A new court filing from the FBI claims that China was caught trying to bring down a congressional candidate.
According to the court documents from the Eastern District of New York, Qiming Lin was a member of the Chinese secret police tasked with following a Democratic congressional candidate who was running in Long Island.
"The FBI and U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York are investigating a scheme to undermine the candidacy of a U.S.-based Chinese dissident for the U.S. Congress in the general election of 2022 in order to prevent that candidate from drawing additional public attention to himself and his political speech," the filing said.
Given the suit, the story is now gaining national attention.
While the FBI didn't name the candidate, it cited a former student leader of the Tiananmen Square protests. The only person that matches is Xiong Yan, who came to the US as a refugee and later became a sergeant in the Army Reserve.
A private investigator told the FBI that Lin contacted him and that the PI believed Lin was retired from the Ministry of State Security in China.
"Ok, because this person [the Victim] is a little complicated. So, we've decided that my partner and I are going to follow him for a few weeks to see what he has to see and whom he gets in touch with and where he frequents etc.." the private investigator told Lin in an FBI monitored voice call.
"Ok, good, good. And if you don't find anything after following him for a few weeks we can manufacture something like what happened to [a famous concert pianist]," said Lin.
"Right now we don’t want him to be elected," Lin later wrote in a message to the private investigator.
Lin also left a voicemail to the PI saying, "Maybe when we speak on the phone tomorrow night, we need to confirm on some sort of plan. You, uh, do this. You can start thinking now, aside from violence, what other plans are there? Huh? But in the end, violence would be fine too. Huh? Beat him [chuckles], beat him until he cannot run for election. Heh, that's the-the last resort. You-you think about it. Car accident, [he] will be completely wrecked [chuckles], right? Don't know, whatever ways from all different angles. Or, on the day of the election, he cannot make it there himself, right? The conclusion is, you think of a plan. We will make movements according to the plan. Okay? Right? We are just waiting for you now, uh, can we cooperate with each other's plans, to synchronize, okay.
On or About Jan. 3, 2022, the PI was on a call monitored by law enforcement that proposed the idea of hiring a woman "that he [the victim] likes" to volunteer to be part of his election staff in order to "have a relationship with him" and then "record the transaction between the two of them." When the PI said that the woman wanted $40,000 for her efforts, Lin replied, "No problem The money is no problem" Lin also indicated that "the key is we do this now. Will our proposal be approved now?"
Another target was Arthur Liu, the father of Olympic figure skater Alysa Liu, according to the FBI. He is a political activist and attorney in San Francisco.
The effort began in Sept. 2021 and continued until this week, when Lin was arrested.
