US Journalist Sentenced for 'Betraying His Country'

An American journalist has been sentenced to two years in federal prison for acting as an agent of a foreign government within the United States, the US Justice Department said. Thomas Weir Pauken II, 51, pleaded guilty earlier this year and is not planning to appeal, according to his defense lawyer, Charles Burnham. Pauken was also sentenced to 36 months of supervised release with no overseas travel, the department said in a news release on Tuesday. He was arrested in February.

The case is the latest in a series of federal prosecutions involving people accused of working for the Chinese government without proper disclosure, as tensions between Washington and Beijing remain high, the AP reports. "Pauken betrayed his country for money" for supporting "Chinese Ministry of State Security (MSS) operations, recruiting, and gathering of sensitive information from potential assets," said Assistant Attorney General for National Security John A. Eisenberg in the news release.

• Pauken worked as a journalist for various Chinese news organizations after moving to China in 2010, including state broadcaster CCTV. He most recently worked as an editor for Xinhua, China's state news agency, a position he had held since 2024.
• According to court documents, from at least 2019 until February 2026, Pauken worked at the direction of people he knew worked for China's government, including a person he met in 2017 identified as "Cathy." "Cathy" told him the reports were read by Chinese President Xi Jinping, according to a Feb. 27 federal court affidavit filed by FBI Special Agent Timothy J. Healy. Pauken received at least $100,000 for his work with "Cathy," the department said. "Cathy also paid for Pauken to travel several times between 2019 through 2025 from China to meet with individuals in the United States who could provide Pauken, and ultimately Cathy and the MSS, with information."
• In addition to writing reports, Pauken was also asked by "Cathy" to recruit people to provide classified information. In one case, Pauken was instructed to meet with a person identified in the affidavit as "Person 1" and provide the person a Samsung phone, a computer, and passwords for Signal and Telegram, as well as NetDisk.

Defense attorney Charles Burnham said Pauken had the "misplaced and naive but sincere belief" that his work could improve US-China relations and prevent an armed conflict, the Washington Post reports. "He was a pawn. He was manipulated," Burnham said, but in Pauken's mind, "he wasn't betraying America—he was preventing World War III." Pauken, a Texas native, used the alias of Tom McGregor when working as a commentator and writer at the request of his father, who shares his name and wanted to distance himself from his son's work in China. The elder Pauken, a former Reagan administration official, was chairman of the Texas Republican Party in the 1990s.