California mayor to plead guilty to promoting Chinese propaganda, DOJ announces

ARCADIA, Calif. -- Arcadia, California Mayor Eileen Wang has agreed to plead blameworthy to a national complaint of acting arsenic an amerciable overseas agent, promoting Chinese propaganda, the U.S. Department of Justice announced connected Monday.

Investigators accidental Wang, 58, was moving with her then-fiancé to tally a website for Chinese Americans that was spreading propaganda from the Chinese government, oregon the People's Republic of China (PRC).

Wang agreed to a plea deal, which was already done past month, but was conscionable unsealed connected Monday.

It's imaginable Wang could service up to 10 years down bars for acting arsenic an amerciable overseas agent. She made her archetypal tribunal quality connected Monday and is expected to formally plead blameworthy successful the coming weeks.

"Individuals successful our state who covertly bash the bidding of overseas governments undermine our democracy," said First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli for the Central District of California. "This plea statement is the latest occurrence successful our determination to support the homeland against China's efforts to corrupt our institutions."

According to national investigators, the politician was posting PRC-approved quality contented connected a tract called "U.S. News Center."

The documents unsealed connected Monday accidental she would past constitute backmost to a PRC authoritative astir however galore views the contented was getting.

Prosecutors constitute that, "Each clip suspect posted to her website astatine the PRC Official's Direction. Defendant was located wrong the United States. Defendant ne'er disclosed connected the website that immoderate of its contented had been posted astatine the absorption of members of the PRC government."

Wang was elected successful November 2022 to the Arcadia City Council, a five-person governing assemblage from which the politician is selected connected a rotating basis.

Earlier this year, Wang's erstwhile fiancé and run manager was sentenced to 2 years successful national prison.

Yaoning "Mike" Sun pleaded blameworthy to 1 number of acting arsenic a overseas cause to a overseas government. He is present serving a four-year national situation sentence.

According to the DOJ, Wang and Sun received and executed directives from PRC authorities officials to station pro-PRC contented connected their website.

In 1 illustration outlined successful the unsealed documents, a PRC authoritative sent Wang pre-written quality articles, which were past posted connected her ain website. She reportedly responded to the PRC authoritative connected WeChat with a nexus to the nonfiction connected her website.

In different example, Wang is accused of making edits to an article, sending the PRC authoritative a nexus to the nonfiction reflecting the requested change, past sending the authoritative a screenshot showing the nonfiction had been viewed 15,128 times. In response, the authoritative messaged, "Great!," and Wang reportedly replied, "Thank you leader."

"By her ain 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 service arsenic a wide warning: individuals who enactment connected behalf of overseas governments to power our ideology volition beryllium identified, investigated, and brought to justice. Protecting the regularisation of instrumentality and the transparency of our antiauthoritarian process remains astatine the halfway of the FBI's mission, and we volition proceed moving alongside our partners to safeguard the integrity of our elections and support hostile actors from undermining the voices of the American people."