Chinese Ministry of State Security Interactions Lead to Clearance Eligibility Denial

In a recent Defense Office of Hearing and Appeals case the applicant, a former intelligence agency government employee, was denied security clearance eligibility due to foreign influence (China) and personal conduct concerns. Here are the highlights of the hearing.

The applicant was born in China and became a naturalized U.S. citizen. Her father passed away in 2015 and left her some real estate as an inheritance. This was sold, but due to restrictions by the Chinese government, she was unable to transfer the 350K she got from the sale of her father’s house. She met some friends in China online and they agreed to help her with getting the money to her U.S. bank accounts. She traveled to China to meet them and set up the transactions. While there, she was approached by officials from the Chinese Ministry of State Security and asked about her employment. She told them she worked for the State Department, not an intelligence agency.

Upon return to the U.S. she reported the incident with the Chinese officials and was subsequently interviewed multiple times by security officials, NCIS, and the FBI about various discrepancies in her interviews, her failure to report her foreign contacts, how she received the money from the sale of the house into the U.S., and admitted to lying about it to security officials. The judge in this appeals case noted the fact that she was a long-time intelligence agency employee, which made her conduct much more egregious – clearance eligibility denied.