A former Republican senator known for a prostitution scandal has executed an agreement for his powerhouse lobbying firm to register as a “foreign agent” to help defend a Chinese military-linked advanced robotics firm that many in the U.S. House of Representatives want the Pentagon to blacklist under Section 1260H of the National Defense Authorization Act.

Former Sen. David Vitter left the Senate in 2017 and was embroiled in a notorious prostitution scandal in 2007. Vitter, who campaigned on "family values" was found to be on the client list of "The D.C. Madam." He subsequently lost a gubernatorial campaign, and joined the prominent lobbying firm known as Mercury Public Affairs in 2019.

Vitter recently registered Mercury as a “foreign agent” of a Chinese tech company under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). Vitter signed the document stating that Mercury was agreeing to assist Hangzhou Yushu Technology Company — more commonly known as Unitree Robotics — as the Chinese company seeks to avoid U.S. blacklists and sanctions. 

Mercury Public Affairs and Unitree Robotics did not respond to requests for comment. Unitree, has not been blacklisted by the Department of War.

Lawmakers urge blacklisting company that builds rifle-equipped robot dogs

Lawmakers from the House Homeland Security Committee and the House Select Committee on the CCP formally urged the Department of War in a letter last May, asking to add Unitree to the Section 1260H list of Chinese military companies.

Their stated basis for the letter was the alleged People's Liberation Army's (PLA) public use of Unitree’s rifle-equipped robot dogs during the "Golden Dragon 2024" exercises. The legislators also pointed to security vulnerabilities, specifically a "backdoor" vulnerability known as CloudSail in Unitree’s quadrupedal robots.  

The bipartisan letter was signed by Rep. John Moolenaar, R-Mich., and two dozen members of the anti-CCP House committee, and it was sent to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, and FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, urging them to add the Chinese robotics company to their respective blacklists at the agencies. The House members asked the Pentagon, Commerce Department and FCC to “investigate Unitree’s role in advancing PRC military objectives” and to consider blacklisting it based on the findings.

"Unitree is linked to the Chinese military and should be blacklisted by the Pentagon, the Commerce Department, and the FCC to protect our country and our privacy,” Moolenaar, the chairman of the House CCP committee, told Just the News on Thursday. “Unitree robots have been used in Chinese military exercises and can be remotely accessed and controlled. Last year, every member of our bipartisan committee urged the administration to take action against Unitree because its dangerous products should never be on our military bases or in our homes."

The House committee also said that Unitree “has sold robots to Beihang University and North University of China, both known for missile, aerospace, and weapons research” and that “it has also supplied platforms to PRC police for monitoring and surveillance activities.”

Moolenaar and other members of the House and Senate sent another letter to Hegseth last year urging him to add Unitree to the Pentagon’s list of firms which support the CCP’s “military-civil fusion” strategy and which “advance People’s Liberation Army capabilities.”

One of the worries is that these robots, already used in some U.S. correctional facilities and by law enforcement, could be used for remote surveillance or data exfiltration to Chinese servers. In addition, Unitree is based in Hangzhou's designated military-civil fusion zone, which lawmakers argue confirms its ties to Chinese military modernization efforts.  

New legislation introduced this month, like the bipartisan "Humanoid Robots Oversight and Blocking of Obtainment Totalitarians Act", (The ROBOT Act) aims to create a commission to examine and possibly prevent federal agencies from procuring robots from China, specifically targeting companies like Unitree to keep them out of U.S. workplaces and infrastructure.

Vitter appears to have registered Mercury under FARA to represent the Chinese company in late December 2025. The “foreign principal” to be represented was “Yushu Technology Company” and the “country/region represented” was “China,” according to the FARA registration. The “execution” of the agreement was signed by Vitter in December. The registration document included a photo of the version of the execution form signed by hand by Vitter.

House says Chinese robotics manufacturers pose a growing threat to our national security 

FARA — a law established in 1938 to combat Nazi Germany's influence in the U.S. — “requires certain agents of foreign principals who are engaged in political activities or other activities specified under the statute to make periodic public disclosure of their relationship with the foreign principal.”

Unitree Robotics describes itself as “a world-renowned civilian robotics company which is focusing on the R&D, production, and sales of consumer and industry-class high-performance general-purpose legged and humanoid robots.”

The “Compensation and Expenses” section in the recent FARA registration documents showed Unitree agreed to pay Mercury “$75,000 per month during the Term.” The contract began late last year and said it “will continue in effect until” early February 2026, after which it “shall automatically continue on a month-to-month basis thereafter, unless terminated by either Party on thirty days’ prior written notice to the other Party.”

Mercury has more than a dozen offices across the U.S., including in the nation’s capital where Vitter is listed as a partner with expertise in "Government Relations" and "International Affairs."

It was previously revealed back in 2019 that Vitter had registered under FARA as a foreign agent to help defend the Chinese company Hikvision, blacklisted in 2020. Vitter and Mercury now appear to be trying to keep another Chinese tech firm off of U.S. blacklists. 

The “foreign agent” deal with a Chinese robotics firm

The FARA registration document submitted by Mercury and Vitter says that the nature of the business for Unitree is “the commercialization of high-performance robots for both consumer and industrial applications.” The registration form acknowledged “yes” each time when asked if the Chinese company was supervised, directed, owned, controlled, financed, and/or subsidized by a foreign government. The form also said that “Wang Xingxing, a foreign principal, is the controlling shareholder with approximately 35% total ownership, according to public reports.”

The agreement between Mercury and Unitree said that the U.S. public affairs firm’s services for the Chinese company “are anticipated to include government relations advice and services, including outreach to U.S. government officials.” The form said “yes” when asked if Mercury’s services for Unitree will “include political activities.”

The attached “Mercury Consulting Services Agreement” said that Unitree agreed to retain Mercury in early November 2025 “as an independent contractor” to perform services on the Chinese company’s behalf.

The “Services” that Mercury will allegedly provide for Unitree include “government relations and consulting services” for the Chinese company, including “general strategic and government relations services” and a requirement to “develop strategies and messaging to accurately define and frame Client” and to “avoid restrictions or punitive action by U.S. government.”

Mercury will also “potentially engage with” the Defense Department, the State Department, the Commerce Department, the Treasury Department, and the Federal Communications Commission “related to Client issues” on behalf of the Chinese robotics company.

The document shows the registration was signed by Vitter on Mercury's behalf. John Lonergan, a partner at Mercury, also signed the execution of the FARA registration with Unitree.

Think tanks also warn that Unitree is assisting CCP’s AI and military advances

Michael Sobolik, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, wrote last year that “the CCP is also integrating embodied AI into its internal security functions [...] One month after Boston Dynamics’ Atlas showcased its breakdancing moves, China’s leading robotics company, Unitree, announced the world’s first humanoid robot boxing match.” 

Sobolik added that “The juxtaposition — the American robot dances and the Chinese robot fights — is revelatory. The CCP views robotics the same way it views all technology: as an extension of political power and policing.”

The Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) also said last year that “along with industrial robots, Chinese firms have also sought to develop and deploy humanoid robots capable of carrying out a broader, less repetitive range of tasks.”

“Led by firms such as Unitree — a major manufacturer with deep ties to the People’s Liberation Army — and reliant on a range of smaller start-ups, Chinese humanoid robots have improved in performance while remaining low in cost,” FDD wrote. “Independent researchers have discovered two separate software backdoors into a range of Unitree products, including a backdoor that would allow hackers to control and infect multiple Unitree units and another that would allow the robot to conduct surveillance on its users.” The House raised this same concern in their letter urging that the Department of War blacklist Unitree.

FDD added that “though Unitree has argued that these vulnerabilities are common across a range of robotic platforms, the discoveries fall within a well-defined pattern of Chinese firms embedding exfiltration points in critical industrial products and align with Beijing’s desire to leverage its commercial firms’ access to conduct espionage.”

The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace also assessed in 2025 that Chinese “national champions are already emerging across key sectors in China’s embodied AI industry” including Unitree in the “humanoid robotics” sector. 

Unitree founder is close to Chinese government, praised by CCP house organ

The Jamestown Foundation said in 2025 that the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology “announced the creation of the National Humanoid Robot Standardization Technical Committee” last year. The foundation said that Unitree's CEO, Wang Xingxing, was named a “vice chair” of that CCP-linked committee.

“The unusual size and cross-sector composition of the committee reflect a desire to build a humanoid robotics sector around the principles of dual-use integration, centralized control, and alignment with People’s Liberation Army modernization priorities,” the foundation assessed.

The CCP-run People’s Daily proclaimed last year that Unitree founder Wang Xingxing was one of two Chinese figures who “epitomise a new wave of Chinese innovators reshaping emerging industries through boundary-pushing technologies.” The Chinese propaganda outlet said that Unitree was one of the "Six Little Dragons of Hangzhou" which “has transformed the historic city into an innovation hub.”

The South China Morning Post reported that Wang appeared at a closed-door CCP meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping early last year. “Wang Xingxing, founder and CEO of Unitree Robotics and the youngest entrepreneur at the meeting at just 35, told Xi that the humanoid robot developer and its team were ‘born and raised in China.’ In response, Xi said the country’s innovation required contributions from a younger generation,” the outlet recounted.

The Chinese military-linked National University of Defense Technology said last year that “open-source large-scale models are breaking the monopoly of Western tech giants, changing the AI ​​ecosystem, and ushering in a new stage of comprehensive empowerment” and that “led by advanced domestic large-scale models” and “domestic companies” like Unitree Robotics, “the popularization of AI applications is sweeping across the country.”

Vitter’s previous unsuccessful stint as a “foreign agent” helping Hikvision

Mercury registered under FARA to assist the CCP-linked Chinese technology giant Hikvision back in 2018. Internet Protocol Video Market reported in 2019 that Vitter had signed on as a foreign agent at Mercury to assist Hikvision defend itself against U.S. blacklists.

Vitter's personal FARA filing at the time said that he would "provide strategic consulting and management services; executive branch lobbying; public affairs; and government relations, including outreach to non-legislative branch U.S. public officials" on behalf of Hikvision USA.

The Commerce Department added Hikvision to a blacklist in 2019 because it was among a group of Chinese government-linked entities which had been “implicated in human rights violations and abuses in the implementation of China’s campaign of repression, mass arbitrary detention, and high-technology surveillance against Uighurs, Kazakhs, and other members of Muslim minority groups” in Xinjiang.

Hikvision has been on the Pentagon’s “Chinese Military Companies” blacklist since 2020. Documents posted by Mercury indicated the lobbying firm sought to defend Hikvision in the press. Other documents provided by Mercury also showed the firm was seeking to stop the FCC from cracking down on its Chinese client. The records posted by Mercury also included a slide show — titled “Hikvision Briefing” — from an apparent meeting with the Commerce Department.

Mercury’s recent history of defending CCP-linked Chinese companies

Mercury also registered under FARA to help defend Chinese telecom company ZTE in 2018. The FCC’s unanimous 5-0 vote in 2019 concluded that ZTE and Huawei posed a threat to U.S. national security and blocked them from receiving any money from the U.S. government’s Universal Service Fund.

Then-FCC Chairman Ajit Pai reiterated in June 2020 that the FCC “has designated #Huawei and #ZTE as companies posing a national security threat to the United States. As a result, telecom companies cannot use money from our $8.3B Universal Service Fund on equipment or services produced or provided by these suppliers.”

The FCC in 2022 “adopted new rules prohibiting communications equipment deemed to pose an unacceptable risk to national security from being authorized for importation or sale in the United States” — with the list including Huawei and ZTE.

Mercury also registered under FARA in 2019 to assist the Massachusetts subsidiary of China Railway Rolling Stock Corporation, which the Pentagon designated the rolling stock group as a “Chinese Military Company.”

Mercury also registered under FARA as an agent to advocate for the Chinese tech company JinkoSolar in 2020, and the U.S. public affairs firm did work for JinkoSolar for a number of years, including pitching stories or columns to The New York Times, the FARA filing says. 

"Forced labor, systemic rape, sterilization and indoctrination"

Marco Rubio, then a Republican senator representing Florida, wrote an opinion piece in 2023, arguing that “like most of the world’s solar panel companies, JinkoSolar previously relied on polysilicon from the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (though it’s unclear if they still do)” and that “this is where the Chinese Communist Party subjects Uyghurs and other predominantly Muslim ethnic groups to forced labor, as well as systemic rape, sterilization and indoctrination.”

“The federal investigation of JinkoSolar is a welcome and long-overdue step toward cracking down on these companies. I’m also encouraged by the fact that Jacksonville’s city council repudiated $2.3 million in tax rebates intended for JinkoSolar’s profit,” Rubio wrote. “But on the whole, our government is doing far too little to keep slave-made goods from entering the country. In many ways, the Biden Administration is making things worse.”

Documents posted on the FARA website indicate that Mercury defended JinkoSolar in the press. Mercury has also posted multiple Lobbying Disclosure Act filings for Chinese companies, including Chinese tech giant Alibaba.

Moolenaar, the ranking member of the House CCP committee, and the chairman and ranking member of the House Homeland Security Committee also sent a letter to DHS Secretary Kristi Noem last year to “express serious concern about the International Olympic Committee’s ongoing partnership with Alibaba Group and the implications of allowing a People’s Republic of China-based cloud provider to support the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles.”

Mercury also filed a lobbying disclosure form related to Tencent America. The Pentagon has designated Tencent as a “Chinese Military Company.” Moolenaar and other members of the House and Senate told Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Paul Atkins in a letter last year that Tencent “has transmitted user data to public security bureaus in Xinjiang and partnered with local authorities to embed surveillance into public transit systems.”

It remains to be seen whether the Pentagon or any other U.S. agency will take action against Unitree Robotics — and whether the Chinese company’s “foreign agents” at Mercury can help them sway public opinion and stave off U.S. government action.