Chicom scientist in US accused of obstructing investigation
The Justice Department broadened its charges against a Chinese military scientist who concealed her ties to the People’s Liberation Army as a researcher at Stanford University, accusing her of attempting to obstruct the investigation into her student visa fraud.
Federal prosecutors announced a superseding indictment against Chen Song, 39, this week, charging her with “visa fraud, obstruction of justice, destruction of documents, and false statements in connection with a scheme to conceal and lie about her status” as a member of China’s military while she was inside the United States.
Song had already been hit with charges in July 2020 and an indictment in January, but the details were laid out over how she lied about her Chinese military service ending in 2011 when she applied for a work-and-study-based exchange visitor program visa and allegedly study brain diseases at Stanford University. In reality, she was still secretly a part of the Chinese military, prosecutors said.
“Song was a member of the People’s Liberation Army, the Chinese military, when she entered and while she was in the United States, and that the hospital she listed on her visa as her employer was a cover for her true employer, the PLA Air Force General Hospital in Beijing,” the DOJ said, adding in the indictment that during her time in the U.S., Song was also receiving funds from the Chinese government through its China Scholarship Council, including $1,000 per month her first year, and that Song “sent updates to CSC detailing the nature, results, and value of her research work at Stanford.”
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It appears that Trump was on to something about China spying on US higher ed. I suspect there are more of these cases percolating through the justice system. Hopefully, the Biden administration will continue to prosecute them.
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