A US journalist sentenced to 2 years in federal prison for acting as an illegal agent for China

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WASHINGTON (AP) — An American journalist has been sentenced to two years in federal prison for acting as an agent of a foreign government within the United States, the U.S. Justice Department said.

Thomas Weir Pauken II, 51, pleaded guilty earlier this year and is not planning to appeal, according to his defense lawyer, Charles Burnham. Pauken also was sentenced to 36 months of supervised release with no overseas travel, the department said in a news release on Tuesday. He was arrested in February.

The case is the latest in a series of federal prosecutions involving people accused of working for the Chinese government without proper disclosure, as tensions between Washington and Beijing remain high.

“Pauken betrayed his country for money" for supporting “Chinese Ministry of State Security (MSS) operations, recruiting, and gathering of sensitive information from potential assets,” said Assistant Attorney General for National Security John A. Eisenberg in the news release.

Pauken worked as a journalist for various Chinese news organizations after moving to China in 2010, including state broadcaster CCTV. He most recently worked as an editor for Xinhua, China’s state news agency, a position he had held since 2024.

“Mr. Pauken has accepted responsibility and respects the court’s sentence,” his lawyer said, adding that “as the government agreed in court, Mr. Pauken did not provide any classified information to the Chinese.”

According to court documents, from at least 2019 until February 2026, Pauken worked at the direction of people he knew worked for China's government, including a person he met in 2017 identified as “Cathy." “Cathy” told him the reports were read by Chinese President Xi Jinping, according to a Feb. 27 federal court affidavit filed by FBI Special Agent Timothy J. Healy.

Pauken received at least $100,000 for his work with “Cathy,” the department said.

In addition to writing reports, Pauken was also asked by “Cathy” to recruit people to provide classified information. In one case, Pauken was instructed to meet with a person identified in the affidavit as “Person 1” and provide the person a Samsung phone, a computer, and passwords for Signal and Telegram, as well as NetDisk.

Pauken was stopped by Customs and Border Protection agents when he returned to the U.S. in January 2025. In interviews with CBP and FBI agents, Pauken said he was “80 percent sure” that the person who was seeking a job in the Trump administration would provide classified information to China, although Pauken advised the person not to, according to the affidavit.

Pauken also told investigators that “Cathy” would usually pay for his trips to the U.S. through the years, and often wired payments to his wife’s bank accounts, the affidavit said.

Pauken, a Texas native, used the alias of Tom McGregor when working as a commentator and writer at the request of his father, who shares his name and wanted to distance himself from his son's work in China.

The younger Pauken published two books under his real name, Thomas W. Pauken II. One was published in 2019 about U.S.-China relations and another in 2023 about Shenzhen, a city across from Hong Kong in mainland China.

Pauken's father was a former chairman of the Texas Republican Party in the 1990s and ran for governor more than a decade ago.

In the most recent publicly visible Facebook post under McGregor’s name, Pauken shared photos of his wife and child on a trip, writing “My family and I enjoying our trip to Washington DC." He was arrested later that month.