By Jonathan Stempel
NEW YORK (Reuters) -A overseas coverage specialist who as soon as labored for the CIA and on the White Home Nationwide Safety Council (NSC) has been indicted on U.S. fees she labored as an unregistered agent of South Korea’s authorities in change for luxurious items and different presents.
Sue Mi Terry advocated South Korean coverage positions, disclosed nonpublic U.S. authorities data to South Korean intelligence officers, and facilitated entry for South Korean authorities officers to their U.S. counterparts, based on an indictment made public on Tuesday in Manhattan federal courtroom.
In return, the South Korean intelligence officers allegedly supplied Terry with Bottega Veneta and Louis Vuitton purses, a Dolce & Gabbana coat, dinners at Michelin-starred eating places, and greater than $37,000 in “covert” funding for a public coverage program on Korean affairs that she ran.
Terry’s alleged work as an agent started in 2013, two years after she left U.S. authorities employment, and lasted a decade.
She is now a senior fellow on the Council on Overseas Relations, based on the suppose tank’s web site, and an knowledgeable on East Asia and the Korean Peninsula, together with North Korea.
Terry didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark however her lawyer, Lee Wolosky, mentioned in a press release: “These allegations are unfounded and warp the work of a scholar and information analyst identified for her independence and years of service to america.”
“In truth, she was a harsh critic of the South Korean authorities throughout occasions this indictment alleges that she was performing on its behalf. As soon as the info are made clear will probably be evident the federal government made a major mistake,” he added.
The Council on Overseas Relations put Terry on unpaid administrative depart, and can cooperate with any investigation, a spokeswoman mentioned.
South Korea is just not a defendant. Its Washington embassy didn’t instantly reply to requests for remark. The workplace of U.S. Lawyer Damian Williams in Manhattan didn’t instantly reply to comparable requests.
Based on Terry’s on-line biography, she is a frequent visitor on TV, radio and podcasts, and has testified a number of occasions earlier than Congressional panels.
Born in Seoul and raised in Virginia, Terry was a senior CIA analyst from 2001 to 2008, and director of Korean, Japan and Oceanic Affairs on the NSC from 2008 to 2009 underneath Republican President George W. Bush and Democratic President Barack Obama.
She now lives in New York, her biography says.
The indictment fees Terry with failing to register underneath the Overseas Brokers Registration Act, and conspiring to violate that regulation.
It says she acknowledged in a voluntary June 2023 FBI interview that she was a “supply” for South Korea’s intelligence service, “that means that she supplied priceless data.”
(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Further reporting by David Brunnstrom; Enhancing by Leslie Adler and Sandra Maler)
