The Reporter and the China Trap

Summary

SpyTalk Podcast: "The Reporter and the China Trap"

Date: July 3, 2026
Hosts: Jeff Stein, Michael Isikoff, Karen Greenberg
Guest: Tom Lobianco

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Episode Overview

This episode of SpyTalk navigates two major themes: the alarming politicization of US intelligence leadership and a detailed, first-person account from journalist Tom Lobianco about how he was targeted in a Chinese intelligence recruitment scheme. The hosts unpack the latest developments at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), expressing deep concern over recent partisan appointments, before shifting to Lobianco's cautionary tale about modern espionage targeting journalists and analysts online.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Politicization and Destabilization of US Intelligence (01:24–16:49)

Partisan Appointments at ODNI

• Jeff Stein and Michael Isikoff express alarm at the appointment of a housing official—and now, a GOP elections operative (Christina Norton)—into senior positions at ODNI, an agency meant to be above politics.
• Isikoff (02:11): “Political operative is the word that best applies to the new chief of staff at the Office of Director of National Intelligence... this is a woman named Christina Norton, who has never served in any national security or intelligence role in the US Government.”
• Norton's background: Led the RNC Election Integrity Project, boasted on social media about overseeing Republican poll watchers and lawsuits, raising questions on the intersection of election surveillance and intelligence.

Concerns Over Impact on Intelligence Agencies

• Removal (“cashiering”) of career experts covering Russia, Ukraine, China, East Asia, Europe, and weapons of mass destruction.
• Jeff Stein (09:41): “This violates a basic cardinal rule of intelligence. You share on a need to know only... why the DNI would want these names, nobody has any business demanding these names.”
• Fears that new leadership seeks to compromise independent intelligence analysis and expose sensitive sources for partisan advantage.

Section 702 Surveillance Act in Limbo

• Karen Greenberg (13:16): “We as a country seem to have lost interest in what’s going to happen with it and who knows what’s going to happen with it... we’re in limbo.”
• Debate on limiting authority for searching US persons’ data without a warrant; momentum for reform has stalled.

Rise of Nihilistic Extremism

• Michael Isikoff (14:57): Reports on growing threat from "nihilistic extremism," with groups glorifying violence for its own sake, citing recent Dutch and US cases.

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2. Tom Lobianco: Caught in a Chinese Espionage Scheme (19:09–49:29)

Tom's Background and Initial Contact (19:09–23:18)

• Veteran political reporter and Pence biographer, Tom Lobianco, describes being contacted in 2024 via X (Twitter) by a company called “Right Info Consulting” in Singapore, offering lucrative writing assignments about US politics.
• Lobianco (22:10): “We are looking for experts in US politics and foreign policy… would you like to be our senior analyst? This is a part time position… we’ll pay you between $1,500 and $2,500 per piece.”
• Red flags: Unusually high payment; vague project descriptions; a website full of generic stock photos and questionable articles (e.g., bizarre claims about “feminist Nazis” in Moscow bombings).

Tom’s Due Diligence and FBI Involvement (25:08–28:46)

• Sensing something off, Tom contacts an intel source and then submits materials to the FBI tip line.
• Is brought in for an interview, where FBI agents photograph his phone and exchanges.
• Lobianco (27:32): “There were definitely moments where I was like, gee, I’m just walking into this thing. I wonder if I should’ve brought a lawyer with me… but I’m bringing it to these guys [the FBI], I’m not worried.”
• Agents caution him: “It’s always better to say something early than it is to say something later… like if you take any money or something like that.”

The Bigger Picture: Widespread Recruitment Tactics (30:51–34:22)

• Hosts note this tactic parallels previous Russian LinkedIn recruitment scams as well as cases publicized by the FBI.
• Lobianco reflects: “Given what we cover… my guard’s always up, and you’re always kind of listening… who am I really talking to?” (30:58)
• The FBI casts the Chinese operation as highly systematic: reaching out to many, including those with access to classified information (as per recently released Five Eyes intelligence warnings).

Why Target Journalists? (33:09–34:49)

• Isikoff: “You’re a political reporter… why would they be reaching out to you if their goal is sensitive or classified information?”
• Lobianco: Sees it as “casting a wide net,” possibly to use his political intelligence or credibility.
• Stein: “Think Chinese… their MO is to cast a wide net electronically. It could have been generated by AI… and they just put out millions of these things…” (34:22)

Anatomy of the Chinese Operation (36:26–38:30)

• The network included multiple shell companies (e.g., “Centric Global Consulting”) registered in places like London but actually set up for obfuscation, often using stolen identities.
• Lobianco: “If you trace one of them, it goes back to… a lady down in Destin, Florida… she looks like a victim here, not the front for this thing.”
• No known arrests; perpetrators likely overseas; FBI may know their true identities but no public confirmation.

FBI Strategy and Public Alert (39:26–41:48)

• FBI advised Tom to be discreet while the investigation unfolded.
• Eventually, just before the case broke in June 2026, the FBI called to alert Lobianco he would appear (as an anonymized “recruit C”) in their affidavit.
• Lobianco: "It's not been adjudicated, so we're at 99.9% certainty it's the Chinese."

What Makes This Scam Effective? (42:02–45:05)

• Sometimes, those solicited only report to the FBI after not being paid—revealing a vulnerability based on financial desperation over patriotism.
• Lobianco: “Foreign intelligence would not be doing something that didn’t work. So clearly it works, people go for it…” (43:56)

Ethics, “Wittingly or Unwittingly,” and the Double-Edged Practice (45:05–47:21)

• Discussion of the gray line: US intelligence has similarly recruited foreign experts under cover of consultancy.
• Karen Greenberg: “There’s that phrase in the affidavit, right? Wittingly or unwittingly... you still should have known.” (43:06)
• Stein: US also uses this tactic: “I wrote a story about the CIA’s domestic division… they placed ads in Indian newspapers for consultants on rocket programs, aerodynamics…”

Memorable Moment: "Try Harder" Spy Feedback (47:21–48:59)

• Chinese recruiters even provided editorial feedback to their targets, pressing for classified or exclusive content instead of open-source analysis.
• Isikoff reads from affidavit: “Your report is full of public information… not very useful. To show your sincerity, the company will still pay you $500…” (47:21)

Closing Warnings and Reflections (48:59–49:29)

• Jeff Stein: “A cautionary tale for anybody else who might need some money and is tempted to write an innocent sounding consulting report…”

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Notable Quotes & Timestamps

• Jeff Stein (09:41): “Anybody who’s read John Le Carré knows that, you know, you’re supposed to keep secrets about the program you’re working on, especially if it involves penetrating… the Russian government, the Chinese government, and so on.”

• Tom Lobianco (27:32): “There were definitely moments where I was like, gee, I’m just walking into this thing. I wonder if I should’ve brought a lawyer with me…”

• Karen Greenberg (43:06): “There’s that phrase in the affidavit, right? Wittingly or unwittingly… we don’t care whether you knew… or didn’t know. You still should have known, right?”

• Michael Isikoff (47:21): “First of all, I really appreciate your efforts to report, but as we told you before, we hope to have exclusive information rather than simple analysis… your report is… not very useful.”

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Important Segment Timestamps

• 01:24–16:49 — Deep dive on ODNI turmoil and Section 702 debate
• 19:09–23:18 — Introduction of Tom Lobianco and initial espionage contact
• 25:08–28:57 — Tom’s engagement with the FBI
• 33:09–34:49 — Discussion: Why do spies recruit journalists?
• 36:26–38:30 — How shell companies and faked identities fit the scheme
• 39:26–41:48 — FBI strategy, Tom's role as “Recruit C”
• 42:02–45:05 — The psychology of recruitment: desperation v. patriotism
• 47:21–48:59 — The “try harder” editorial feedback from Chinese spies

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Tone & Style

The podcast maintains an urgent, candid, sometimes darkly humorous tone, especially as seasoned journalists compare notes on newsroom and intelligence culture. Lobianco’s storytelling is accessible yet norm-breaking, revealing real vulnerability amid paranoia, while the hosts alternate between analytical concern and collegial banter.

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Summary Takeaways

• There is a growing and alarming breakdown of the wall between partisanship and intelligence leadership in the US, with real risks for US elections, institutions, and the protection of sources.
• Foreign intelligence services, especially China, are aggressively targeting Americans—including journalists—through plausible (but ultimately fake) professional outreach, attempting to elicit sensitive intelligence under the guise of consulting.
• The Chinese MO is broad, impersonal, and relies on volume and financial temptation—mirrored, in some ways, by US intelligence practices abroad.
• Even seasoned journalists must remain vigilant; reporting suspicious contacts to the FBI is vital not only to protect themselves, but to inform broader counterintelligence efforts.
• The line between “witting” and “unwitting” assistance to foreign intelligence is both ethically and operationally thin—awareness and professional standards are critical.

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For further exploration of these topics, visit spytalk.co or listen to the full episode.

Transcript

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[Jeff Stein]

Hi there, I'm Jeff Stein.

[Michael Isikoff]

Michael I'm Michael Isikoff.

[Karen Greenberg]

And I'm Karen Greenberg.

[Jeff Stein]

Welcome to another edition of the Spy Joint podcast. Have we got Are we there yet? Have we reached bottom yet? This week we not only have a housing guy running the National Intelligence Agency, we now learn that he's hired as his chief of staff or brought over from the housing agency an elections official. A GOP elections official. In other words, the head, the DNI has no intelligence experience. His qualification is that he's a hitman for the President. He's investigated the mortgages of Trump's perceived enemies, and now he's got an elections monitor from the go.

[Michael Isikoff]

I think political operative is the word that best applies to the new chief of staff at the Office of Director of National Intelligence. And this is a woman named Christina Norton, who has never served in any national security or intelligence role in the US Government, has had no access, as far as anybody could tell, to any classified information or security clearance, at least in her past. And you know, one of the things we discovered looking into this is that she had been the director of something called the Republican National Committee Election Integrity Project. Yeah, and she ran this and boasted about it in her Instagram accounts, which she took down after she got this job and made progress. But she boasted she's running the largest election integrity operation in history and deploying Republican poll watchers to stand guard.

[Karen Greenberg]

200,000 of them.

[Michael Isikoff]

200,000 poll watchers standing guard at polling stations and vote counting stations across the country.

[Jeff Stein]

Think she was exaggerating. That sounds like a lot of poll. 200,000.

[Michael Isikoff]

Well, I mean, I. Yeah, I mean, it was a. It was a big operation. They filed, what, over 100 lawsuits? 140 lawsuits, I think she said. But the point is, what does this have to do with the odni, the Office of National Intelligence, which is supposed to coordinate sensitive classified intelligence from 17 intelligence agencies across the government?

[Jeff Stein]

Nothing.

[Michael Isikoff]

Absolutely nothing. Except to the extent that there is growing concerns and evidence that the Trump administration plans to somehow use ODNI to cast a cloud over the upcoming midterms, why else would Tulsi Gabbard have flown down to Fulton County, Georgia, for an FBI search of 2020 election ballots in that state? Why would she have tried to get access to the voting machines in Puerto Rico? I mean, this has been a consistent narrative, a consistent theme from ODNI that began with Gabbard, but has now clearly continued with Pulte and his new chief of staff, who is nothing but a partisan political election operative.

[Jeff Stein]

Another instance of saying the quiet part out loud.

[Karen Greenberg]

Yeah. But also another instance of just the dangers of having coordinated 18 intelligence agencies with one supervisory umbrella. And while it means one thing to connect the dots for national. What does it mean in terms of being able to take different capacities, different legal authorities, etc, for when it comes to elections? And I actually think this is extremely worrisome moment, and not just for this coming election, but for the presidential election in 28.

[Jeff Stein]

Absolutely. Karen, why else would you appoint people with no intelligence experience, national security experience whatsoever?

[Karen Greenberg]

Because it's not about intelligence.

[Jeff Stein]

It's not about intelligence.

[Karen Greenberg]

It's not about intelligence. It's about being able to deploy the policies, to pick a nice word that they want to enact.

[Jeff Stein]

But it gets worse. The New York Times has written a story, published a story about how the DNI is demanding the names of all the CIA's spies abroad, foreign agents working for it, as well as the FBIs and the targets of FBI investigations. Why would the DNI want that? I can only think of the worst of their motivations.

[Michael Isikoff]

Well, you're right. And who's going to review it? How are you going to define what information flows from various. From the FBI, from the CIA to ODNI get especially. All right, look, given. ODNI is now run by a political operative, right? A MAGA political operative, somebody with no intelligence experience. And that's Pulte. His chief of staff is Norton. So what are the categories of information that ODNI is going to scoop up as part of this. I mean, the names of spies, the names of suspected spies, the names of informants, the names of potential targets of corruption investigations, which is, I think, in the mix there.

[Jeff Stein]

Yep.

[Karen Greenberg]

So is this like, dismantling themselves? I mean, this is a kind of you do this act and you. You run the risk of just destroying the institutions that. That you're involving.

[Michael Isikoff]

They're already dismantling themselves. Because the first thing Pulte did when he moved in there last week was to hollow out the ranks of the National Intelligence Council.

[Jeff Stein]

Including people that you reported.

[Karen Greenberg]

Yeah, yeah.

[Jeff Stein]

Who were the subject matter experts. On what? On Ukraine, Russia.

[Michael Isikoff]

Senior national intelligence officers for Russia, Ukraine, China, East Asia, Europe, and weapons of mass destruction were all cashiered by Pulte the day after he arrived.

[Karen Greenberg]

Give me a reason for that. Give me an explanation for that. Nefarious or positive. Whatever. Give me an explanation.

[Michael Isikoff]

Yeah. The benign explanation is that ODNI has grown bloated and become redundant and a bureaucratic, you know, mess that's overseeing and gets in the way of the intelligence agencies. That's a critique that many have shared, by the way. Not on the right and the left. I mean, certainly Tom Cotton on the right, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, has been pushing for reducing odni, and people who have served there have said the same thing. But as somebody who has worked there and said to me, I mean, this was done just like, with a sledgehammer, and to target people who were the recognized experts on key world hotspots seems a little crazy.

[Jeff Stein]

Well, my understanding is that those people that you mentioned were sent back to their agency.

[Michael Isikoff]

Yes, that's right.

[Jeff Stein]

So they're not exactly.

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They're not.

[Michael Isikoff]

Yes. A lawyer called me up afterwards and said, you know, you think any of these people want to file a lawsuit? But in fact, they. They're not. They're getting sent back to their home agencies, so they're not losing pay and they're not getting their security clearance stripped. So they don't really have a cause of action to say they were, you know, harmed by this. It's the. It's. It's the country that was arguably harmed by this, not so much the individuals.

[Jeff Stein]

Yeah, I'm really alarmed by this latest stuff of demanding the names of CIA assets, spies. This violates, it should be, needs to be said. This violates a basic cardinal rule of intelligence you share on a need to know only. That's why there are various levels of security coins this top Secret is just the beginning. You know, you have special access programs above that for various projects and programs. And I can say from my very brief, brilliant career in intelligence many decades ago, that even asking about what somebody else is doing sort of raises eyebrows. I mean, you just don't do that. This is. This is. Anybody who's read John Le Carre knows that, you know, you're. You're supposed to keep secrets about the program you're working on, especially if it involves penetrating, say, the Russian government, the Chinese government, and so on. So why the DNI would want. I only have the darkest interpretation of why the dni, who is a Trump apparatchik, why they would want these names. Nobody has any business demanding these names. The story did say that the counterintelligence chiefs at the FBI and CIA are fighting back, and I suppose that's why the story appeared.

[Michael Isikoff]

Yeah, that's often the way it works.

[Karen Greenberg]

Is Jay Clayton. Is Jay Clayton off the table? I mean, what's happening?

[Michael Isikoff]

The question to be. Just follow the bouncing ball here. Trump announces, and this gets to the. How election interference is so intertwined with everything that's going on here. Trump announces Jay Clayton, the US Attorney in Manhattan, will be his nominee to replace Tulsi Gabbard as dni. Then no sooner does he announce that, and the Senate rushes to schedule a confirmation hearing because they. They want to get him confirmed because he's at least a serious person with a serious. You know, it's not the best credentials to be the top prosecutor in New York, but they do do terrorism and espionage cases.

[Jeff Stein]

He actually doesn't have the credentials.

[Karen Greenberg]

Oh, sorry.

[Michael Isikoff]

Well, he has some of the credentials.

[Jeff Stein]

Well, you're supposed to have deep experience in national security and intelligence. He's been a prosecutor.

[Karen Greenberg]

I withdraw my credentials.

[Michael Isikoff]

By current standards, he was seen as a clear improvement and definitely preferred over Bill Pulte, who's a political hatchet man.

[Jeff Stein]

And Trump drew up the drawbridge behind him. He left that job, and Trump appointed somebody else.

[Michael Isikoff]

Yeah. It's no sooner does the Senate schedule the confirmation hearing for Jay Clayton that Trump pulls it back and tells Floyd to say that go, because he wants Pulte in there right away. And Pulte goes in there right away and starts wielding the hatchet and firing

[Jeff Stein]

people also off the table. Karen, your favorite subject, Section 702 of the Surveillance act, which its supporters say is absolutely critical to stopping foreign plots.

[Karen Greenberg]

Yeah.

[Jeff Stein]

What's going to happen to that?

[Karen Greenberg]

Well, what's most amazing about it is that we seem to have. We as a country and, you know, seem to have lost interest in what's going to happen with it and who knows what's going to happen with it. You know, there are, as we discussed in the past, there is this theory that a number of lawyers and others have that because the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court approves the general, general ways in which you can collect this information and search this information, that therefore they've done it for the next year. And so that there is some kind of protocol and policy in place, but we don't really know that we haven't tested it this way before. And so we're in limbo in this.

[Jeff Stein]

So we think it's continuing under some other authorities. Is that it?

[Karen Greenberg]

Yes, but it's not other authorities. It's just sort of one of the areas that you weigh in on. The policy is one thing, but this is taking Congress out of it. And so the question is really, when are we going to get back to what needs to be done, which is to vote on this one way or the other?

[Jeff Stein]

Well, I suppose this is one of those issues that Trump finds boring, like the housing bill that received overwhelmingly bipartisan support. That's boring to him. He wants the Save America act to pass first.

[Karen Greenberg]

I think it's that the momentum for requiring a warrant to search the information that they've collected when it has to do with US Persons got too much momentum and it got too many people on its side for the first time since its earliest passage. And so now I think they couldn't make their way through it. They couldn't figure it out. And both the left and the right were challenging it on those grounds. And so they just found a way to just say we can't deal with

[Michael Isikoff]

this before we get to our guest. I just had one other item I wanted to flag. And this is under the category of as as it gets crazier at the top of our government, it's getting even crazier in our culture. And so here's an item that caught my attention in the paper today. Dutch authorities on Tuesday said they are increasingly concerned by so called nihilistic extremism driven by online subcultures that glorify violence for attention and status rather than ideology. The Dutch national coordinator for counterterrorism and security said such extremism is motivated by a destructive and anti human worldview, with violence seen both as a goal in and of itself and means to gaining recognition. And so just a few hours after I see the item about what the Dutch are saying, the U.S. attorney's office in Albany announces that they've arrested a guy affiliated with 764, which is the sort of nihilistic, violent extremist group that they are most worried about. This is a guy who was charged with receiving child sex abuse images, but also plotted after he learned the FBI was going after him just to actually murder the FBI agents and the assistant U.S. attorney who was handling his case and kill them and put them through a wood chipper. And this is the kind of, the kind of group that's out there and raising concerns.

[Jeff Stein]

It's hard to keep up with all the craziness.

[Michael Isikoff]

Yeah.

[Jeff Stein]

Anyway, so you got brought on a guest today, Mike. You encouraged this guy to come on Tom Lobianco, and he's got quite a story to tell. Tell us a little bit about him.

[Michael Isikoff]

Yes. Worked with Tom at Yahoo.

[Jeff Stein]

News.

[Michael Isikoff]

He's a veteran political reporter from Indiana, wrote a biography of Mike Pence that came out after Pence became Trump's first vice president. And he has quite an experience to relate about how he found himself in the middle of a Chinese intelligence operation. So let's bring Tom on to hear about it.

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[Jeff Stein]

Tom Lobianko. Welcome to Spy Talk. I must say, in going over your story this morning, I thought that old saying from the 60s came up.

[Tom Lobianco]

What a long.

[Jeff Stein]

What a strange, long journey this has been. And you found yourself in the middle. Your report, Porter, but you found yourself in the middle of a Chinese espionage case. Give us the highlights.

[Tom Lobianco]

Yeah, thanks. Thanks, guys, for having me on.

[Jeff Stein]

Yeah, this.

[Tom Lobianco]

Oh, God. You know, sometimes when I talk with the normies around here, civilians, neighbors, friends, other parents, I just, like. I take a deep breath. I'm like, I would love for life to be normal. Like, whatever that is.

[Jeff Stein]

You'd be bored so fast.

[Tom Lobianco]

That's right. I know.

[Jeff Stein]

Anyway, what happened?

[Tom Lobianco]

So here's what happened. This is back in the middle of the 2024 race for the White House. So, you know, I started 24 site news. Oh, January 2024. And we were on substack, and, you know, that I was at the messenger before, and this is my third White House race. You know, people know, in perpetuity. Covering Mike Pence. Still covering Mike Pence. Get a third book just come out recently. So I'll be covering Mike Pence for the rest of my life. And, you know, all things Trump and whatnot. And, you know, one of the interesting things about being in this independent space now, I mean, we're all, you know, we all been doing it for a minute, but you. You don't have the. The. The basic guardrails that we used to have in place. You know, whether it's like we were at Yahoo News, we're at the Washington Post, you know, cnn, wherever, and we're the ones fielding all the incoming now. Request to come on a podcast, for instance. You know, like, hey, Spy Talk. Well, I know, you know, I know Isakov, all right, this cough reaches out, and I'm like, well, he's not. That guy's not a spy. All right, awesome. There we go. All right. That's an easy yes.

[Michael Isikoff]

Far too erratic to be a spy. All right, so take us what happened?

[Tom Lobianco]

So here's what happened. So, you know, I got a request from this person on x.com and they're like, you know, we want to have you do consulting. Would you do that? And my standard screen is, you know, send me an email with details. So send me an email. So they actually sent me this email, and I'll. Here, I'll pull it up because. Let me see what we got here. Sent it on back in July and says, hello, oh, this is funny. My name inside the federal affidavit. So this was all just revealed publicly for the first time a couple weeks ago. The DOJ took down this.

[Jeff Stein]

Let's not get ahead of ourselves here, Tom. So you got this inquiry asking you to do some consulting work. What happened next?

[Tom Lobianco]

Yeah, it says, I am a BD manager from Right Info Consulting, Singapore website rightinfoconsult.com we are looking for experts in US politics and foreign policy. Considering your experience and knowledge, would you like to be our senior analyst? This is a part time position and will not affect your current job. If you're interested, I'd like to discuss the roles, responsibilities and compensation with you further. That is actually the X.com message. Well, then they send me the follow up email and there's a couple kind of two big flags that jump out immediately. Well, number one in the email they say that we're gonna pay you between $1500 and $2500 per piece.

[Jeff Stein]

Okay.

[Tom Lobianco]

Which as we know is, I mean that's pretty good money, you know, unless you're, you know, unless you're like writing for New York Times. Yeah, yeah, right. I mean that used to be like Standard maybe like 10, 15 years ago, but now it's. The other thing is when they also say we're gonna tell you what the topic is, which is really weird. The language was weird. I'm used to getting all kinds of weird stuff, you know, but like this is like extra weird.

[Jeff Stein]

Well, what did they say to you? What was the next interchange?

[Tom Lobianco]

Well then the other thing is that I looked at the website and so go to the website and it's just like. It's like one of these like stock. It's like stock photos of people smiling in business suits looking at stuff. Yeah. And I'm like, well, okay, I don't even know what the hell this thing is. Like, I can't, you know, I can't tell just by looking at it until I get to the bottom, scroll all the way down to the bottom and the bottom of this page. It's taken down now, but you can find it in the Internet Archive. Down at the bottom it's got these really weird latest posts and their news, their news articles. What I presume is what they would be looking for me to write for them. And the one back then, I can't find it anymore. But I just remember distinctly the one that really stuck out and kind of stuck out to me was it was a story about feminist Nazis being the ones really responsible for a bombing In Moscow, they're the worst, right? You know, when it comes to bombings in Moscow, I think we all know, right?

[Michael Isikoff]

Feminist Nazis.

[Jeff Stein]

Then what happened?

[Tom Lobianco]

So, I mean, you know, I've had. At the beginning of 2024, I had somebody from CGTN. I'd never even heard of these guys before. CGTN calls me up while I'm on the road in New Hampshire in, like, January of 2024, and they're like, oh, can we get you on? And I was like, yeah, sure, whatever. All right. I'm driving between campaign stops, covering the presidential. And I finally stopped to look him up. I'm like, what the hell is cgt? I've never even heard of these guys. Chinese global television network, right? And I was like, no, I'm not. No, I don't do state. My God.

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[Tom Lobianco]

Dear God. All right. So that was like, you know, standard crazy.

[Jeff Stein]

All right.

[Tom Lobianco]

For that. This one was like, what the hell's going on here? So I actually called up an old intel source when I was doing all the Trump Russia coverage about a decade ago, and I was like, you know, what do I do with this? And my source was like, you know what? Why don't you turn it in? Why don't you send it into the feds, the FBI? I was like, yeah, okay. Yeah. So I called up the FBI press office. I was like, you know, I'm not actually calling for information. I think I have something for you. And they're like, well, you know, put it in the tips. Tips.FBI.gov I did. And about two months later. Was it July? So whatever, September, something, 2024, they call me in. I go down to the Washington field office and sit down for an interview, and they, you know, it seems like this is an actual thing. Like, this is.

[Michael Isikoff]

You know, what did they tell you when you say this was an actual thing? What.

[Tom Lobianco]

What.

[Michael Isikoff]

How did they define what this thing is and what this message you got was?

[Tom Lobianco]

Well, that seemed like a recruiting effort by some kind of foreign intelligence.

[Michael Isikoff]

They didn't tell you which foreign government intelligence service was behind this? They just told you it was a. It was a foreign government intelligence service.

[Tom Lobianco]

Could be. It was not definitive at that point. And, you know, as we see later in the actual affidavit that's filed eventually on this thing? Apparently, I was pretty at the early end of this thing. All right, that was on the kind of the. The front end of this investigation back in the summer of 2024, because they start talking with other people through, like, 2025. But you know, they sit me down. They're like, can we take photos of your. You know, of your interaction? So we bring in the cell phone. They gotta get clearance to do, you know, can we bring a cell phone into the secure space? Typically, you have to. It's my first time down at the field office. Like, you. Typically, you have to park your phone and, you know, in the boxes out front, they screen you. They bring them back in there. And it's two agents. I. I'm pretty sure I. This is terrible. Is cough. As. As my. My journalist elder, I know you will kill me for this. I did not take copious notes afterwards after I'd walked out of there. I just. I know.

[Michael Isikoff]

Always take notes.

[Tom Lobianco]

I feel like. I feel like this. Yes.

[Jeff Stein]

Right.

[Tom Lobianco]

Oh, man. Well, I'm pretty sure is the Daniel. Words. Words. Bisky. Who's the lead agent on this one? And then the woman's name. I'm forgetting right now. There's two folks.

[Michael Isikoff]

We don't need the names.

[Tom Lobianco]

Yeah, there's two folks who specialize in this, and they're asking me, well, you know, can we take photos of your phone? Can we take photos of the, you know, the. Your exchanges? I was like, yeah, go for it. You know, sent them a thing. It was interesting, too. And this is kind of one of these things where it's like, you know, there were definitely moments where I was like. Think to myself, I'm like, gee, I'm just walking into this thing. I wonder if I should have brought a lawyer with me or something. Oh, that did occur to me at some point. But I'm like, whatever. Like, I mean, I'm not, you know, I'm bringing it to these guys, you know, I'm not worried about it. So. But then they asked me questions. They're like. They're like, you know, it's. At some point toward the end of it, they're like, you know, if you. You know, it's always better to say something early than it is to say something later. And I was like, oh. And they're like, yeah, you know, like, if you take any money or something like that. And I was like, oh,

[Karen Greenberg]

did they ask you questions that made you think you had stepped into something larger than what you had thought you had stepped into? I mean, did their questions tip you off to anything or.

[Tom Lobianco]

Well, you know, I mean, we. And, you know, we. You know, this coffee that I covered. Trump Russia. You know, some might even say what it continues to be. Trump Russia, I would argue. But I kind of had a sense of it, you Know, from the outset, because so much of what, you know, we're seeing now is these, these pop up online campaigns. You know, the Mueller indictment, when it came out, was, you know, very insightful for the actual physical infrastructure that was put into place here domestically that was used to actually prop this stuff up. So it certainly didn't seem to hit that level. But I had a pretty good sense, like, I don't want to say this thing was ham handed, but they didn't do a very good job of like covering up that it was something.

[Jeff Stein]

Let me ask you this, Tom.

[Tom Lobianco]

Yeah.

[Jeff Stein]

The. I wrote a story for Newsweek, gotta be 10 years ago maybe about how Russia was using LinkedIn to do these kinds of recruit recruitments. And also the FBI has on its own website the case of a guy who I think was in Hong Kong or Guangzhou and he got an offer to do, just like you were involved in a consulting.

[Michael Isikoff]

I think it was Singapore in the affidavit.

[Jeff Stein]

Singapore, yeah.

[Michael Isikoff]

Identify a guy from Singapore.

[Jeff Stein]

I mean, the guy on the FBI site, I think he was in Hong Kong or wherever he was anyways, almost exactly parallel to your experience. And he. But he got in too deep and they had blackmailable material because he had cooperated and they were then asking him to join the CIA. So anyway, so were you. My question is, were you aware of these kinds of shadowy transactions, offers?

[Tom Lobianco]

Yes. I mean, generally, you know, that propelled

[Jeff Stein]

you to go to the FBI because it sounded familiar.

[Tom Lobianco]

Well, this is, you know, not specifically, but I mean, generally speaking, you know, given what we cover, my guard's always up, you know, and you're always kind of listening, you know, as reporters would be doing this. Whether we be, you know, whether we're covering the Frederick County Council, you know, from Frederick, Maryland, or, you know, we're covering this, this stuff, you know, covering the White House. You know, your guard's always up and you always have your antenna up and you're kind of listening for, well, who am I really talking to? All right, like when I'm talking to whoever source or if we're out of drinks, you know, I mean, my God, these embassy parties are. You never know who you're talking to, right? You do usually if you've been around for a minute. But like, you know, you're. You always have a sense of this stuff, right? You want to have a sense of this stuff. And this one, just to me at the outset, I was like, this is some kind of foreign opinion. I don't know which one it is, but it's definitely not one of Ours.

[Michael Isikoff]

Okay, that was where you were two years ago. Now, just last month, this blows up. The FBI announced that it has seized more than a dozen websites that were part of a Chinese effort to target American workers and get them to provide sensitive, if not classified, information. And this came just a few days after the Five EYES Intelligence Sharing alliance, that's Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK and the US Issues a bulletin warning that China is targeting personnel from these countries on job websites like LinkedIn to get access to classified or sensitive information. So here's my question for starting up. You're a political reporter. You're not primarily national security or intelligence. You've never served, as far as I know, in the government and had access to classified information. Why would they be reaching out to you if their goal is to get classified information that would give them an edge in their competition with the U.S.

[Tom Lobianco]

you know, that's a great question. I wondered about that. It's a great question. I mean, you know, in some sense, I guess it's high praise, you know, that they figure out that whatever I'm reporting on, whoever I'm talking to, is like, you know, worth trying to, you know, run an intelligence. Include an intelligence operation. I don't know entirely. I mean, you know, given what I cover, I was covering more of it back then, but, you know, inside Trump world, inside Pence world, the. The Republican primaries, the presidential. You know, I always kind of assume, you know, especially if I'm going out in Washington and I'm going to go meet with anybody, whoever it is, news source, old source, they bring some friends, we're out of cocktails or whatever. I just assume that the ears are everything. Everyone's always listening. All right? So whatever I'm going to talk about, all right, you know, I'm always, you know, it's not like I don't think everybody is a Russian or a Chinese spy, but I'm always kind of like, all right, you never know, right? You never know where this information is going to go. I don't know, but I don't know why they would pick me of any journalist.

[Jeff Stein]

I don't think they. They really did, in a way. Think Chinese. Their MO is to cast a wide net electronically. It could have been generated by AI. And they just put out millions of these things on LinkedIn and, you know, job sites all over the world, and they just wait for a fish to swim in. And so a certain percentage of people are going to answer.

[Michael Isikoff]

Yeah, and we should say that in the FBI affidavit that justified this action where they seized and took down these Internet domains. They did include other sources of information who did have access to classified information. So that goes under the category of the wide net. And, you know, from you, perhaps political intelligence or just some. Some sort of legitimacy with a mainstream political reporter that somehow they could use. But there were a lot of fascinating details in that affidavit, including how a lot of these companies, which have names like you, Centric. Right. Info Consulting was the one that reached out to you. There's something else called Centric Global Consulting, which, according to the affidavit, when the FBI tries to track down where they came from, who are these people? They say that this one, Centric Global, which is one of the principal ones, they trace it back to an office building in London that has a company called Company Formation Ltd, which is a complete shell. You have no idea who that. It's a company set up to set up shell companies. Right. And so at this stage, do we know who these people are, other than presumably Chinese intelligence operatives?

[Tom Lobianco]

Yeah, it seems to be Chinese intelligence. You know, they had some pseudonyms that they used. They also used fake identities, stolen identities. Like if you trace one of them, it goes back to, it's a lady down in Destin, Florida, and who's got a nice house. You know, it looks it up on Zillow and.

[Michael Isikoff]

And she's not a Chinese spy, she's not a Chinese bystander.

[Tom Lobianco]

Yes.

[Michael Isikoff]

Whose personal information they took and used to set up these phony companies.

[Tom Lobianco]

Yeah. And you can see, you know, it's fascinating, you dig through that affidavit, you can see the legwork that they did, doing what we doing. What we do here is report the story. All right, so that one of the agents flew down there, or whoever went down there and interviewed this lady, and they come back and they're like, yeah, she looks like a victim here, so she's probably not the front for this thing.

[Karen Greenberg]

Right.

[Michael Isikoff]

But then. But just getting to my question, I mean, nobody's been arrested, nobody's in custody as a result of this.

[Tom Lobianco]

No.

[Michael Isikoff]

Presumably they're somewhere overseas. But the question is, does the FBI know the real identities of these people who set up these phony companies?

[Tom Lobianco]

You know, I don't know that exactly, but based off the redactions, I think they do.

[Michael Isikoff]

I mean, there's some names redacted, but you don't know if they're real names

[Tom Lobianco]

or just the phony names.

[Jeff Stein]

They certainly would have investigated it.

[Tom Lobianco]

Yeah.

[Jeff Stein]

These leads, you know, they would have tracked these leads. Yeah, of course. In a hierarchy of priorities, this is probably not a high priority, but ongoing interest of the FBI.

[Karen Greenberg]

But it also. It's about how wide a net was cast, you know, I mean, how much were they. Once, you know, it could get too wide, so you don't know who's doing what and how to follow it. And it becomes rather a confusing mess. And the affidavit does not make you think that they were able to sift through everything and sort of. Right. I mean, it's got a kind of vagueness and breadth to it.

[Tom Lobianco]

No, there was. You know what? I remember this now. I just pull it up.

[Karen Greenberg]

This is.

[Tom Lobianco]

I read this last week after Iskof and I talked. I finally sat down, went through the entire document. They refer to somebody as. It was like subject A. So, like, the targets are. The websites are target domain 1, target domain 2. The recruiting subjects are recruit A, B, C, da da, da, da da. It's like all the way down to, like, I. I think I or J or something. But there is a subject who they refer to. I'm pretty sure it's a subject A who sounds like that is the person or at least the one that they were able to find. And I don't recall if they.

[Jeff Stein]

They mean one of the perps, one of the perpetrators of these. These ads. I want to get back to that, but we have to step away for just a second.

[Michael Isikoff]

Second.

[Jeff Stein]

Okay. We're back, Tom. So what next?

[Tom Lobianco]

Well, you know what's funny about this is, as I was going through this and I talked to a couple other folks, you know, just in general, about this, because best I can tell, this is the only time anyone's tried to recruit me as a foreign intelligence asset. I would be very happy if it's the last. Wouldn't mind that.

[Jeff Stein]

Did the FBI ask you to play along for them to turn you into one of their agents?

[Tom Lobianco]

No, they didn't.

[Jeff Stein]

Funny.

[Tom Lobianco]

Yeah. You know what they did say on the way out, and there are kind of two things they said, which, you know, I respect as a. As an investigative reporter myself. They asked me, they said, you know, look, we're doing this. You know, please don't. Don't disclose this, all right? You know, publicly. And I, you know, I opted for, yeah, I'm gonna respect that. And they said the other thing. They said, look, if, you know, anybody that's going through this, please, you know, send them our way. All right? Like, if you haven't any other reporters getting sucked into this, you know, just let them know that they can reach out to us.

[Michael Isikoff]

And so your, your outreach to the FBI was in 2024, and the FBI breaks open the case in June 2026. Did you have a heads up that this was coming and by the way, that you were going to be identified not by name, but as what persons see C recruit C in their affidavit that was publicly released?

[Tom Lobianco]

They did. You know, it's funny, the, the FBI office called me up and like, I don't know, like maybe a week before they, they dropped the press release and they filed the affidavit and they asked if I'd be willing to talk about it. Like if anybody was covering this, you know, wanted to interview me. I was like, yeah, for sure. You know, I go to, did they

[Michael Isikoff]

tell you anything else? Or we're about to pop this. We. It's, it is the Chinese.

[Tom Lobianco]

A lot of didn't give a lot of details, but then they sent me the thing when it landed and I was like, God damn, it was the Chinese. You know, like, you always have that, like that 98% feeling that like it's one of these. And then they get verified by like a two year federal investigation. Right. I mean, I guess it's not, you know, it hasn't been adjudicated. So we're at, we're at 99.9% certainty it's the Chinese.

[Jeff Stein]

But so they like you talking about it now because you can help raise public awareness of this scam that the Chinese run to draw people into their net and turn them into informants.

[Tom Lobianco]

You know, it was really interesting to me and I know I perpetually sound like a naive, even as I continue to lose my hair and get slightly grayer, but like, it was just really shocking to me, the people that, like, I don't know, like, they do this, you know, like, I use the example of, I talk about this constantly and I didn't say anything at the time because I going into the feds and they asked me not to talk about this investigation. But I mean, my God, Tim Pool and Benny Johnson getting $100,000 an episode from wherever. You didn't investigate where the money's coming from?

[Michael Isikoff]

Like, really, they were getting paid by the Russians, right?

[Tom Lobianco]

Yes, of course.

[Jeff Stein]

Pass the smell test right away, you

[Tom Lobianco]

know, and now, you know, and they don't live by the same professional standards that we do, you might say. Yeah, I know.

[Karen Greenberg]

Well, you know, there's that phrase in the affidavit, right? Wittingly or unwittingly.

[Tom Lobianco]

Yeah.

[Karen Greenberg]

And I thought that was really one of the more Interesting things. It's like, we don't care whether you knew, whatever that means or didn't know. You still should have known, right?

[Tom Lobianco]

Yes.

[Karen Greenberg]

And that's sort of. I think that sort of underscores what this is all about. But I'm still. One of the things they talk about is people with classified information or people with access to classified information, which they may or may not think reporters are secondary, you know, way past it to get that. But my question is, how would anybody with access to classified information or not be sensitized to this? How would anybody with access to classified information do this unwittingly? Does that make sense to you as a question, like, I don't understand it?

[Tom Lobianco]

I think the answer is, as you get further down into that affidavit, we find the people that went for the money recruit I, recruit J. And what becomes readily apparent from that. And sadly, you know, as you know, I think Jeff said there, you know, you wouldn't do this if it didn't work. Right? You know, this is the foreign intelligence would not be doing something that didn't work. So clearly it works. People, they go, they go for it and they write like, these, like, sample reports which they send into whoever this, you know, the perpetrator is, and they only raise it as a problem. And it's not clear to me from this whether or not they are confronted by the FBI or go to the FBI of their own accord, but they don't start cooperating with the feds until they don't get their money. It's like, dude, like, what the hell? And then how many people are there, like, out there? You know, like, by the way, time

[Michael Isikoff]

to play devil's advocate here a bit, especially on the winning versus unwitting aspect of this. There is, we all know folks who have been worked for the CIA, odni, other intelligence agencies, agencies, US Intelligence agencies who then go to work for foreign governments. I mean, the Saudis have had a field day hiring former CIA people who they assume have access to classified information or could give them sensitive information that they could not otherwise get. And those people are obviously doing it wittingly for the cash. So how is that different than the recruits who the Chinese were going after here?

[Tom Lobianco]

Yeah, right.

[Jeff Stein]

Money. Making a lot more money than some SAP who will write a consulting paper for a thousand bucks. Anyway, I should point out that we do this too. I wrote a story about the CIA's domestic division it keeps changing its name about again about a decade ago, and I included an anecdote how they placed Ads in Indian newspapers for consultants on rocket programs, aerodynamics and so on, knowing that the pay for these engineers in India is very low comparatively, of course. And so they see if they can get somebody to come for an interview. Right. And they, and if they got someone who might be willing and has access to kind of information the CIA wants, they'll eventually hire them and tell them what they're. Or pitch them and tell them what it's about.

[Michael Isikoff]

When you said we there, you meant the CIA. Yeah, spy talk. I just want. Yeah, no, we don't clarify it for our.

[Jeff Stein]

We don't have that kind of mothers. We don't have a rocket division.

[Michael Isikoff]

What was also kind of delicious in the affidavit is that these folks were not all that subtle in some respects. And I'm looking in particular at the passages about Recruit D, who does provide a report to one of these phony Chinese companies and then gets back a response which is kind of high. And then it's Recruit D. Nice to have your reply. I've just reviewed your report about the Middle East. First of all, I really appreciate your efforts to report, but as we told you before, we hope to have exclusive information rather than simple analysis. However, the report is full of. Your report is full of public information and well known facts, which is very superficial and not very useful.

[Jeff Stein]

Who was this written to, Mike?

[Michael Isikoff]

This was written to somebody named Recruit D on October of 2024. So a month or two after they had reached out to Tom. So my point is, and then they say, look, it's to show your sincerity and credibility. The company will still pay you $500, which will be given to you. But asking in the future, we want something, you know, not unlike messages I've gotten from editors over some of my stories. But, but as far as I know, those editors weren't working for a foreign intelligence service.

[Jeff Stein]

Well, Tom, you've had quite, quite an adventure. You got a, you have a great story to tell and, and a cautionary tale for anybody else who might need some money and is tempted to write an innocent sounding consulting report. Then they, they draw you in and they want to put you in a position where you collaborated to a degree that they've got something on you now. So.

[Tom Lobianco]

Yeah.

[Jeff Stein]

So thanks for coming on the show.

[Tom Lobianco]

Thank you.

[Jeff Stein]

And sharing the story with us.

[Tom Lobianco]

Gladly. Thanks, guys. Appreciate it.

[Michael Isikoff]

Really interesting.

[Karen Greenberg]

Thanks.

[Jeff Stein]

See you around. And that's, that's it for this week's SpyTalk. Be sure to check out our complete podcast archive on Apple or wherever you get your podcasts. And if you haven't already do, Check out the SpyTalk Co news site on Substack, where we offer steady diet of scoops and original analyses from the intersection of intelligence, foreign policy and military operations. Just Google Spy Talk and you'll quickly find your way there. This edition of the Spy Talk podcast was smoothly produced, as always by Kanai and expertly edited by Molly Hawkey for MSW Media. That's it. See you around. I'm Jeff Stein.

[Michael Isikoff]

I'm Mike Lisigoff.

[Karen Greenberg]

I'm Karen Greenberg.

[Jeff Stein]

Thanks for listening.

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For more original reporting and insights like this, subscribe to SpyTalk Co on substack and follow us on Twitter Ockspy. If you enjoyed our podcast, subscribe and leave a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Msw media.

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