An American journalist has admitted to acting as an agent for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and providing information to the authorities in Beijing.
According to a plea agreement, 51-year-old Thomas Weir Pauken II has been working under the direction of CCP intelligence officials for many years, receiving at least $100,000 in compensation from an official known as “Cathy”.
The case is scheduled for sentencing on September 1st. Pauken could face up to 10 years in prison, 3 years of supervised release, and a fine of up to $250,000.
On Thursday, Pauken appeared in court wearing a forest green prison jumpsuit. He argued that at the time, he was not fully aware that such actions were illegal under U.S. law.
He pledged not to have contact with any foreign intelligence officers or officials or seek benefits from them with full knowledge in the future. Judge Leonie Brinkema of the Eastern District of Virginia Federal Court warned that violating this pledge would have “serious consequences”.
According to Pauken’s social media accounts, he has been living and working in China since 2010.
Court documents indicate that Pauken has been following the instructions of “Cathy” since at least 2019. He was aware that Cathy worked for the CCP’s top spy agency – the Ministry of State Security.
Cathy had asked him to undergo a polygraph test and claimed that the reports he submitted would be reviewed by CCP leader Xi Jinping.
Cathy told Pauken that she could not travel to the U.S. and seemed interested in obtaining confidential information through him. Under the plea agreement, at Cathy’s direction, Pauken interviewed relevant contacts on questions posed by Cathy and compiled the answers into reports or recorded them as interview content.
Cathy also instructed Pauken to delete communication records after confirming receipt of the content. The plea agreement specifies that Pauken and his sources would then receive compensation.
Some of the reports involved political campaigns, candidates’ policy positions, and U.S.-China relations. At least once, Pauken was in China but conducted a phone interview with an individual residing in Virginia and currently working for a U.S. government agency, who was referred to as “Person 1” in legal documents.
The plea agreement quoted Cathy as saying, “Tom, you will be the one to convince him (Person 1) to provide confidential information.”
In January 2025, following Cathy’s instructions, Pauken flew from China to Washington carrying a phone intended for “Person 1” and $3,000 in cash to purchase a laptop for him.
Pauken’s lawyer, Charles Burnham, told Epoch Times that Pauken chose to plead guilty, indicating that he took responsibility for his actions.
In a statement released on behalf of his client, Burnham urged “all Americans working overseas to be vigilant of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) and related federal laws to avoid repeating his mistakes”.
Pauken has worked for several CCP official media outlets, including China Radio International (CRI), English news channel China Global Television Network (CGTN), and CCP’s main mouthpiece Xinhua News Agency.
Pauken was a program host for the China-nationalist-oriented media “Guancha”. In 2022, he criticized the Western boycott of the Beijing Winter Olympics due to human rights issues, claiming that “no country is perfect”.
On the question-and-answer platform Quora, Pauken has expressed pro-CCP views several times. In a 2021 post, he stated that Beijing is often described in “evil terms” by outsiders and is perceived as trying to dominate the world; however, in reality, Beijing is just “very unique and refuses to obey”.
Pauken’s father was a former official in the Reagan administration and former chairman of the Texas Republican Party. Pauken used the alias “Tom McGregor” to distinguish his activities in China from his family.
(Note: The original article was published in English by Epoch Times)