Foreign Affairs

American Pro-China ‘Journalist’ Charged With Covering Up CCP Ties

(Wikimedia Commons/Public/Ermell)

An American media professional and son of a Texas GOP politician was charged in February with acting as an unregistered Chinese government agent, newly surfaced court records show.

Thomas Pauken II helped put his Chinese handler in contact with an associate seeking a job in the Trump administration and prepared confidential documents for Chinese President Xi Jinping, according to a February Department of Justice (DOJ) affidavit first reported by Politico. Pauken moved to China around 2010 and called himself a “journalist” for Chinese state propaganda outlets before federal agents caught onto his alleged activities, the affidavit says.

Pauken Affidavit by Hudson Crozier

An attorney for Pauken did not provide comment in response to a Daily Caller News Foundation inquiry.

Authorities arrested Pauken in Herndon, Virginia, in February and charged him with failing to publicly disclose his pro-China activities under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, documents show. U.S. Magistrate Judge Ivan Davis ordered him detained pending trial in March.

Customs and Border Protection and the FBI interviewed Pauken on his foreign ties in January 2025 when he came from China to Washington Dulles International Airport.

Pauken’s January 2025 trip was partly for the purpose of meeting with an unnamed person looking to work for the new Trump administration after meeting the individual at a 2023 political event in Washington, he allegedly told agents. Pauken was “80 percent sure that [the wannabe federal official] would provide classified information to [China],” despite Pauken’s supposed warnings not to do so, the affidavit claims.

That unnamed contact “was not hired for the exact job he wanted in the administration but currently works for a U.S. government agency,” prosecutors alleged.

“All [of Pauken’s] Chinese associates were obsessed with attaining information on PAUKEN’s father who had worked for the Reagan administration,” the affidavit said Pauken told agents. “PAUKEN used the alias Tom McGregor at his father’s request because his father … did not want to appear associated with PAUKEN’s activities in [China].”

The senior Pauken also chaired the Texas Republican Party in the 1990s and ran unsuccessfully for Texas governor in 2014, Politico reported.