U.S. Charges Two Homeland Security Employees with Espionage for the CCP

It was reported on July 7th that U.S. prosecutors charged two men tied to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) with carrying out a “transnational repression scheme” on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party to spy on and harass dissidents living in the United States.

The U.S. Department of Justice said on Thursday that the two men charged were Craig Miller, a deportation officer in Minnesota who has worked for the DHS for 15 years, and Derrick Taylor, a retired DHS law enforcement officer who currently works as a private investigator in California. Miller and Taylor were arrested in June.

A grand jury returned an indictment on Wednesday charging the two men and three others with crimes committed while acting as alleged CCP agents, the Justice Department said in a statement.

 The charges include obstruction of justice for allegedly destroying evidence after FBI agents questioned them about the use of a law enforcement database with information on U.S.-based Chinese dissidents.

Matthew Olson, Assistant Attorney General for National Security, stated that they will defend the rights of U.S. residents to engage in free speech and political expression, and that the accused individuals assisted agents of a foreign government in their attempts to suppress the voices of asylum seekers here.

Of the three others, tw were arrested as part of an earlier related complaint in March. The third individual, Qiang Sun, remains at large, said the prosecutor for the Eastern District of New York.