U.S. Department of Justice secures 38 month prison sentence for former Federal Reserve adviser who lied about sharing restricted information with Chinese intelligence operatives

The U.S. Department of Justice said former Federal Reserve Board senior adviser John Harold Rogers was sentenced to 38 months in prison for making false statements to federal investigators about sharing restricted, nonpublic Federal Reserve information with Chinese intelligence operatives. The court also ordered 12 months of supervised release. A federal jury found Rogers guilty on February 3 after deliberating for two days, while prosecutors had sought a 60 month prison term. According to court papers, Rogers worked for decades at the Federal Reserve Board of Governors and from 2010 to 2021 served as a senior adviser in the Division of International Finance, giving him access to restricted information on monetary policy and the Federal Open Market Committee. Prosecutors said that beginning in 2017 he developed a clandestine relationship with Chinese intelligence operative Hummin Lee, met Lee and associates in China under the guise of teaching academic classes, and passed along information Lee had tasked him to collect. The case alleged Rogers printed restricted documents for trips to China, removed classification markings before sending materials to his personal account, and forwarded sensitive information to a professor at Fudan University before meeting Lee. Investigators said Rogers understood the information could help China profit from trading its roughly USD 1.5 trillion in U.S. Treasury securities, received financial and professional benefits in return, and then falsely told Federal Reserve Office of Inspector General investigators in 2020 that he had never shared restricted Federal Reserve information outside the Board.