A federal magistrate judge moved to release a Chinese national accused of taking covert drone shots of a military base in central California on cashless bail. That same judge once held former Trump administration education secretary Betsy DeVos in contempt of court, fined her $100,000, and threatened to send her to jail.
Sallie Kim, a former Stanford administrator, issued the ruling on Tuesday, court filings show. She determined that Chinese national Yinpiao Zhou should walk free on his own personal recognizance as federal prosecutors pursue charges against him for flying a hacked drone over Vandenberg Space Force Base. Federal agents arrested Zhou as he attempted to board a China-bound flight in San Francisco.
The decision appears to have raised eyebrows at the Department of Justice, which is appealing Kim's order.
"Mr. Zhou made his initial appearance yesterday in U.S. District Court in San Francisco," a department spokesman told the Washington Free Beacon in a statement provided late Wednesday. "United States Magistrate Judge Sallie Kim ordered him released on personal recognizance. Our office is appealing that ruling. Zhou remains in federal custody."
The court declined to comment.
Kim has served as a magistrate judge for the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California since 2015, a role in which she issues warrants, conducts preliminary hearings, and presides over some civil trials. District judges select magistrates via majority vote. When Kim was selected, 19 of the court's 24 district judges were Democrat appointees, a Free Beacon review found. Her current term expires in 2031.
Though Kim took a lax approach to Zhou's pre-trial detention, she acted more aggressively when she oversaw a case involving DeVos.
In 2020, Kim's court handled a case in which former students of a now-defunct for-profit college sued to discharge their student loans. They secured a preliminary injunction that barred federal loan providers from collecting payments as the case played out. Kim determined that the Education Department had pursued payments from some students in defiance of that injunction, which the agency blamed on the providers. Kim responded by admonishing DeVos and threatening jail time.
"Whether it's contempt or whether it's sanctions, I'm going to entertain them," she said at the time. "I'm not sending anyone to jail yet, but it's good to know I have that ability." Kim eventually held DeVos in contempt of court and fined her $100,000.
The ordeal garnered national headlines for Kim. In a Washington Post piece titled, "A Judge Calls Betsy DeVos to Account," columnist Helaine Olen lauded the judge, saying she "lost patience with what can only be described as the Education Department's foot-dragging."
One veteran attorney told the Free Beacon that district judges usually pick magistrates who are "ideological allies" because "they know whoever they pick has a great chance of being elevated." Magistrates serve eight-year terms, rather than the lifetime tenure district judges enjoy. As a result, the attorney said, Kim's actions in the DeVos case were likely an "audition" to California's left-wing senators for a lifetime appointment.
"Magistrates are auditioning to senators, who have a huge amount of influence over judicial appointments, knowing that they have a platform to be elevated to the next step," said the attorney, who spoke on background to discuss the situation candidly. "So the DeVos actions are to show she's down for the cause. Magistrates don't have lifetime appointments, so she has to show her chops."
Kim graduated from Stanford Law School in 1989 and went on to work as a litigator at Wilson, Sonsini, Goodrich & Rosati and then Heller, Ehrman, White & McAuliffe, according to a 2016 profile.
She went back to Stanford in 1995, where she climbed to the role of associate dean for student affairs at Stanford Law School. She continues to lecture at the school, her online bio states.
Zhou, meanwhile, is a Chinese national who resides legally in California under permanent resident status. On Nov. 30, he flew a drone over Vandenberg Space Force Base and took photos in violation of federal law, according to federal prosecutors. Security officials found Zhou "and another person accompanying him," who "most recently entered the United States from China on November 26," the Department of Justice said in a Wednesday press release.
Zhou first told officials he saw the drone but did not see its pilot. As he spoke, he hid the drone underneath his jacket. Agents then searched Zhou's drone and his phone, finding photos of the military base and a Google search for the phrase "Vandenberg Space Force Base Drone Rules." Zhou also revealed that he hacked his drone—which was made by sanctioned Chinese company DJI—to bypass built-in flight restrictions and "allow it to fly higher than he could otherwise."
Zhou is charged with failing to register an aircraft and violating national defense airspace. He faces up to four years in prison.
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