The US Justice Department has charged a former Air Force official with passing Pentagon secrets over to China.
Retired Lieutenant Colonel James Wilbur Fondren, a deputy director of the US Pacific Command’s Washington Liaison Office, “unlawfully and knowingly conspired” to communicate secrets, the Justice Department said in a press statement Wednesday.
The Justice Department alleges Lt. Fondren passed classified information between Nov. 2004 to Feb. 11, 2008. Fondren retired from active duty as a Lieutenant Colonel in the US Air Force in May 1996 and began a private consulting firm from his Virginia home starting in Feb. 1998. His sole client was a naturalized citizen named Tai Shen Kuo from Taiwan, who lived primarily in Louisiana and maintained business interests in the United States and the People’s Republic of China (PRC).
Kuo was working under the supervision of a PRC government official, the affidavit from the Justice Department claims. Lt. Fondren did not know of Kuo’s ties to the PRC and thought he was giving information to the Taiwanese governemnt.
“The allegations in this case are troubling — providing classified information to a foreign agent of the People’s Republic of China is a real and serious threat to our national security,” said Dana Boente, acting US attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia.
“The US government places considerable trust in those given access to classified information, and we are committed to prosecuting those who abuse that trust.”
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