A shadowy organization once ran by the brother of Jeffrey Epstein with ties to the Chinese military has been, and is currently advised by several members of the United States Congress — including two prominent members of the House Select Committee on January 6.
Last year I reported on the inner workings of the elusive Humpty Dumpty Institute (HDI), a nonprofit organization once under the leadership of Mark Epstein, the brother of deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, that receives scant attention from the media despite its connections with the United Nations, U.S. State Department, Chinese military, and dozens of members Congress.
My reports revealed that the organization is partnered with the Beijing-headquartered Taihe Institute, a Chinese think tank that claims to have “research centers” operating within the borders of the continental United States, and whose key members include top members of the World Economic Foundation, multiple high-level officials in the Chinese Communist Party, and the People’s Liberation Army. These include WEF Associate Director Thorsten Jelinek, Former PLA Commissar and Major General Lei Zhitian, China Cyberspace Administration Vice Director Peng Bo, Former CPPCC National Committee member Gu Boping, and PLA Air Force Group Captain Wang Haili.
Despite its ties to China, HDI remains active Washington, D.C.. The current chairman of the organization, Dr. Al Khalafalla, attended the exclusive invite-only inauguration of Joe Biden on January 20, 2021, and bragged about his friendship with Democrat House Rep. Bennie Thompson of Illinois.
Bennie Thompson and Al Khalafalla – Source: Al Khalafalla Twitter account
Khalafalla himself claims to have a close relationship with Rep. Thompson, who is the chair of both the House select committee on January 6 and the House Homeland Security Committee.
Rep. Thompson, who remains listed as a member of the HDI’s Congressional Advisory Board alongside scores of prominent Democrats, has been photographed with Khalafalla on several occasions, seemingly in his capacity as an advisor to the organization.
In November 2015, Rep. Thompson and Khalafalla were photographed together multiple times. One of the photos was a selfie taken in a vehicle during a trip to Sudan. The HDI-sponsored trip was reportedly in partnership with the American Global Institute to supposedly meet with representatives of Sudan’s Women’s Civil Society.
“This meeting started with the discussion on women’s role in fighting sex trafficking and forced labor which remained major issues in Sudan and within the region,” summarized HDI.
Sudan 2015, Rep. Bennie Thompson and HDI Chairman Al Khalafalla / Composite – Source: Humpty Dumpty Institute
Rep. Thompson and Khalafalla also met during the organization’s 50th Congressional Delegation to the United Nations Headquarters on December 3 and 4 in 2015, where the “House Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC), seven Members and several staff participated in a series of meetings and briefings with senior U.N. officials,” per HDI.
The shadowy group reports that the December 3 delegation was later received by the brother of deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, HDI Director and financier Mark Epstein, “for a working dinner” at his home.
Al Khalafalla and Rep. Bennie Thompson – Source: Humpty Dumpty Institute
More recently, in a June 11 tweet, Khalafalla boasted that Rep. Thompson is his “friend and mentor.”
In the video below, Khalafalla can be observed at what appears to be a Chinese military ceremony alongside HDI Director Joseph Merante, former HDI Director and current Taihe Fellow Ruby ‘Yuyun’ Wang, and Taihe Institute Chairman Binge Ping.
The group appears to bestow a decorative basket of flowers before a large statue of Communist dictator and mass murderer Mao Zedong at his apparent birthplace in the Chinese Shaoshan, Hunan Province.
The HDI’s foothold in the U.S. Congress doesn’t extend to just Rep. Thompson.
Democrat members Reps. Jim Clyburn, Yvette D. Clarke, Sheila Jackson Lee, Henry “Hank” Johnson, Eddie Bernice Johnson, Gregory Meeks, Maxine Waters, Frederica Wilson, and former DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz are also currently advising the organization.
The HDI is also linked to another senior member of Congress and member of the January 6 Committee, Rep. Adam Schiff of California.
As I’ve previously reported, going back to as early as 2005, Schiff’s office has been in affiliation with the HDI. Schiff himself had been listed as an advisor to the organization in 2018 and was the recipient of HDI’s praise upon becoming the chair of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence in 2019.
In 2020, the organization issued a statement congratulating the California Democrat for winning his election. “We are proud that all HDI CAB members seeking reelection won and will serve in the 117th Congress. We wish our CAB Members the sincerest of congratulations,” the HDI wrote in a statement.
Earlier reporting about HDI put former Trump White House officials on the defensive, and preceded two articles published by Breitbart and the Washington Examiner, which entailed rebuttals from Congressmen who were listed as members of the HDI’s Congressional Advisory Board.
“It comes as a complete surprise to me that I am listed as a member. I was never notified by the Institute that I was named to the ‘Advisory Board,’ and I have had no interaction with the Institute at all since 2019, when I traveled on one sponsored trip to the Port of Antwerp as a member of the Ports Caucus,” Maryland Republican Rep. Andy Harris told the Washington Examiner.
Harris remains listed as a member of the organization’s advisory board as of the publication of this article.
“I agreed to work with your organization to educate people on religious persecutions taking place throughout the world and to be an advocate for freedom,” wrote Florida Republican Rep. Gus Bilirakis in a letter to the HDI. “So, you can imagine my alarm and distress when I learned about recent revelations of HDI’s connections to the Chinese Communist Party.”
“It is particularly abhorrent to me to be associated with an organization that has ties to a government widely known to actively support infanticide, engage in forced sterilization, exploit slave labor, and persecute religious minorities and political dissidents,” Bilirakis wrote.
