Federal prosecutors have indicted Sue Mi Terry, a Korean-American former CIA official and prominent North Korea expert, on charges of acting as an agent for the South Korean government.
According to reports from The New York Times and Reuters, Terry allegedly received luxury items and high-end dinners in exchange for her work with the South Korean government. The indictment claims that Terry began her involvement with South Korea in June 2013, three years after leaving the CIA in 2010. An intelligence officer, posing as an attaché at the South Korean Permanent Mission to the United Nations, initially contacted her in New York.
Over the next decade, Terry allegedly received Bottega Veneta and Louis Vuitton handbags, Christian Dior coats, meals at Michelin-starred restaurants, and $37,000 in payments for her affiliation with a think tank. She purportedly wrote articles favoring South Korean policies, including a 2014 opinion piece for The New York Times. She testified before the U.S. Congress three times while falsely declaring she was not a foreign intelligence agent.
Terry’s legal counsel has strongly denied the charges, describing them as “baseless and distorting the work of an independent scholar and news analyst.”
“Sue Mi Terry has not held a security clearance for more than a decade, and her views on Korean Peninsula issues have been consistent over the years,” her counsel said in a statement. “During the period when the prosecution alleges that she worked for the South Korean government, Sue Mi Terry was strongly critical of the South Korean government. When the facts become clear, it will be evident that the government made a grave mistake,” they added.
Terry began her career with the U.S. government in 2001 as an East Asia analyst for the CIA. During the Obama administration, she served as the director of Japan, Korea, and Oceans at the National Security Council. She was the CIA’s deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asian affairs until her departure in 2010.
In an interview with the FBI last June, Terry acknowledged that her 2008 resignation from the CIA was linked to issues concerning her contacts with South Korean National Intelligence Service personnel.
Born in Seoul and raised in Hawaii and Virginia, Terry is a U.S. citizen with a doctorate in international relations from a Boston-based university.
