Federal prosecutors accused a former CIA officer of selling sensitive defense secrets to the Chinese government over a decade in an espionage case revealed in Hawaii on Monday.
Senior officials called Ma a traitor. „The trail of Chinese espionage is long and, sadly, strewn with former American intelligence officers who betrayed their colleagues, their country and its liberal democratic values to support an authoritarian communist regime,“ John Demers, the assistant attorney general for national security, said in a statement. Ma joins a list of former intelligence officials accused by the US in recent years of spying on behalf of the Chinese. Tension between the two countries is peaking as the Trump administration has increasingly shamed Beijing for its alleged attempts to steal national security and trade secrets. Ma, who was arrested on Friday, is charged with conspiracy to communicate national defense information to aid a foreign government.
