John Rogers Fed China espionage case: What happened

John Harold Rogers was walking Prada, his tiny spaniel, past a school bus stop in his suburban Washington neighborhood when FBI agents surrounded him. They handcuffed the former senior Federal Reserve official and took him into custody to face charges of spying for China.

An agent took Prada’s leash, and investigators from multiple federal agencies began an intensive search of Rogers’ house.

The now 65-year-old economist was arrested in January 2025, days before he was set to travel to China with his wife, a Chinese national, and their 6-year-old daughter. Investigators believed that Rogers passed information about the Fed to a Chinese government spy, who, over more than a decade, helped him with his career, his finances and his marriage to a woman 24 years his junior.

Rogers’ descent from senior Fed official to espionage suspect appears to have been driven by his desire for female companionship. This desire was exploited by a Chinese government agent, who became increasingly entwined in Rogers’ professional and personal life. Rogers’ indiscretion was later exploited by online blackmail scammers, ultimately leading to his downfall.

“The facts of this case read like a spy novel,” federal prosecutor Nicholas Hunter told the jury at Rogers’ trial in 2026. “There was sex. There was money, manipulation, secret meetings with shady characters in China, fake identities, lies, trickery, and deceit. But this was real life. The events of this case all happened.”

The crucial question, though, was whether Rogers was a spy or a dupe for Chinese intelligence. His lawyers argued that he didn’t pass any information of value to the Chinese and that he was just a naive academic who got caught up in espionage.

A CNBC investigation of the Rogers case has yielded a trove of information not previously made public, including text messages, audio recordings made by investigators, copies of the secret Fed documents Rogers was accused of accessing, and dozens of photographs of Rogers, the Chinese spy and the young Chinese woman who would become Rogers’ second wife. This story is based on those materials as well as interviews, testimony, and documents and images produced in court proceedings.

Rogers declined to be interviewed for this story.

Officials at the Federal Reserve and the Fed’s Office of Inspector General declined to comment.

U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro, whose office prosecuted Rogers, said: “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.”

Jonathan Gitlen, an attorney for Rogers, told CNBC that the economist did not lie under oath.