John Liu defends Linda Sun in wake of federal indictment

The New York political world got shaken up Tuesday after a long holiday weekend with the indictment of Linda Sun, who worked as an aide to both Gov. Kathy Hochul and former Gov. Andrew Cuomo. Sun and her husband were accused by federal prosecutors of secretly acting as an agent of the Chinese government. They have pleaded not guilty. According to the indictment, Sun allowed Chinese government officials to listen in on state government conference calls, altered the governors’ press releases and speeches to remove references to Taiwan and the Chinese government’s oppression of the Uyghurs and worked to block Taiwanese government officials from having access to top New York officials. But at least one Taiwanese American lawmaker defended Sun after the indictment. 

“The federal government has a sordid track record of making accusations against accomplished Chinese-Americans, only to drop all charges, with no regard to lives and careers destroyed needlessly,” state Sen. John Liu said in a statement to City & State. “I’ve worked with Linda Sun for many years and have only known her to be diligent, professional and conscientious, and she is absolutely innocent until proven guilty.”

Liu has had his own run-in with scandal in the past that tanked his run for mayor in 2013. At the time, two former campaign associates – who were also Asian American – were found guilty of illegally funneling donations to Liu’s campaign as part of a straw donor scheme, and Liu’s campaign was later fined by the New York City Campaign Finance Board in connection to the scheme. The convictions of Liu’s staffers were the result of a much broader federal investigation into Liu and his campaign, which included wiretapping Liu’s phones. In the end, Liu himself was never accused of any wrongdoing.

Other lawmakers of Taiwanese or Chinese descent did not respond to requests for comment. One Asian American politico said privately that the indictment has complicated implications for the broader community, both because of Sun’s ties with the community and the racist attacks against other Asian Americans it may cause. “The allegations are very serious, (but) you cannot conflate… the alleged actions of two individuals with over a million Chinese-American New Yorkers, you just cannot,” the politico said. “And that’s the danger here.” Former Assembly Member Yuh-Line Niou raised similar concerns, saying that allegations can sometimes be true, other times not, but can contribute to “perpetual foreigner syndrome” and other racist stereotypes. Hate crimes against Asian Americans have skyrocketed in recent years, particularly in the wake of the COVID pandemic.

Republican lawmakers quickly seized on the news of the indictment to demand investigations into the Chinese Communist Party’s alleged “infiltration” of the Hochul administration. “That the Chinese Communist Party infiltrated the highest levels of state government is surreal, completely unacceptable and deeply unsettling,” state Sen. Jake Ashby said in a statement. He wants a commission to probe “how this happened, how we can prevent future catastrophic security failures and assist federal authorities in unmasking any other unregistered operatives of foreign governments.” Assembly Member Matt Slater went even further, demanding that Hochul allow state Attorney General Letitia James to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the issue.

Sun worked as the chief of staff to Rep. Grace Meng before being hired by the Cuomo administration in 2012 to serve as director of Asian American affairs. She served in various state government roles for the next decade, and Hochul named her deputy chief of staff in 2021. Neither Cuomo (identified as “Politician-1” in the indictment) nor Hochul (“Politician-2”) have been accused of any knowledge of Sun’s alleged wrongdoing, and the Hochul administration said that it terminated Sun’s employment after discovering her misconduct and then reported her to law enforcement.

Spokespeople for Hochul and Cuomo traded blame for Sun’s access to power. A statement from Hochul’s office pointedly noted that Sun was originally “hired by the Executive Chamber more than a decade ago” (i.e. during Cuomo’s tenure), while Cuomo spokesperson Rich Azzopardi said in a statement that “while Ms. Sun was promoted to Deputy Chief of Staff in the subsequent administration, during our time she worked in a handful of agencies and was one of many community liaisons who had little to no interaction with the governor.