Ben Cline is trying to raise money off legislation with 0 percent chance of passage

The campaign of Sixth District MAGA Congressman Ben Cline just sent out a fundraising appeal trying to raise money off legislation introduced by Cline and touted by his congressional office as being meant to “ensure federal facilities are not using any Chinese hardware in point-of-sale technology, limiting the exposure and infiltration by foreign adversaries like the Chinese Communist Party.”

Sounds like something that Ben Cline would want to make sound important.

The one big problem with this bill: it has no chance of ever becoming law.

This is the verdict of the nonpartisan website GovTrack.us, which tells us that Cline’s bill, HR 8787, styled Servicemember Payment Data Privacy and Security Act, has just a 1 percent chance of even getting out of committee, and a 0 percent chance of being enacted.

Ouch, babe.

Cline introduced the bill on May 13, and it was referred that day to the House Armed Services Committee, which has done nothing with it since – no scheduled hearings or actions.

“I introduced the Servicemember Payment Data Privacy and Security Act to protect important information from CCP operatives who aim to exploit, undermine, and harm our Nation,” Cline said in a statement back when he introduced the bill last month.

The issue that he’s trying to make here involves PAX Technology, a Chinese-based manufacturer of payment terminals, PIN pads and point-of-sale software.

The FBI raided the company’s Jacksonville offices in 2021 amid claims that “the PAX terminals were being used both as a malware ‘dropper’ – a repository for malicious files – and as ‘command-and-control’ locations for staging attacks and collecting information,” per a report from tech journalist Brian Krebs.

There was some media attention on the company in the first few days after the raids, but then the trail went radio silent.

Fast forward four years, to Cline’s office writing a letter to the Naval Criminal Investigative Service in December, to inquire if “concerns remain with this company,” given that “it looks like nothing new has developed since the raid.”

The answer from NCIS: it briefed the Secretary of Navy and various Department of Defense departments in 2021 and 2022 to have PAX devices removed.

In response to a follow-up question from Cline’s office asking for “any new unclassified or classified information” and “any ongoing concern,” the answer was:

NCIS does not have any new unclassified or classified information to provide to Rep. Cline at this time.

A Bloomberg story that pretty much resembles a word-for-word recitation of a Cline press release reported that Cline’s office found “PAX-manufactured devices in use in cafeterias in the Rayburn and Longworth House office buildings,” and noted that “the devices were removed March 30 after Cline raised concerns with the House Administration Committee.”

Translation: basically, this is old news, which is why the Cline legislation won’t get out of committee – and let’s be real here, you only introduce this kind of bill to get the press release and a couple of articles from friendly media outlets, which you can then use as fodder for a fundraising email.

This is what Ben Cline is doing for us in DC – nothing.