Last week, the U.S. Department of Justice charged two individuals with conspiring to violate Section 951 of the 1917 Espionage Act. Lu Jianwang and Chen Jinping are accused of running a “secret police station” in New York on behalf of China’s Ministry of Public Security.
Section 951 makes it illegal to operate in the United States subject to a foreign government’s direction or control without notifying the Attorney General. The law was enacted partly to combat resistance to the World War One draft.
The Justice Department has charged at least 25 people with violating or conspiring to violate the law since last year. That was the highest number since at least 2003, according to a Reuters review of Justice Department statements and court records. Prosecutors have charged at least nine since the start of this year.
The U.S. government has been alarmed by the efforts of Russia, China, and others to influence U.S. elections and intimidate political opponents on American soil. Suspected cases of spying, illegal lobbying, and harassment have been prioritized.
The increase in enforcement of Section 951 and a related law, the Foreign Agents Registration Act, started as a response to Russia’s alleged interference in the 2016 presidential election. Most of the cases involved “transnational repression” by people acting on behalf of China in 2022.
The statute has rarely been tested at trial because many cases have ended in guilty pleas or remain open because the defendants are overseas. The law requires proving a defendant intended to act at another country’s direction, which can be difficult, experts said.
The Justice Department has had some recent setbacks with Section 951 cases. In Brooklyn, federal prosecutors dropped charges against a New York City police officer arrested in 2020 for allegedly acting as a Chinese agent. They stated that more evidence became available.
Former Donald Trump fundraiser Tom Barrack was acquitted on charges of acting as a United Arab Emirates agent last November. He said his interactions with Emirati officials were part of his job as a private equity executive.
David Aaron of law firm Perkins Coie said much of the activity being charged under Section 951 “has probably been going on for decades.”
“It’s just become more of a priority to disrupt it,” said Aaron, a former national security prosecutor. The record number of foreign agent cases “shows that this issue of foreign agents in the U.S. is a national security priority and the Department of Justice and the FBI are devoting a ton of time and resources to identifying and charging those cases,” said Brandon Van Grack, a former Justice Department national security prosecutor now at law firm Morrison Foerster.
