California mayor charged with acting as illegal agent for China: Who is Eileen Wang?

Añadido: 2026-05-12

[00:00:00]And let's get to California where the mayor of Arcadia has been charged with acting as an illegal foreign agent. I've got our Alex Stone who's following the story closely for us out of our LA bureau. Alex, thanks for being here, man. This is a story out of a movie.

[00:00:13]First of all, just who is the mayor of Arcadia and why'd you resign? Hey, Ash.

[00:00:18]And yeah, Eileen Wang is her name. She's only been the mayor for a couple of months now. She's been on the city council for a number of years since 2022. And the allegation here is, and by the way, she resigned yesterday as all of this became known, but she decided to take a plea deal almost a month ago now.

[00:00:36]But the allegation, you know, you you hear that she is accused of being an illegal agent of a foreign government.

[00:00:41]You think like the TV show of the Americans or Homeland where she's giving information to the Chinese government or selling arms, something like that. No, they say that the prosecutors that she was bringing in propaganda from the Chinese government, putting it up on what looked like a legitimate news website, but it was all Chinese government directed news and propaganda that was being put out like it was legitimate news, but it was propaganda from the Chinese government.

[00:01:10]>> Wow. Alex, how much jail time is she actually facing?

[00:01:14]>> She's looking at the potential of up to 10 years, but she has a deal. She has cut a deal where she has agreed to plead guilty. So, she's probably going to get less her last her then fiance. He was accused of very similar crimes and taking part in this with her of running this news website where the information would allegedly come from China. They would put it up and then they would get praised from China for putting it up when they would let China know of the number of views that the the stories were getting. In in fact, according to to prosecutors that she would say, "Thank you, leader." in her messages back to her Chinese handler when they would put up this propaganda. But because she has taken a deal in this case, the max would be 10 years, more than likely probably half that, something like that coming her way.

[00:02:01]>> Yeah, the the idea of a foreign agent doesn't sound as glamorous, I guess, as the movies make it seem, but we are seeing a lot of searches. Alex, what actually is an illegal foreign agent?

[00:02:11]How does it work? Well, according to prosecutors in this case, all they are saying with this allegation, Ashen, is that she was taking direction from another government, from a foreign government. So, this is and you can see the official definition right here, any person who acts as an agent, representative, employer, servant uh at the request or direction or control of a foreign principal, in this case, the People's Republic of China, that they say they were telling her, "Okay, put this story up." and as she was the the mayor over the last couple of months, but really most of this going back years ago when she was a city council person that she would put it up. There are other members of the city council in Arcadia, which by the way, Arcadia is east of LA. It's a small city about 53,000 people. They say this doesn't surprise them at all that she was constantly promoting China and very pro-China. She is Chinese. Arcadia is a heavily Chinese population in the city east of LA. that they say this doesn't surprise them that that they had questions about what her intentions and her allegiances were for quite a while and that they knew she had this website and that she was putting pro PRC things up there. So for those who know her and knew her and have been close to her, they they say not a surprise.