$BULL 🚨 THE WEBULL REPORT - Behind John Moolenaar’s Crusade Against Webull and China I dug into John Moolenaar’s China record, campaign money, personal financial disclosures, his Michigan political context, and the origins of the Webull investigation. The strongest conclusion is this: Moolenaar is unquestionably one of the morst hard-line China/CCP hawks in Congress. His political identity and committee chairmanship are heavily built around confronting China. There is one connection worth knowing: Robinhood’s PAC gave his campaign $5,000 in December 2025. Robinhood is obviously a direct Webull competitor. I would treat it as an interesting appearance issue, not evidence of corruption. Who is Moolenaar and why is he investigating Chinese links? John Moolenaar is a Republican congressman from Michigan and has chaired the House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party since March 2024, when Speaker Mike Johnson appointed him. The committee's actual mandate is to investigate China's economic, technological and security competition with the U.S. and recommend policy. So his job as chairman is almost literally: find potential U.S. vulnerabilities connected to China. That matters when evaluating his perspective. He isn't approaching Webull like an SEC examiner asking primarily, “Is this broker compliant?” His committee approaches companies through a national-security/strategic-competition lens: “Could China potentially exploit this?” Those are VERY different standards. Is he anti-China? He is extremely hawkish toward the Chinese government, Chinese state-linked companies, and increasingly broad categories of Chinese economic activity. This isn't based on Webull alone. Look at his recent record: Chinese vehicles - Co-sponsored legislation to ban China-linked connected vehicles/software/hardware from U.S. roads Semiconductors - Supports stronger export controls preventing China from obtaining advanced chip technology AI - Supports restrictions preventing Chinese access to advanced U.S. AI compute U.S. investment in China - Called restrictions on outbound U.S. investment a top priority Farmland - Introduced legislation presumptively restricting Chinese/adversary purchases near sensitive sites Biotechnology - Wants U.S. investment in Chinese biotech subjected to national-security review Universities/research - Has repeatedly pushed to restrict collaboration with Chinese institutions Xinjiang - Recently demanded Starbucks close stores there Automobiles - Says Chinese vehicles threaten both U.S. jobs and national security Trump–Xi relations - Just before the recent summit, urged Trump not to make significant concessions to Xi His rhetoric can be particularly strong. For example, he has said that: “China cheats in every industry” And in September he described China's rare-earth export restrictions as an “economic declaration of war against the United States.” Does this guy already approach China from a highly suspicious viewpoint? Absolutely. That's well supported by his record. Webull wasn't singled out randomly Webull sits almost perfectly inside the category Moolenaar's committee worries about: financial infrastructure + American customer data + mainland-China technology employees + Chinese founder/control + billions in customer assets. So from his committee's worldview, Webull is an obvious target. There IS a political benefit to being tough on China This is where I think the incentives are much clearer. Not necessarily corrupt incentives — political incentives. Moolenaar's position as chairman makes China one of his biggest national platforms. Successful investigations give him: media appearances national-security credibility legislation to point to influence with Republican leadership and visibility well beyond a normal House member The more important the China issue becomes, the more important his committee and his chairmanship become. That's normal congressional politics, but it's relevant. There is also a particularly strong Michigan connection. Michigan's automobile/manufacturing industry is directly exposed to Chinese competition. Reuters specifically noted this when Moolenaar became chairman and highlighted his support for tariffs/restrictions on Chinese EVs as especially relevant to Michigan. He has made Chinese auto competition a major issue and co-sponsored the proposed China-linked vehicle ban with Michigan Democrat Debbie Dingell. Select Committee on the CCP And his own district became the site of an enormous controversy involving Gotion, the Chinese battery company planning a facility in Mecosta County. Moolenaar became one of the project's most vocal opponents and has repeatedly portrayed it as a CCP-linked threat. So China hawkishness is not just abstract foreign policy for him. It connects directly to: Michigan manufacturing + auto jobs + battery production + local political battles + his national committee position. Politically, that's a very natural issue for him to emphasize. There's evidence he's actually more hawkish than parts of both parties This is another useful data point. Before Trump's recent meeting with Xi, Moolenaar publicly urged Trump to take a harder line and warned him against excessive concessions. Reuters described his outreach as reflecting concern among “China hawks in Washington” that Trump could concede too much. And on Nvidia chips, Democratic ranking member Ro Khanna has been willing to contemplate allowing older H200 chips to be sold to China under certain conditions. Moolenaar opposed that logic, arguing even older advanced chips can assist China's military because of military-civil fusion. So this isn't simply: Republican position = Moolenaar position. At times he's toward the harder end of the U.S. political spectrum on China. This changes the report COMPLETELY This background is important because the wording of the report now makes more sense. Moolenaar's committee's starting assumption is essentially: Chinese law can compel Chinese companies/employees to cooperate with the state. Therefore: China-based Webull engineers + Webull U.S. financial infrastructure = potential national-security vulnerability. That does not require evidence that: Chinese authorities actually accessed Webull data. It's a structural-risk argument. And that explains why Webull and the committee can look at the exact same facts and reach radically different conclusions. Webull's view U.S. customer data resides in the U.S. Sensitive access is controlled in the U.S. U.S. brokerage operations are run from Florida and New York. Webull operates under SEC/FINRA oversight. Therefore: U.S. customer data is protected. Moolenaar's worldview Hundreds of engineers operate in mainland China. Those employees are subject to Chinese law. China's government can potentially compel cooperation. Therefore: A theoretical pathway exists regardless of Webull's internal policies. Something else that bothers me about the original investigation The committee's 2024 Webull letter said: Webull Financial LLC was a PRC company and described Anquan Wang as Webull Financial's CEO. But Webull's SEC corporate structure lists proves this wrong: Webull Financial LLC — U.S. broker-dealer and: Hunan Weibu — mainland-China technology subsidiary. And Anthony Denier has been CEO of Webull Financial for years (!) When you're making an extraordinarily consequential allegation about a financial institution, getting the legal entities and executives correct matters A LOT. It makes Webull's response— “significant inaccuracies and unsupported conclusions” —very interesting to me.