WASHINGTON (AP) — A former CIA worker and senior official on the Nationwide Safety Council has been charged with serving as a undercover agent for South Korea’s intelligence service, the U.S. Justice Division stated.
Sue Mi Terry accepted luxurious items, together with fancy purses, and costly dinners at sushi eating places in trade for advocating South Korean authorities positions throughout media appearances, sharing nonpublic info with intelligence officers and facilitating entry for South Korean officers to U.S. authorities officers, in line with an indictment filed in federal court docket in Manhattan.
She additionally admitted to the FBI that she served as a supply of knowledge for South Korean intelligence, together with by passing handwritten notes from an off-the-record June 2022 assembly that she participated in with Secretary of State Antony Blinken about U.S. authorities coverage towards North Korea, the indictment says.
Prosecutors say South Korean intelligence officers additionally covertly paid her greater than $37,000 for a public coverage program that Terry managed that was centered on Korean affairs.
South Korea’s Nationwide Intelligence Service, its primary spy company, stated Wednesday that intelligence authorities in South Korea and the U.S. are carefully speaking over the case. South Korea’s International Ministry individually stated it was not applicable to touch upon a case that’s beneath judicial proceedings out of the country.
The conduct at concern occurred within the years after Terry left the U.S. authorities and labored at suppose tanks, the place she grew to become a distinguished public coverage voice on overseas affairs.
Lee Wolosky, a lawyer for Terry, stated in a press release that the “allegations are unfounded and warp the work of a scholar and information analyst recognized for her independence and years of service to the US.”
He stated she had not held a safety clearance for greater than a decade and her views have been constant.
“In truth, she was a harsh critic of the South Korean authorities throughout occasions this indictment alleges that she was appearing on its behalf,” he stated. “As soon as the info are made clear it will likely be evident the federal government made a big mistake.”
Terry served within the authorities from 2001 to 2011, first as a CIA analyst and later because the deputy nationwide intelligence officer for East Asia on the Nationwide Intelligence Council, earlier than working for suppose tanks, together with the Council on International Relations.
Prosecutors say Terry by no means registered with the Justice Division as a overseas agent.
On disclosure kinds filed with the Home of Representatives, the place she testified at the very least 3 times between 2016 and 2022, she stated that she was not an “lively registrant” but in addition by no means disclosed her covert work with South Korea, stopping Congress from having “the chance to pretty consider Terry’s testimony in mild of her longstanding efforts” for the federal government, the indictment says.
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Related Press author Hyung-jin Kim in Seoul, South Korea, contributed to this report.
