From universities to the FBI

A former FBI undercover agent

Reveals their operations.

This is China Uncensored, I'm Chris Chappell.

Ever hear of a honey trap?

A honey trap is when a hostile foreign government uses,

say, a beautiful woman,

to seduce someone—a politician, a businessman, a scientist.

They might give information to her

that could pose a national security risk.

Or she could just use the salacious encounter to blackmail him.

And let's just say,

Chinese leaders know a thing or two about honey.

I sat down with former FBI operative Marc Ruskin,

author of “The Pretender: My Life Undercover for the FBI”...

to find out how Chinese agents are using honey traps—

and many other techniques—

to infiltrate the United States.

Thanks for joining me today, Marc.

Hey, it's my pleasure, Chris.

Thank you for inviting me.

Sure.

Well, so as a former FBI agent,

what have you seen are some of the ways the Chinese Communist Party

is trying to gain influence in the United States?

Well, the Chinese intelligent services along

with other hostile intelligence services exploit

a number of vulnerabilities that exist in the United States.

And to a large extent, and this may be surprising

to some of your viewers,

but the majority of the data that they seek

is actually available through open sources.

Much of it is available legally to anyone

who takes the trouble to look for it.

Is this what you mean by vulnerabilities?

Yeah.

By vulnerabilities, I'm talking about open ...

manners in which data which can be of use to a hostile power,

such as China, can be accessed without necessarily

violating any federal or American laws.

A lot of the data that is significant

and can be used for a hostile adversary purposes

is actually available through open sources.

Much of it is information, for example,

such as a technical report, research, engineering,

which has been conducted on a very sophisticated level

and has not yet been classified.

So there's often a lag time, for example,

with advanced research,

the publication of the research not being reviewed

and being ultimately classified as secret or top secret.

But since the Chinese intelligence services

are very active and on the ball and alert,

often they've already accessed the information

and it's out the door prior to it being classified.

So what does China do with this information?

Well, we're talking,

I'm thinking basically information of a technical level,

which can then be used by own engineers and their own researchers

to advance their own level of sophistication,

bypassing the research that they would've had to do themselves

in order to reach the same point.

In other words, they're taking advantage,

and this is a problem with academia in the United States

and that we have a very open society.

And by having this kind of openness,

it gives more access to hostile services to obtain information

either through a variety of methods,

but often not necessarily to espionage,

but often it's simply by being alert

and being quick and accessing the,

and knowing where the look and when to look.

So that's kind of similar to how recently it came out

that the Chair of Harvard's Chemistry Department

was getting funding from China.

Right.

Just last month,

just at the end of January,

there was an arrest of Professor Lieberand announcements by the special agent in charge

of the FBI in Boston,

Bonaventura,

who he explained in his statements that right now China is,

in his view,

and presumably reflects the view of the FBI today,

China's the largest intelligence threat to the US.

Whether it's larger than Russia or not,

it's kind of like how many angels

can dance on the head of a pin type of question.

In either case,

they're all hostile intelligence services and need to be,

we need to take a preventative,

counter-intelligence type measures

in order to protect ourselves from a hostile act.

So, you've talked about how China

takes advantage of open source information.

How in the case of the Harvard Professor Lieber,

how money can buy off people.

How does China use foreign agents in the United States?

Well, historically there've been a number of ways

that the Chinese have used traditional espionage techniques.

One in particular that's been very successful is,

and it may seem reminiscent of John Le Carre novels,

but it's the reality is what's referred to in trade craft

as a honey trap,

which is using an attractive female case officer,

intelligence officer,

to develop a relationship with someone

who has access to classified information.

And it's a longterm proposition to develop an intimate,

ultimately physical relationship or maybe even the relationship

that the target believes is a legitimate emotional relationship.

There was an FBI agent, a Supervisor, James,

and his last name escapes me right now,

but who with Katrina Leung,

was the name of the intelligence officer.

Not her real Mandarin name,

but she developed a relationship with him

and for 20 years that relationship continued.

It's hard to imagine for nearly two decades,

and he was the supervisor of a China Counter Intelligence squad

in the FBI's Los Angeles office,

and he was taking, apparently, from what I understand,

confidential classified documents to his rendezvouses with her.

So until ultimately he was arrested

after he retired and entered into a plea agreement

with the US Attorney's office.

How common are these honey traps?

Unfortunately, it's a question that has no real answer

because all we know about is the ones that were caught.

Right?

So from time to time,

in the FBI it's not very common that we know about.

The first one in the history of the FBI

involved an agent called Richard Miller,who was seduced by a Soviet at that time,

Soviet Union agent,

whose name was Svetlana Ogorodnikova.

And so, how often does it happen in other agencies?

I would suspect it happens more often in other agencies.

The FBI has a pretty serious vetting process for recruiting agents.

And as the CIA does as well.

But there are other areas where these honey traps could be used

and which are not to infiltrate America's Counter Intelligence services,

but simply to infiltrate, say academia.

You could have this kind of technique being utilized

with the college professors or engineers

working at nuclear research laboratories,

which we wouldn't know about

because they haven't come to surface yet.

So besides these methods, what other tactics

is the Chinese Communist Party using in the United States?

I guess the one answer would be

whatever they can imagine and come up with.

As we all know, the Russians, the Soviets were,

since the creation of the Soviet Union

has been attempting to influence the American elections.

With regard to the Russians, we can read about it

because since the fall of the Soviet Union,

many ex-KGB officers who worked in the US

have been able to publish their memoirs.

So you can go to the bookstore and buy Kalugin's book

and see how they were in New York and in Washington

doing their best through all types of clandestine activity

to influence the elections.

Now, presumably if the Russians were doing it,

the Chinese were doing it also.

However, we don't have a bunch of ex-Chinese

intelligence officers publishing their memoirs

because I would imagine that their longevity would be very dim indeed

were they to attempt to do so

as would the health of their family members, right?

Probably.

So we don't know firsthand, but what we do know

is what has been uncovered just through ordinary criminal investigations.

And for that we can just look back to the Clinton re-election campaign.

In the Clinton re-election campaign,

there was Johnny Young, and the thousands and thousands of dollars

that were being apparently allegedly contributed

both directly to the Clinton re-election campaign

and to the Democratic National Committee.

This is Bill Clinton and the China Gate scandal in the 90s?

Right.

Of course, it didn't become as much of a scandal,

I would suggest as it should have been,

because according to reporting in the media,

there was direct links between the People's Republic of China

Military Intelligence Services

and the recipients or the middlemen for that money going to the campaign.

So you asked how, in other words, other techniques,

I would suggest that contributing to a political party

and contributing to a president's re-election campaign.

And it's more than just mere suspicion.

There was 22 convictions as a result of this.

So, this is another tactic.

It's a tactic.

It's a tactic.

How successful is it?

I can't evaluate it,

but it's certainly a tactic that arguably was used

in order to influence the outcome

for an American political presidential election.

And also arguably inference can be made

that there's a certain amount of influence

that's being purchased through that kind of a donation.

So it seems like the Chinese Communist Party

is taking advantage of the free and open society

we have in the United States.

How can the US counter this without giving up these freedoms?

Well, there had been an attempts for the FBI, for example,

many years ago, had an initiative.

It was librarians were recruited,

since there's so much access to open source information,

the thought was that by bringing in librarians

to identify suspect individual patrons,

it may sound a little simple,

but it could've been very effective,

individuals with accents from countries

which are known to be hostile to the US,

accessing highly technical reports on a continuing basis.

It was thought, the idea was,

and I think it was a good idea that it could,

these could have provided leads in order

to identify whether they be Chinese or Russian,

or from other hostile powers,

individuals seeking to exploit open source information.

The reaction from the librarians and from the civil liberties groups

was hardly very cooperative.

It was just the opposite.

There was a big negative reaction that caused the initiatives

to essentially have to be shut down.

And there was a lot of publicity about it at the time.

And at the time in the New York Times,

but ultimately it didn't work.

A similar attempt occurred after 9/11,

when the Patriot Act was passed,

there was a clause that was referred to as the library clause.

In which again,

the FBI and other government agencies were seeking

to obtain information regarding access

by the Chinese and other hostile powers

to open source significant technological information.

Again, the reaction was hardly cooperative.

It seems almost absurd,

but there were signs being put in the library

to warn patrons that their access

may be subject to government review.

So rather than cooperate, it was just the opposite.

The librarians were essentially warning off potential patrons

who could be identified.