Lynchburg, Va — After Democratic nominee Cameron Webb attacked one of the leading employers in the district this morning, a company at the forefront of the fight against COVID-19, Republican nominee Bob Good is calling on his opponent to divest his family from a controversial Chinese company with a social media platform used to spy on American citizens.
Webb’s family owns up to $15,000 of shares in Tencent Holdings Limited, a Chinese company that owns WeChat, the Chinese Communist Party’s mass surveillance program that spies on both Chinese citizens and American citizens. Webb’s interest in the Chinese spying software was first uncovered in a bombshell investigative report by The Washington Examiner earlier this summer.
Tencent is an egregious violator of human rights known to “censor, monitor, and report private communications and personal data, in many cases leading to the arrest and torture of innocent people.”
“It’s time for Webb to put his money where his mouth is,” Good said, “and actually put people over profits. Actively investing in what is effectively a wholly owned subsidiary of a totalitarian regime with no regard for civil liberties shows bad judgment at best. At worst, it gives the appearance that Webb supports Beijing Biden’s corrupt ties to the Chinese Communist Party.”
Webb has questioned Good’s retirement accounts managed by Merrill Lynch, which he does not directly manage or have knowledge of. Webb and his wife together have five different retirement savings accounts, but Webb has not disclosed any of the investments, stocks, funds, or bonds those managed accounts contain.
“I’m all for transparency, so Cameron should apply the same standards to himself. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander,” Good said.
“My opponent also owes an immediate apology to the working families whose livelihoods depend on Abbott Labs,” Good said. “Perhaps if he had actually lived in the district longer than the last 3 years, he wouldn’t have launched a slanderous, desperate attack against the third largest employer in Campbell County, an American company helping fight the COVID-19 pandemic with its 15-minute rapid test.”
“And speaking of the addiction epidemic that President Trump elevated into the nation dialogue,” Good concluded, “where was Cameron on this issue when he was a healthcare Fellow in the Obama Administration while more than 150,000 Americans died from opioid abuse?”