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.
Read more at Newsweek.com
What Are Your Thoughts?
