Former CIA official charged with being secret agent for South Korean intelligence

WASHINGTON —  A former CIA employee and senior official at the National Security Council has been charged with serving as a secret agent for South Korea’s intelligence service, the U.S. Justice Department said.

Sue Mi Terry accepted luxury goods, including fancy handbags and expensive dinners at sushi restaurants, in exchange for advocating South Korean government positions during media appearances, sharing nonpublic information with intelligence officers and facilitating access for South Korean officials to U.S. government officials, according to an indictment filed in federal court in Manhattan.

She also admitted to the FBI that she served as a source of information for South Korean intelligence, including by passing handwritten notes from an off-the-record June 2022 meeting that she participated in with Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken about U.S. government policy toward North Korea, the indictment says.

Prosecutors say South Korean intelligence officers also covertly paid her more than $37,000 for a public policy program that Terry controlled that was focused on Korean affairs.

South Korea’s National Intelligence Service, its main spy agency, said Wednesday that intelligence authorities in South Korea and the U.S. are closely communicating over the case. South Korea’s Foreign Ministry separately said it was not appropriate to comment on a case that is under judicial proceedings in a foreign country.

The conduct at issue occurred in the years after Terry left the U.S. government and worked at think tanks, where she became a prominent public policy voice on foreign affairs.

Lee Wolosky, a lawyer for Terry, said in a statement 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 said she had not held a security clearance for more than a decade and her views have been consistent.

“In fact, she was a harsh critic of the South Korean government during times this indictment alleges that she was acting on its behalf,” he said. “Once the facts are made clear it will be evident the government made a significant mistake.”

Terry served in the government from 2001 to 2011, first as a CIA analyst and later as the deputy national intelligence officer for East Asia at the National Intelligence Council, before working for think tanks, including the Council on Foreign Relations.

Prosecutors say 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 said that she was not an “active registrant” but also never disclosed her covert work with South Korea, preventing Congress from having “the opportunity to fairly evaluate Terry’s testimony in light of her longstanding efforts” for the government, the indictment says.

Tucker writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Hyung-jin Kim in Seoul contributed to this report.