After a lengthy investigation, a U.S. Navy officer assigned to an intelligence gathering unit has been charged with multiple counts of espionage and providing secret information to China and Taiwan, according to U.S. officials and charging documents.
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In a handout photo, U.S. Navy Lt. Edward Lin, a native of Taiwan, speaks about his path to U.S. citizenship December 3 at a naturalization ceremony in Honolulu, Hawaii.
The defendant and his family came to the United States when he was 14 and became a naturalized U.S. citizen.
A charging document released by the Navy on Monday doesn’t specify to which country Lin is suspected of divulging classified information, but officials told The Daily Beast that it was Tawain and not China, as had been previously suggested in reports.
USNI News, which first reported Lin’s identity, described him as a “U.S. naval flight officer with an extensive signals intelligence background” who had been a department head for the squadron that flew EP3-E Aries II signals intelligence aircraft.
The US Navy has said little in public about the charges. The official said that other arrests in the case haven’t been ruled out and the FBI and Naval Criminal Investigative Service are cooperating in the investigation. It was not clear how long Lin faces in prison if convicted, though the alleged offenses are “not capital”. Lin recounted the difficulties associated with moving to the US and called on the members of the military becoming citizens to safeguard the USA, “her people and the Constitution, which guarantees our way of life”, the Navy article said.
The case has been designated a national security case, which is why the Navy’s Fleet Forces Command is the convening authority.
In an official Navy profile of Lt. Lin, written in 2008, he spoke of America as the “promised land”.
Lin remains in custody at a naval brig in Chesapeake, Virginia.
Friday’s Article 32 hearing was a preliminary hearing, to be followed by a decision on whether the charges are referred to a court-martial.
At one point he worked on the staff of the assistant secretary of the Navy for financial management and comptroller in Washington.
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Naval investigators believe Lin may have passed secrets on to Taiwan as well as China. Walker’s covert dealings made it possible for the Soviets to unscramble military communications and find US submarines at any time.
