alleged Lutnick was made aware of Huang’s relationship with the Chinese spy and still approved the sale of Nvidia’s chips to Chinese buyers. The other said he had been the only Cabinet official to resist President Donald Trump’s attempts to crack down on the transshipment of even more advanced Nvidia chips that had not been approved for sale in China to Chinese AI companies.Nvidia chips have been instrumental to the rapid American AI infrastructure buildout, a top priority for Trump. The AI battle is also a site of friction between the United States and China after Trump’s renewed trade war with China last year. After several rounds of reciprocal tariff actions, the Trump administration eventually approved the sale of certain previously restricted chips to China despite warnings that the move could accelerate Beijing’s AI buildout.A White House official told the Washington Examiner Thursday that Trump “maintains complete confidence in the secretary and his ability to carry out the position as the most transformative Commerce Secretary in modern history.”“Secretary Lutnick is a champion of President Trump’s America First trade and tariff policies, which have secured almost 20 fair trade deals and trillions in manufacturing investments,” the official added.Scott specifically called out the commerce secretary’s role in determining export regulations as a reason for his need to appear.THE GOP KNIVES ARE OUT FOR TRUMP COMMERCE SECRETARY HOWARD LUTNICK“Given the Department of Commerce’s central role in issuing and enforcing export control regulations, your testimony before the Committee will be essential to our oversight of these efforts,” Scott said in the letter to Lutnick. “Recent developments underscore the significant national security and economic interests at stake and the need for timely, substantive engagement with Congress.”Other Republicans on the powerful Senate committee have echoed Scott’s calls, including Sens. John Kennedy (R-LA) and Kevin Cramer (R-ND), who also serve on the panel and are close allies of Trump.