New York Governor Kathy Hochul and former Governor Andrew Cuomo have responded after a former aide was charged on Tuesday with acting as an illegal agent of the Chinese government.
Linda Sun, 41, and her husband, Chris Hu, 40, were arrested on Tuesday morning. Both pleaded not guilty during an initial court appearance in Brooklyn on Tuesday afternoon.
Sun, who held numerous posts in New York state government, including deputy chief of staff for Hochul, used her positions to further Beijing’s agenda in exchange for compensation and gifts worth millions of dollars, federal prosecutors said.
In an interview on WNYC, Hochul said she was outraged and shocked by Sun’s alleged behavior. She said her office had fired Sun last year after discovering evidence of misconduct and had reported her actions to authorities immediately.
“I’m furious, and I’m outraged and absolutely shocked at how brazen her behavior was,” Hochul said. “It was a betrayal of trust—the trust of government, the trust of the people. And I’ll tell you this, the second we discovered some levels of misconduct, we fired her, we alerted the authorities, and hence we ended up with what happened here today.”
The indictment alleged that Sun blocked representatives of the Taiwanese government from having access to the governor’s office at the request of Chinese officials, influenced messaging to align with the priorities of the Chinese government and sought to arrange for a high-level New York politician to visit China.
New York Governor Kathy Hochul speaking to reporters at the White House in Washington, D.C., on July 3. Hochul said she was outraged after a former aide was charged with acting as an illegal agent of the Chinese government.
Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
In return, Chinese officials allegedly arranged for millions of dollars in transactions to Hu, who had business activities in China. Prosecutors said Sun and Hu used the money to buy a property on New York’s Long Island worth $4.1 million, a condominium in Hawaii worth $2.1 million and luxury cars, including a 2024 Ferrari Roma sports car.
The indictment alleged that Sun also received gifts, including tickets to performances by a visiting Chinese orchestra and ballet groups and “Nanjing-style salted ducks” that were prepared by the personal chef of a Chinese government official and delivered to the home of Sun’s parents in New York.
Hochul told WNYC that her office has “been working with the Department of Justice in this investigation, and we’ll continue to make sure that all the information that’s out there is revealed and that justice is served. This is absolutely shocking.”
A spokesperson for Hochul’s office told the Associated Press that Sun was fired in March 2023. The governor declined to provide further details on WNYC about the misconduct that led to Sun’s firing.
When asked whether the allegations that Sun had influenced the position of the governor’s office on Taiwan and other issues were true, Hochul said: “That’s what they’re alleging. It’s something that became apparent to us when we read the indictments. She primarily worked for Andrew Cuomo for many more years. She was with me just a short time, about 15 months. But what I read in the pleadings, the indictment today was very much focused on a lot of things she did under the previous administration and some directions she tried to provide us when I was lieutenant governor.”
Rich Azzopardi, Cuomo’s spokesperson, downplayed Sun’s reach in the former governor’s administration. Azzopardi told the AP that Sun “worked in a handful of agencies and was one of many community liaisons who had little to no interaction with the governor.”
Newsweek has contacted Azzopardi and Hochul’s office for further comment via email.
Jarrod Schaeffer, Sun’s defense lawyer, told the AP: “We’re looking forward to addressing these charges in court. Our client is understandably upset that these charges have been brought.”
Sun is a naturalized U.S. citizen born in China. Her career in New York state government spanned about 15 years.
She held jobs in Cuomo’s administration, including as a deputy diversity officer, and rose through the ranks to become Hochul’s deputy chief of staff. In November 2022, she took a job at the New York State Department of Labor as deputy commissioner for strategic business development, but she left that job in March 2023, according to her LinkedIn profile.
The AP reported that the case against Sun is part of a broader Justice Department effort to uncover secret agents for the Chinese government operating in the U.S.
Authorities have charged Chinese nationals in recent years with harassing and intimidating dissidents on the Chinese government’s behalf and with covertly advancing Beijing’s interests.
Last year, a Newsweek investigation uncovered donations to leading New York politicians by dozens of U.S.-based community groups and their leaders with close ties to the United Front Work Department or to a wider “united front system” operated globally by the Chinese Communist Party. Those donations stretch back decades, with recipients including former New York Senator Hillary Clinton.
The groups offer community services and business opportunities for members, but critics say the CCP uses them to interfere in host countries by building ties with and influencing local politicians, acting as a network to carry out “transnational repression” of the party’s opponents globally, and serving as a conduit for espionage by China’s security services.
