Bad Democrat

Last week, they showed on the news that the mayor of Arcadia was acting as an illegal agent of the People’s Republic of China. According to her plea agreement, Eileen Wang and Yaoning “Mike” Sun were working at the direction and control of PRC government officials and coordinated with U.S.-based individuals to promote the PRC’s interests by promoting pro-PRC propaganda in the United States, among other things. They operated a website called U.S. News Center, which purported to be a website for the Chinese American community but which received directives from the PRC to post pro-PRC content on their website. They wrote an article in the Los Angeles Times, but it was written by a PRC official–not them. They were in communication with PRC officials over email and they updated them on their posts. The PRC has sent edits to their work and Wang made them, and replied with a link to the edited work and a screenshot showing that the piece had been viewed 15,128 times.

I was wondering if her mayoral term will be investigated in addition to her writing. I would be very interested to see if anything she did as mayor was influenced by the PRC.

From the United States Attorney’s Office, Central District of California press release:

“By her own admission, Eileen Wang secretly served the interests of the Chinese government,” said Assistant Director Roman Rozhavsky of the FBI’s Counterintelligence and Espionage Division. “Let this serve as a clear warning: Individuals who act on behalf of foreign governments to influence our democracy will be identified, investigated, and brought to justice. 

Wang is charged via information with one count of acting in the United States as an illegal agent of a foreign government. In a related filing, she has agreed to plead guilty. The charge comes with a statutory maximum sentence of 10 years in federal prison.