Ignoring the headlines about the case, let’s look at what it is that ex-C.I.A. analyst Sue Mi Terry is actually accused of doing.
By John Kiriakou
Special to Consortium News
The major media outlets earlier this month ran breathless headlines about a former C.I.A. officer “caught spying for South Korea.”
The BBC, for example, wrote “Ex-CIA Analyst Charged with Spying for South Korea.” The Los Angeles Times wrote, “Sloppy Spycraft? Indictment of a Former CIA Analyst Embarrasses South Korea.” Even the venerable Time Magazine disingenuously wrote, “Former CIA Office Charged with Being Secret Agent.”
The problem is that literally none of those headlines were true.
Sue Mi Terry, a former Korea analyst for the C.I.A., a former deputy national intelligence officer for the Koreas, and a former national security council director for Korean Affairs, was most certainly not charged with spying for South Korea. She was not guilty, or even accused, of “sloppy spycraft. And she was not charged with being a secret agent.
Every one of those headlines was factually false.
Sue Mi Terry speaking at New America’s Future of War Conference in 2018. (Eric Gibson/ New America, Flickr, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0)
Take a look at the actual Department of Justice charging document. Terry was charged with “acting as an unregistered agent of the South Korean government.” The charge has literally nothing to do with spying. It’s not even in the same part of the U.S. code as espionage.
So what does this actually mean? Quite literally, it means that Terry neglected to fill out a form. More specifically, because she was also charged with conspiracy, she allegedly decided in advance to not fill out the form.
Filling Out a FARA Form
Here in the United States, we have something called FARA, the Foreign Agents Registration Act. Whenever a person does something on behalf of a foreign government, he or she has to go here and fill out a form saying, “I’m taking abc action on behalf of xyz government.” It’s as easy as that.
For example, in 2008 I won a small $4,000 contract with the Abu Dhabi Chamber of Commerce to write four op-eds to be placed in business journals around the country saying that Abu Dhabi was a great place to do business. I went to the FARA website, put in my name and contact info, noted that I was being paid $4,000 by the Abu Dhabi Chamber of Commerce, and attached links to the op-eds. No problem.
So let’s look at what it is that Sue Mi Terry is actually accused of doing. The Justice Department alleges in its indictment that she:
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Advocated for South Korean policy positions, including in published articles and media interviews;
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Disclosed “non public” information to Korean intelligence officers and facilitated access between Korean and American officials. (She apparently attended a meeting between Secretary of State Antony Blinken and think tank Korean experts and then told the South Koreans what was said. No classified information was involved);
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Accepted a coat, two purses, “high-priced seafood dinners,” and $37,000 in funding for a think tank that she founded in Washington;
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Testified on Capitol Hill without saying that she was advocating positions supported by the South Korean government.
The thing is, none of this is illegal, other than the act of not filling out the form. And notice two other things: Terry was never accused of espionage. She was never accused of providing classified or “national defense” information to the South Koreans.
And she wasn’t charged with income tax evasion, indicating that the transfer of $37,000 to her think tank was done in the open and that she paid taxes on it. To call her a spy for the South Koreans is not only factually wrong, it’s defamatory.
Targeting Nazi Propaganda
President Franklin D. Roosevelt at his home in Hyde Park, New York, 1933-1945. (U.S. National Archives, Public domain)
The Foreign Agents Registration Act has been on the books for a long time. Passed in 1938 and signed into law by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, FARA was meant specifically to target propaganda paid for by the Nazi government in Germany, and, indeed, between 1938 and 1945, FARA violations were prosecuted 23 times.
Between 1945 and 1955, the number of prosecutions fell to two. And then between 1956 and 1962, the number was nine, according to a report published by the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.
Those numbers remained stagnant until 2016, when Obama Attorney General Eric Holder, already at war with national security whistleblowers, decided to use FARA as a political weapon and to go after people who had previously been ignored.
Not only did the Justice Department initiate dozens of cases a year, Foreign Affairs Magazine wrote that, “FARA is no longer a forgotten and oft ignored piece of New Deal-era reforms. Eight decades after being enacted, FARA is finally worth the paper it was written on.”
I actually think that FARA is a good idea, at least on paper, and provided that it is universally enforced. The problem is that it has never been universally enforced. And punishments for violating it are all over the map.
First, it took me literally 10 minutes to fill out the form online when I was writing for the Abu Dhabi Chamber of Commerce. Sue Mi Terry should have taken the same 10 minutes.
Second, the federal sentencing guidelines for violating FARA call for a jail sentence of zero-to-six months and/or a small fine. Why, then, was Maria Butina, a Russian grad student at American University, held in solitary confinement at the Washington, D.C., jail for 18 months for violating FARA? Coming at the height of the Russiagate mania in 2018 it was clearly political.
And perhaps more importantly, why does the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, AIPAC, not have to register when it is clearly, obviously, promoting Israeli interests?
Maria Butina presents her Prison Diary at the Moscow International Book Fair, March 2021. (Rodrigo Fernández, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0)
The answer, of course, is politics. And nobody on Capitol Hill has either interest or the wherewithal to do anything about it. My advice is simple. Fill out the form. It’s fast, easy, and you won’t regret it. And don’t be afraid to point out the hypocrisy that the Justice Department has foisted upon us.
And at the same time, the media have to get their act together and learn the difference between a spy, an “agent,” and a person who is either too lazy or lacking in knowledge to fill out a form.
I hate to be a complainer. But a felony conviction and 18 months in solitary confinement for not filling out a form is draconian. It’s wrong. But it’s also very American.
John Kiriakou is a former C.I.A. counterterrorism officer and a former senior investigator with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. John became the sixth whistleblower indicted by the Obama administration under the Espionage Act — a law designed to punish spies. He served 23 months in prison as a result of his attempts to oppose the Bush administration’s torture program.
The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.
The case against Butina was extremely concocted. She was in jail for espionage, hence indefinite detention and a period of solitary confinement, with lurid stories distributed by mass media, but there was not a single hint that she collected information on anything, except as political science student using open sources. But she attended gun fares and other public functions, and few times, took a selfie with a politician. Was it a foreign agent activity? She got no funding, but she exchanged e-mails with a Russian politician.
Interestingly, while Sumi (or Su-mi or Su Mi, Korean given names are written with such variants) Terry was spreading article promoting agenda of South Korean government, Butina had an “agenda” that was contrary to the policy of Russian government, to wit, her agenda was relaxing gun control. The “sinister message” was that Russians, at least some Russians, think in the same way as Americans, at least, some Americans.
On the other hand, did Sumi Terry spread Korean propaganda? From the timeline and her job record, it was propaganda representing consensus of American and South Korean intelligence agencies, but CIA is constrained in lobbying American government, plus the deep state creates “widely shared opinions”, hence a wide variety of sock puppets.
The USA and its media propagandists continually denounce countries like Georgia, Venezuela, and other targets in whose politics they wish to meddle, of being “anti-democracy” when they enact or advocate laws that require foreign agents to register in their countries. Same old double standard unexamined in our mass media.
I read nothing but the headlines initially and wondered what the big deal was since South Korea is one of our vassal states. Now I know there is no big deal.
It’s the thought that counts; never mind side issues like accuracy or fairness.
Going after small targets still counts as a win and serves as “proof” the D o J is doing its job. AIPAC is much too large and well connected. It’s just not worth risking an entire career that some poor official would dare such a move. We know what happens to whistleblowers, don’t we?
As for Eric Holder, no surprise he weaponized FARA. This defender of truth, justice, and the American way was an attorney for the Sacklers and their corporation Purdue Pharma. The ones of OxyContin fame–liars and profiteers who raked in a fortune by manipulating people’s pain. The LA Times investigative reporting on Purdue Pharma is detailed and damning. Yet Holder helped to get them off with what amounts to a slap on the wrist. Of course that doesn’t prove Holder as AG was always wrong, but sure says something about his character. And about the admin he worked for.
I’m experiencing some Schadenfreude from learning that neocon-thug Max Boot’s wife was arrested. But why would the DoJ take down one of their own?
When ex-Secretary of State John Kerry advised the Iranians not to negotiate with the Trump administration, “his shadow diplomacy”, he was not arrested: rubio.senate.gov/rubio-urges-doj-to-investigate-whether-former-secretary-of-state-kerry-violated-the-logan-act-or-fara/
When Bill Clinton received $500,000 and personal thanks from Putin to give a speech at Putin’s bank in Moscow in 2010 while Hillary was Secretary of State (quid pro quo for Uranium One deal?) did Clinton register with FARA?
Some Americans are above the Law. Many Americans face political persecution/ prosecution for far less consequential actions.
“And perhaps more importantly, why does the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, AIPAC, not have to register when it is clearly, obviously, promoting Israeli interests?”
An excellent question.
I believe FARA is a similar law to what the Georgia Dream Party has approved for their country which the president opposed because it placed their EU membership in jeopardy. If the US and many other EU countries had laws similar to FARA, I still don’t see what the problem is with Georgia having one.
And yes, the US has a law on their books which is thoroughly ignored when it comes to Israel. However, the exemption is not written into the law. Instead, it is an unspoken exemption or exclusion. Talk about hypocrisy and double-standards.
It also seems to me that her husband, Max Boot, should have been charged as well if he enjoyed any of the S. Korean benefits. He had to have knowledge of her schemes which should have at least made him an accomplice. Also, I find it interesting that John never mentioned Max in his article about his wife. It should have been noted seeing Max’s relationship to the Council of Foreign Relations.
Thank you Mr Kiriakou for presenting a non alarmist review of this situation. When I heard this reported , just as you describe, my immediate reaction was they are not telling us in any detail at all what this person actually did. Based on that and numerous instances of similarly uninformative ‘journalism’, my presumption was that the people reporting did not bother to find out, did not ask questions, did not pursue clarification and were almost surely repeating the prosecutors worst version of her possible misdeed.
In some cases like this the person had done nothing amiss and had even been filling out all their forms in a timely and accurate manner. When the proposed spy turns out not to be a spy and the evidence turns out to be a hunch, the shame never falls on the reporter for not finding out what a weak case was being presented.
Tell it, John. The US is the single most hypocritical organization on the planet.
When you award the title of Number One, you must consider the competition. For example, I did not see claims made in USA that “we have the most moral army in the world”, or claims that Israel has such an army, so one can quibble who the Number One is.
Of course, as a superpower, USA can exhibit an unmatched breadth of hypocrisy, while Israel is a small “single issue” country. But in terms of depth, I would give prize to Israel.
I grew up in the communist Yugoslavia in the late 70s and 80. Using FARA for political assassinations reminds me of something the old commie regime had going on back in the day.
Inflation in Yugoslavia in the 80s was in triple digits, therefore keeping any sort of savings in local currency (dinars) was a financial suicide. As soon as anyone got any cash in their hands, they would immediately change it into Deutsch Marks or US dollars. Of course, owning foreign currency was illegal, but EVERYONE did it, and everyone knew everyone did it.
Problem was that it gave a perfect weapon to the people in power to get you arrested, from political prosecutions to the Communist Party card carrying neighbour who did not like your dog barking.
Looks like USA descent into a sort of communist authoritarian regime is getting all the bells and whistles on the way to the bottom.
This is a fascinating anecdote!
Indeed, everyone is a criminal with pending punishments of one kind or another at risk of arbitrary detention at the state’s discretion (in the United States and many other countries, historically and contemporarily) whether they acknowledge it or not, as David Montgomery is at pains to point out in his fantastic essay “You’re a Criminal in a Mass Surveillance World – How to Not Get Caught,” published on June 5, 2015 and available at Walden Labs (waldenlabs.com/youre-a-criminal).
It is perhaps worth pointing out that it should be perfectly legitimate to critique Sue Mi Terry and her husband Max Boot for acting as unregistered agents of a foreign government who hypocritically scream at the top of their lungs that everyone who takes a foreign policy position that they do like is an asset of the Kremlin or some other (perceived) foreign adversary, while still opposing their prosecution under the oft-abused FARA law (for the same reasons that, e.g., you could also oppose the attempted prosecutions of Judith Miller and James Risen under the Espionage Act for refusing to reveal their journalistic sources, while still noting the ways that they have promoted jingoistic narratives in such cases as the casus belli for the 2003 invasion of Iraq, alleged Russian interference during and following the 2016 election, and the wrongful prosecution of Wen Ho Lee under the same Espionage Act later used against them).
To be clear, Max Boot has not been charged with anything. Get your facts straight please.
Boot was not officially charged with anything (at least thus far), but some of the WaPo op-eds that Su Mi Terry was indicted for writing at the purported behest of South Korean government officials were co-authored with her husband (e.g., “South Korea Takes a Brave Step Toward Reconciliation with Japan,”The Washington Post, March 7, 2023, and “This Nascent Trilateral Relationship is the Best Possible Answer to China,” The Washington Post, May 27, 2024), so it is not inconceivable that the same charges could hypothetically be extended to him by federal prosecutors, depending on the underlying circumstances. On that basis, I preemptively condemn any potential efforts to indict Max Boot for FARA violations as well, while still decrying his earnest efforts to further militarize East Asia and bait the Thucydides Trap with China in said op-eds and elsewhere.
Yep. It was clear something is wrong with the media reporting on this case. I don´t know if it was Taibbi (if I am mistaken, sry!) or someone other but they better read this.