Pauken Pleads Guilty to Acting as Chinese Agent

Thomas Pauken II, a 50-year-old American journalist who spent more than a decade at Chinese state media outlets, pleaded guilty on June 4, 2026, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia to acting as an agent of the People’s Republic of China without notifying the U.S. Attorney General. He admitted that from at least 2019 through February 2026 he worked under the direction of officers affiliated with China’s Ministry of State Security (MSS), received at least $100,000, and recruited others inside the United States on Beijing’s behalf.¹ The single felony count, brought under 18 U.S.C. § 951, carries up to 10 years in prison. Sentencing is scheduled for September 1, 2026.²

Who Pauken Is

Pauken is the son of Thomas Pauken, a Reagan White House official who later chaired the Texas Republican Party.³ The younger Pauken moved to China in 2010 and wrote under the pen name “Tom McGregor,” a pseudonym he has said his father asked him to use to keep the family name out of his work.⁴

Under that name he wrote a business column for China Radio International and China Daily, appeared as a commentator on CCTV’s “Dialogue,” and contributed pieces to the Washington Post, Fox News, and the Daily Caller.⁵ He later worked at China Central Television and China Global Television Network and, by 2024, was an editor at the state news agency Xinhua.⁴ In 2019 he published US vs China: From Trade War to Reciprocal Deal under the McGregor byline.⁶

How the MSS Recruited Him

According to an FBI affidavit filed by Special Agent Timothy Healy, the recruitment ran through two stages. In 2017, Pauken met two men he identified only by the pseudonyms “Richard” and “William.” He believed they worked for the Chinese government, though they told him his reports were being forwarded to Japan. They pushed him to apply for a job at the U.S. State Department and report back on his progress.⁷

Later that year, a speechwriter for Chinese President Xi Jinping introduced Pauken to a woman identified in court documents only as “Cathy.”⁷ Cathy was an MSS officer, and she became his primary handler.⁸ Around 2022 or 2023 she administered a polygraph to confirm he was not working for the CIA.

What He Did for Chinese Intelligence

Prosecutors described Pauken as a “cut-out”: a non-professional collector operating under the cover of a legitimate media career. Between 2019 and early 2026 he made multiple trips from China to the United States on Cathy’s dime. On those trips he met potential intelligence assets, gave them laptops and cellphones configured for secure contact with Cathy, passed along the questions his handlers wanted answered, and carried the resulting reports back to the MSS.¹ Cathy told him his reports were being read by Xi Jinping himself.⁹

Cathy paid him at least $100,000 over the course of their relationship, often wiring the money to his wife’s bank accounts in China.²

On the side, Pauken also sold intelligence reports to a separate group of individuals based in Wuhan who were interested in U.S. technology and the Department of Justice. That group asked him to find an American expert who could help them conduct cyber espionage against U.S. interests.¹

The Trump Administration Job Seeker

The single most serious episode in the case involved a political consultant identified only as “Person 1,” whom Pauken met in June 2023. The consultant was pursuing a job in the Trump administration and eventually took a position at a U.S. government agency, though not the one he had originally sought.⁹

Pauken gave this person a Samsung phone and a laptop. At a February 2026 meeting in a Washington hotel, he handed over a SIM card and offered a $10,000 bonus in exchange for “one report per week” that, he said, would “influence policy and be read by Xi Jinping.”¹⁰ Pauken told the FBI he was “80 percent sure” the individual would provide classified information to Beijing, and the affidavit noted he saw himself as a “middleman” between Chinese agents and people with access to classified material.⁹ When later interviewed by agents, the unnamed individual said they had no intention of working with Pauken.

The FBI Stop and the Failed Double-Agent Attempt

The government first confronted Pauken in January 2025, when Customs and Border Protection stopped him on arrival in the United States. He was carrying $3,000 in cash and passwords for encrypted messaging apps.⁴ In FBI interviews that followed, he admitted he was in the country to recruit the Trump administration hopeful to pass information to Chinese intelligence.

Rather than arresting him, the FBI told him to keep operating as if the interview had not happened, and to conceal the contact with U.S. agents from the MSS. The plan was to run him as a double agent against Chinese intelligence.⁹ Pauken broke the arrangement by disclosing his meeting with U.S. officials to Chinese operatives.¹¹

He returned to the United States in February 2026. The FBI monitored the Washington hotel meeting at which he delivered the SIM card and made the $10,000 offer. Agents arrested him on March 12, 2026.¹¹

The Charge and the Plea

Pauken was charged with one count of violating 18 U.S.C. § 951, the federal statute that criminalizes acting inside the United States as an agent of a foreign government without first notifying the Attorney General. It is a separate and more serious offense than a Foreign Agents Registration Act violation, with a maximum sentence of 10 years.⁹ He is not charged with espionage or with mishandling classified information.

A federal magistrate in Alexandria denied him pretrial release, and the case was assigned to U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema. After prosecutors reported “productive discussions” with the defense, Judge Brinkema set a pre-indictment plea hearing for May 29, 2026, and Pauken entered his guilty plea on June 4. During that hearing, Pauken referred to a document as a “cooperation agreement.” Judge Brinkema ordered the phrase struck from the record, and no further public reference to any such agreement has appeared.¹²

Under the plea agreement, Pauken cannot contact any foreign intelligence agent or official without FBI permission. Sentencing is set for September 1, 2026.²

How Each Side Frames It

Defense attorney Charles Burnham has kept the description of the offense narrow. In a statement after the plea, he said Pauken “has accepted responsibility for working as an agent of the People’s Republic of China without first completing certain required U.S. Government forms.” At the hearing, Burnham emphasized that his client was not admitting to providing classified information to Chinese officials, and he described Pauken’s motivation as an effort to “promote peaceful relations and advance the cause of religious freedom in China.”¹²

Prosecutors describe something different: a paid intermediary who spent seven years running assets for the MSS, who told the FBI he believed his recruit would hand over classified material, and who burned an FBI double-agent operation by tipping off his Chinese handlers. The investigation was run by the FBI’s Counterintelligence and Espionage Division through the Bureau’s Philadelphia and Washington field offices.¹

1
U.S. Department of Justice. American Citizen Pleads Guilty to Working as Agent of People’s Republic of China
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U.S. Department of Justice. American Citizen Pleads Guilty to Working as Agent of PRC
3
Wall Street Journal. American Pleads Guilty to Working in U.S. as Chinese Agent
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Notus. Thomas Pauken II Guilty Plea
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Crisis Magazine. Tom McGregor Author Page
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The Hill. Journalist Charged as China Agent
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The Bureau. A Reagan Republican’s Son and Xi Jinping’s Speechwriter
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BBC News. American Pleads Guilty to Working as Chinese Agent
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Politico. American Journalist Charged as Unregistered Agent of China
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Local 10 News. U.S. Journalist Pleads Guilty to Acting as Illegal Agent for China
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Washington Times. FBI Says American Who Worked for Chinese State Media Was Illegal Foreign Agent
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Politico. American Journalist Pleads Guilty as Unregistered Agent of China