Thomas Weir Pauken II Pleaded Guilty to Acting as an Agent for China
Thomas Weir Pauken II pleaded guilty to acting as an illegal agent for the Chinese government, having worked at the direction and control of individuals he knew were affiliated with the Chinese government from at least 2019 until February 2026. The U.S. Justice Department announced the guilty plea. According to Gdelt, Pauken lived in China since 2010 and worked for several state mediaorganizations
Thomas Weir Pauken II pleaded guilty to acting as an illegal agent for the Chinese government, having worked at the direction and control of individuals he knew were affiliated with the Chinese government from at least 2019 until February 2026. The U.S. Justice Department announced the guilty plea. According to Gdelt, Pauken lived in China since 2010 and worked for several state media organizations there, and writes under the name Tom McGregor. According to SCMP, Pauken received US$100,000 in exchange for collecting intelligence on American targets and politicians. According to Gdelt, he faces up to 10 years in jail.
This account was written only from facts that survived Augur's
corroboration pass — 2 corroborated across opposed news blocs,
0 contested (attributed to both sides), 5
single-source (attributed). Nothing was added; no significance was inferred.
Model Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct.
See the evidence & the verbatim quotes →