Six appearances while serving on the secret FISA Court—including one as its presiding judge.
The exchange advertised exclusive access to American officials. Its repeat hosts included the judge who led the nation’s secret surveillance court.
Judge James Boasberg, who confronted the Trump administration over its 2025 deportation flights, was a nine-time host for a Chinese law exchange funded by a Chinese Communist Party-linked spy front.
Six of those annual host credits came while Boasberg served on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. One came in 2020, when he was its presiding judge. The court reviews some of the government’s most sensitive applications for foreign-intelligence surveillance and searches.
The funding connection appears in the program’s own recruitment material.
“The program is also underwritten by the China-United States Exchange Foundation,” states a 2023 Washington program flyer published by Tsinghua University.
That foundation, known as CUSEF, is part of Beijing’s United Front system, which combines political influence with intelligence operations. In a November 2025 warning, House China committee Chairman John Moolenaar identified CUSEF as an instrument of CCP political warfare and warned that organizations like it help the party “identify foreigners who the party could exploit.”
At his 2021 confirmation hearing, William Burns said he had ended the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s relationship with CUSEF after becoming the think tank’s president.
“We were increasingly worried about the expansion of Chinese influence operations,” Burns told the Senate Intelligence Committee.
Two years after that testimony, CUSEF’s name and logo appeared on a flyer recruiting Chinese law students for a Washington program whose hosts included Boasberg.
The US-Asia Institute, or USAI, which runs the exchange, kept a detailed accounting of his participation. Its annual host lists place Boasberg in the program every year from 2015 through 2020, then again in 2022, 2023 and 2024. The latest roster labels him a “9X Host.”
His official court biography puts his FISA service between May 2014 and May 2021, including his tenure as presiding judge beginning in January 2020. That year’s exchange was conducted online.
USAI also published photographic evidence of the access. A program overview shows Boasberg seated at a courtroom’s judicial dais with five Chinese fellows standing beside and behind him. The photograph is captioned as a 2015 visit—during his FISA tenure.
Boasberg seated at a judicial dais with five Chinese law fellows in a photograph USAI dates to 2015.
The recruitment pitch put access front and center.
The Tsinghua flyer promised “exclusive conversations with influential actors” across American government, law and business, along with opportunities to observe proceedings that “few are ever able to witness firsthand.” Applicants had to be Chinese citizens studying law at Chinese universities, with sufficient English to converse with senior American leaders. The program offered lodging, local transportation and some meals, placing participants at a hotel near the Capitol and Supreme Court.
CUSEF’s ties to the Communist Party run through its founding leadership.
Founder Tung Chee-hwa served from 2005 to 2023 as a vice chairman of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, a central institution in the CCP’s United Front system. In a November 2025 letter, House Select Committee on China Chairman John Moolenaar described CUSEF as an instrument of Beijing’s political warfare and efforts to shape American views of China.
The letter cited Senate Intelligence Committee proceedings identifying CUSEF as “a united front-linked organization that advances Chinese Communist Party interests.” It warned that CUSEF-supported programs can help the party cultivate future leaders and build influence inside American institutions.
The law exchange also had a Communist Party official involved at its inception.
USAI’s account of the program’s founding says J. Matthew Szymanski developed it with his teaching partner Sun Chao in Shanghai. Together, they selected the first student to visit Washington in 2008.
USAI called Sun Minhang District’s “top official.” His actual position was Communist Party secretary of the district. A separate USAI background booklet documents his participation in selecting students for the 2012 Washington program as well.
The institute maintained wider connections with Chinese political institutions. It reports taking more than 1,500 congressional staff members to China, working with the Chinese People’s Institute of Foreign Affairs and the National People’s Congress.
The judicial relationships could outlast the students’ visits by years.
In an August 2018 alumni letter published by USAI, Chenyuan “Sarah” Fu described meeting U.S. District Judge Ellen Huvelle through the 2011 program and staying in contact afterward.
“She has provided me with tremendous support in my personal and professional life,” Fu wrote.
Fu framed the relationship as part of the program’s goal of improving understanding between Americans and Chinese. USAI describes the exchange as education in American law and government.
Its own publicity makes clear how far that educational access reached: a 2025 overview reported meetings with more than 140 judges. It credits Samuel Alito with two appearances, Brett Kavanaugh with three and Ketanji Brown Jackson with four, with Kavanaugh and Jackson participating while serving on lower courts.
https://nataliegwinters.substack.com/p/judge-boasberg-was-a-nine-time-host
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