How Sue Mi Terry Became the Poster Child for Think-Tank Corruption

But as federal prosecutors alleged, there was another role that Terry played for nearly as long. “For more than a decade, Terry worked as an agent” for the South Korean government, the Department of Justice alleged. This, in and of itself, isn’t illegal. Any American can work as an agent of a foreign government, so long as they register their work with the attorney general. But Terry never did so—and so ran afoul of the Foreign Agents Registration Act, or FARA.

The allegations may not be as spectacular as those elsewhere—no one has accused Terry of hiding gold bars, à la Menendez—but they are just as insidious. In addition to accepting thousands of dollars in luxury goods from her South Korean handler (who among us hasn’t been offered Louis Vuitton handbags and Dolce & Gabbana coats from foreign intelligence officers?), Terry allegedly took funds from the South Korean government to publish on the Korean peninsula—a payment scheme that Terry hid from editors and readers alike. She also attended a private meeting with Secretary of State Antony Blinken to discuss Korea policy—and then, “immediately” after the meeting ended, hopped into a car with her South Korean handler, letting them photograph her notes from the off-the-record meeting.

Perhaps most egregiously, Terry—who worked for both the Center for Strategic and International Studies, or CSIS, and the Wilson Center think tanks—arranged at least one think tank event covertly hosted by her South Korean handlers, and never bothered to tell her colleagues that they were secretly being feted by Seoul. Moreover, as the indictment details, Terry secretly routed thousands of dollars from South Korea to her think tank, even directly discussing with her handler how South Korea “could covertly send [the] money,” making sure to avoid payments that would “look suspicious.”