Former Fed adviser sentenced to more than three years over China statements

A former senior adviser to the Federal Reserve Board of Governors has been sentenced to more than three years in federal prison for making false statements to investigators about restricted central bank information, the Justice Department said. The case concerned alleged disclosures tied to Chinese intelligence operatives and nonpublic material on U.S. monetary policy.

John Harold Rogers, 64, was convicted by a jury in February of lying to federal investigators after denying that he had shared restricted Federal Reserve information outside the board, U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro said in a statement Wednesday. The same jury acquitted Rogers of the more serious charge of conspiracy to commit economic espionage.

U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich also ordered Rogers to serve 12 months of supervised release after his prison term, according to the Justice Department. Defense attorneys had sought no additional incarceration beyond the roughly 18 months Rogers had already spent in custody, which will be credited toward the sentence.

Rogers, a U.S. citizen with a doctorate in economics, worked from 2010 to 2021 as a senior adviser in the Federal Reserve Board’s division of international finance, according to the Justice Department. In that role, he had access to nonpublic information on monetary policy and deliberations of the Federal Open Market Committee, the rate-setting body whose decisions influence borrowing costs, bond yields and global capital flows.

Prosecutors argued that early access to Fed interest-rate decisions could have given Beijing an opportunity to make large trading gains in its holdings of U.S. government debt. The Justice Department said prosecutors cited China’s approximately $1.5 trillion in U.S. Treasurys in making that argument.

“John Rogers spent years secretly funneling sensitive Federal Reserve information to Chinese spies, then looked investigators in the eye and lied about it. And when that wasn’t enough, he lied again under oath at trial,” Pirro said in the statement.

According to the Justice Department, prosecutors said Rogers began a clandestine relationship in 2017 with Hummin Lee, described by the department as a Chinese intelligence operative whom Rogers met at a conference in China. Prosecutors alleged that Rogers passed Federal Reserve information during meetings in Chinese hotel rooms that were presented as academic classes.

The department said Rogers printed restricted documents before trips to China, sent materials to his personal email account after removing classification markings, and forwarded sensitive information to a professor at Fudan University. Prosecutors said he received university professorships and financial benefits in return.

The false-statements charge centered in part on a February 2020 interview with the Federal Reserve’s inspector general. Asked whether he had ever provided restricted Fed information to anyone outside the board, Rogers answered “never,” according to the Justice Department.

The sentencing comes as the Trump administration has increased enforcement attention on alleged Chinese economic espionage. The case also highlights the market sensitivity of central bank information: expectations for interest rates can move Treasury prices, affect currency values and influence the cost of capital across global markets before any formal policy announcement.

China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not respond to CNBC’s request for comment.

This story draws on original reporting from CNBC.