Former CIA Official Indicted for Acting as Secret Agent for South Korean Intelligence
WASHINGTON — A former CIA employee and senior official at the National Security Council has been charged with acting as a secret agent for South Korea’s intelligence service, according to the U.S. Justice Department.
Sue Mi Terry allegedly accepted luxury goods and expensive dinners in return for promoting South Korean government positions during media appearances, sharing nonpublic information with intelligence officers, and facilitating access between U.S. and South Korean officials, as stated in an indictment filed in federal court in Manhattan.
Terry admitted to the FBI that she served as an information source for South Korean intelligence, passing handwritten notes from an off-the-record June 2022 meeting involving Secretary of State Antony Blinken concerning U.S. policy toward North Korea, according to the indictment.
Prosecutors claim South Korean intelligence officers secretly paid her over $37,000 for a public policy program she controlled, focusing on Korean affairs.
South Korea’s National Intelligence Service confirmed that intelligence authorities from both countries are closely communicating regarding the case. The country’s Foreign Ministry declined to comment on judicial proceedings in a foreign country.
The actions in question occurred after Terry left the U.S. government and worked at think tanks, where she became a noted public policy voice on foreign affairs.
Her lawyer, Lee Wolosky, stated that the “allegations are unfounded and distort the work of a scholar and news analyst known for her independence and years of service to the United States.” He emphasized that Terry had not held a security clearance for over a decade and consistently criticized the South Korean government during the periods in question.
Terry served in the government from 2001 to 2011, working first as a CIA analyst and later as the deputy national intelligence officer for East Asia at the National Intelligence Council, before moving on to think tanks like the Council on Foreign Relations.
Prosecutors assert that Terry never registered with the Justice Department as a foreign agent. On disclosure forms filed with the House of Representatives, where she testified at least three times between 2016 and 2022, she did not disclose her covert work with South Korea, preventing Congress from fully evaluating her testimony, the indictment states.
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Associated Press writer Hyung-jin Kim in Seoul, South Korea, contributed to this report.