New York Democratic Rep. Grace Meng has longstanding ties to organizations allegedly linked to Chinese intelligence and Communist party operatives, an investigation by the Daily Caller News Foundation has found.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) on Tuesday indicted Linda Sun, who served in the New York governor's office twice and was Meng's chief of staff when she was a state assemblyman, on charges of acting as an unregistered foreign agent of China and engaging in money laundering.

The Wall Street Journal Reported On Thursday, Sun met with “representatives of key organizations identified in the indictment as having ties to the United Front, including the United States Chinese American Businessmen's Federation and the Henan Eastern American Association.”

China's so-called “united front” strategy of influence and intelligence gathering Chinese intelligence It is called the United Front Work Department.

The heads of these groups are “supervised, directed, controlled, [Chinese] “Government officials,” the Justice Department claims.

Meng has been a member of the New York-based organization, the Henan Eastern America Association (HAEA), for more than a decade, where she previously served as “vice president,” according to archived versions of the organization. Website, And this group is now prominent Identify He was appointed “honorary chairman.”

Meng is not named in the Justice Department's indictment, and her office did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

However, the Justice Department's indictment does mention that one of Sun's unnamed co-conspirators, known as CC-1, “served as president of an association of people from Henan Province, China in the New York metropolitan area.”

The indictment describes CC-1's organization, Association-1, as a “non-profit 501(c)(3) organization with close ties to the United Front Work Department (UFWD) and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).”

HAEA did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

“Over the past 40 years, a network of pro-China Chinese American organizations operating in conjunction with the Chinese consulate has been built that now has enormous influence over New York's business and political landscape, essentially providing a base and pro-China personnel to directly implement China's foreign policy from inside the United States,” Dr. Lawrence Thelin, an expert on national security and the united front, told DCNF. (Related: Photos show Democratic lawmakers frequently meeting with Chinese police chief arrested by FBI)

Henan Eastern American Association

Founded in 1973, HAEA aims to support political participation of Chinese people and cultural exchange and trade between the United States and China. According to To that website.

Meng has served in various roles with HAEA for more than a decade, according to records on the organization's website. Meng and her mother, who is from China's Henan province, were first registered as HAEA members in 2008, according to the group's records. state.

Interval 2008 and 2012Meng served as “vice president” of HAEA in the 1990s, according to the organization's website. HAEA subsequently Identify In February 2012, the month before Meng became “honorary chairman,” Release According to HAEA records, she participated in the March 2012 congressional election campaign.

Meng's photo and title are the current There is a photo of him alongside the chairman at the top of the HAEA website.

Sun is not listed in the HAEA membership directory, but her photo is on the organization's website. show Meng and Sun 2009The DCNF found:

For example, Meng and Sun Photographed Together at Karaoke in December 2009 Fundraising Meng then Provided In the New York State Assembly.

photograph show Meng and Sun attend HAEA's annual Lunar New Year celebrations Meetings February 2010.

[Image created by the DCNF with pictures from HAEA (left, center) and the DOJ’s indictment (right)]

solar Accused “she, [the Chinese] “Neither the New York State government nor the New York or American public had an opportunity to evaluate her conduct given her longstanding ties to governments and representatives of the Chinese Communist Party,” the Justice Department's indictment states. [Chinese] government and the Chinese Communist Party, and her status as their agent.”

According to the Justice Department's indictment, Sun was recruited as a committee member of the All-China Federation of Returned Overseas Chinese (ACFROC) in 2019.

ACFROC is an “arm” of the Chinese Communist Party's United Front Work Department (UFW) whose mission it says is to “manage relations with the Party and garner support for the Party among elites both inside and outside China, including through the collection of human resources intelligence,” the Justice Department indictment said.

Dr. June Teufel Dreyer, a former commissioner of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, told DCNF that ACFROC is “undoubtedly an organization used by the Chinese Communist Party, through the United Front Work Department, to sway the opinions of overseas Chinese to align with its own views.”

“Co-conspirators”

Sun previously served as Asia Outreach Director for former New York Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo and more recently as Deputy Chief of Staff for Government Records for New York Democratic Governor Kathy Hockle. show.

According to the Justice Department indictment, while Sun worked for two New York governors, he also worked secretly for a man identified only as a “co-conspirator” who had direct contact with several Chinese government officials.

Sun's collaboration with co-conspirators included: [New York governor’s office] According to the Justice Department's indictment, “they invited a delegation of senior Chinese government officials to travel to New York, who used the opportunity to illegally obtain entry visas into the United States.”

According to the indictment, the invited officials were from Henan province in China.

In return, Chinese officials and co-conspirators allegedly funneled contracts to a Henan company run by Sun's husband, Chris Hu, who was also arrested by the FBI and indicted by the Justice Department.

The Department of Justice did not respond to DCNF's request for comment.

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