A former senior adviser to the U.S. Federal Reserve Board of Governors, John Harold Rogers, has been sentenced to 38 months in federal prison for lying to investigators about sharing restricted Federal Reserve information with Chinese intelligence operatives. The U.S. Department of Justice announced the sentencing in a statement issued……
A former senior adviser to the U.S. Federal Reserve Board of Governors, John Harold Rogers, has been sentenced to 38 months in federal prison for lying to investigators about sharing restricted Federal Reserve information with Chinese intelligence operatives.
The U.S. Department of Justice announced the sentencing in a statement issued on Wednesday by its Office of Public Affairs, saying U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich also ordered Rogers, 64, to serve 12 months of supervised release after completing his prison term.
Federal prosecutors had sought a 60-month sentence.
According to the Justice Department, a federal jury found Rogers guilty on February 3 after concluding that he made false statements during an investigation conducted by the Office of Inspector General for the Federal Reserve Board of Governors and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
Investigators said Rogers, who served for decades as a senior adviser at the Federal Reserve and worked in the Division of International Finance between 2010 and 2021, had access to highly restricted information relating to U.S. monetary policy and the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC).
The department alleged that Rogers began a covert relationship in 2017 with Hummin Lee, identified as a Chinese intelligence operative, after meeting him at a conference in China.
According to court documents, Rogers met Lee and his associates in hotel rooms under the guise of teaching academic classes while secretly passing confidential Federal Reserve information that Lee had requested.
The Justice Department said Rogers printed restricted documents before travelling to China, removed classification markings from sensitive materials before emailing them to his personal account, and forwarded confidential information to a professor at Fudan University, a Chinese state-run institution, shortly before meeting Lee.
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Investigators further alleged that Rogers understood the information would be used in reports prepared for the Chinese government and was aware that advance knowledge of Federal Reserve interest rate decisions could enable China to profit from trading its vast holdings of U.S. Treasury securities.
In return, prosecutors said Rogers received financial benefits, academic appointments and personal assistance from Lee and Chinese universities.
According to the statement, Rogers even admitted during the investigation that he “owed everything” to Hummin Lee.
On February 4, 2020, Rogers was interviewed by investigators from the Federal Reserve’s Office of Inspector General and denied disclosing restricted information.
“When asked directly whether he had ever shared restricted Federal Reserve information outside the Board, he answered: ‘Never.’”
Commenting on the judgment, Assistant Attorney General for National Security John A. Eisenberg said Rogers had abused the trust placed in him by the United States.
“The United States entrusted Rogers with its most sensitive economic data. He violated that sacred trust and lied repeatedly to conceal his collaboration with individuals in China with ties to the Chinese Communist Party, exposing his own country, the United States, to counterintelligence risks,” Eisenberg said.
U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, Jeanine Pirro, described Rogers’ conduct as a betrayal of both his office and his country.
“John Rogers spent years secretly funneling sensitive Federal Reserve information to Chinese spies, then looked investigators in the eye and lied about it. And when that wasn’t enough, he lied again under oath at trial,” Pirro said.
She added: “Federal Reserve employees entrusted with America’s most sensitive economic information cannot sell out their country and their colleagues for personal gain and then expect to hide behind a single word.”
Roman Rozhavsky of the FBI’s Counterintelligence and Espionage Division said the case reflected China’s growing efforts to obtain strategic economic intelligence.
“When Rogers made the decision to share sensitive economic information from the Federal Reserve and give it to China’s intelligence service for personal gain, he betrayed both his country and his oath as a federal employee,” he said.
Rozhavsky added that the sentencing demonstrated the FBI’s commitment to protecting the United States’ economic and national security.
The investigation was carried out by the FBI Washington Field Office and the Federal Reserve Board Office of Inspector General, while prosecutors from the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the Justice Department’s National Security Division handled the case.
