A former top dog at the Federal Reserve has been caught red-handed. John Harold Rogers, a 63-year-old Virginia resident and longtime Fed insider, was arrested on Friday after US prosecutors accused him of leaking sensitive economic data to Chinese intelligence operatives.
The charges are smuggling classified information through personal emails and hotel room meetings under the guise of teaching “classes” to fake Chinese grad students.
According to an indictment unsealed in a Washington, DC federal court, Rogers spent years exploiting his role as a senior adviser in the Fed’s international finance division to access top-secret details on US trade policies, tariffs, and Fed policy announcements.
He then quietly passed that information on to his Chinese handlers, who posed as university students but were allegedly tied to China’s intelligence apparatus.
Sensitive data, secret meetings, and a $450K paycheck
The DOJ alleges that Rogers’s betrayal wasn’t sloppy or accidental, it was carefully planned. From 2018 until his retirement in 2021, the DOJ said Rogers emailed confidential Fed documents to his personal account and printed them out before traveling to China.
Federal prosecutors say Rogers handled briefing books for Fed governors, classified reports on trade measures, and insider knowledge of Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) decisions—the very committee that sets the federal funds rate, which influences everything from mortgage rates to global bond markets. US Attorney Edward R. Martin Jr. said:
“President Trump tasks us with protecting our fellow Americans from all enemies, foreign and domestic. As alleged in the indictment, this defendant leveraged his position within the Federal Reserve to pass sensitive financial information to the Chinese government, a designated foreign adversary. Let this indictment serve as a warning to all who seek to betray or exploit the United States: law enforcement will find you and hold you accountable.”
The DOJ’s indictment claims Rogers handed over this data like it was nothing, violating strict Fed rules in the process. The motive? Money. Prosecutors say Rogers wasn’t just being nice to China’s government. He pocketed $450,000 as a part-time professor at a Chinese university.
But it wasn’t real academic work. The DOJ says the teaching gig was a front, allowing him to travel under the radar and deliver confidential data to Chinese intelligence officials disguised as students.
One of the most alarming parts of this case is that Rogers’s leaks actually included data directly related to US-China trade tensions. He allegedly shared insider details on US tariffs, which were being discussed as part of then-President Donald Trump’s aggressive trade war with China.
On the very day Rogers’s case became public, the White House confirmed that 25% tariffs on Canadian and Mexican goods were being finalized, with China’s coming Saturday morning.
China’s role in US debt and why Rogers’s leaks matter
This story is bigger than just about one guy selling secrets. China holds massive amounts of US debt — about $768.6 billion in US Treasury bonds as of November, second only to Japan. That makes them highly sensitive to any changes in US interest rates or economic policies.
The DOJ says Rogers’s leaks gave China an unfathomable financial advantage. The Fed’s quantitative easing policies, especially after the 2008 financial crisis and during the COVID-19 pandemic, directly affected US Treasuries.
By knowing what the Fed was planning, China could position its holdings to minimize losses or maximize gains. Prosecutors accuse Rogers of transferring this information either electronically—through his personal email—or physically, by printing documents and carrying them to China.
When questioned in 2020 by the Fed’s internal watchdog, the Office of the Inspector General, Rogers lied. The indictment says he denied accessing or sharing any sensitive data and downplayed his connections with Chinese officials.
But by that time, the damage had already been done. The information had flowed into China’s hands for years, helping them navigate critical US decisions without anyone noticing.
David Sundberg, Assistant Director in charge of the FBI’s Washington field office, said: “The Chinese Communist Party has expanded its economic espionage campaign to target U.S. government financial policies and trade secrets.”
“This indictment sends a clear message that those who deliberately misuse sensitive Federal Reserve information for their own personal gain and lie about it to investigators will be held accountable for their actions,” said John T. Perez, Special Agent in Charge of Headquarters Operations.
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