Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-NY) reacted Tuesday night to her former aide Linda Sun's indictment, which alleged that she worked for the Chinese government as an undisclosed foreign agent, in an interview with NPR.
Sun worked under Hochul as her deputy chief of staff.
"I'm furious, and I'm outraged and absolutely shocked at how brazen her behavior was," Hochul said. "It was a betrayal of trust — the trust of government, the trust of the people. And I'll tell you this: The second we discovered some levels of misconduct, we fired her, we alerted the authorities. and, hence, we ended up with what happened here today.
"We've been working with the Department of Justice in this investigation, and we'll continue to make sure that all the information that's out there is revealed and that justice is served," she added. "This is absolutely shocking."
Hochul declined to say what conduct Sun was fired for, saying, "It'll be coming out in the court hearings."
The New York governor also focused on Sun's role in former Gov. Andrew Cuomo's administration rather than her own.
"She primarily worked for Andrew Cuomo for many more years," Hochul noted. "She was with me just a short time, about 15 months. But what I read in the pleadings, the indictment today was very much focused on a lot of things she did under the previous administration and some directions she tried to provide us when I was lieutenant governor."
Hochul is correct in that Sun's primary boss was Cuomo for longer, but she also answered to Hochul and directed her team on certain occasions with her messaging and who she should meet with. In one instance cited in the indictment, a Chinese official asked Sun for a video from Hochul to commemorate the Lunar New Year. In January 2021, a video of Hochul was sent back to the official. The video reportedly didn't include a reference to the Uyghur crisis in China because Sun got upset at Hochul's speechwriter who suggested so.
When asked about Hochul's comment about Cuomo, a spokesperson for the former governor told the Washington Examiner they rolled their eyes, reiterated their statement from Tuesday, and pointed to this section of the indictment: "Sun responded that it was unnecessary to thank her, adding that [Hochul] listened to her advice more than [Cuomo]."
Hochul is taking other steps to remedy the damage Sun is alleged to have done. CNN reported she called a State Department official to convey "my desire to have the consul general from the People’s Republic of China at the New York Mission expelled, and I’ve been informed that the consul general is no longer in the New York Mission.”
“I believe that the Chinese government, with their behavior, in doing this and working with Linda Sun, is not acceptable — it is a statement by us that we’re not tolerating this," Hochul told CNN. "Anybody representing that government needs to move on. That was what we made clear.”
Other reporting indicated the consul general, Huang Ping, simply reached the end of his rotation and was not removed or expelled.
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The Washington Examiner reached out to Hochul's office for confirmation but did not receive a response.
“This individual was hired by the Executive Chamber more than a decade ago," a spokesperson for Hochul's office told the Washington Examiner earlier Tuesday. We terminated her employment in March 2023 after discovering evidence of misconduct, immediately reported her actions to law enforcement and have assisted law enforcement throughout this process.”
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