I bet it’ll be easy for him to overturn the charges. Unless he’s accused of passing classified info, it’s not apparent what he - as a non National - can be charged with. Only thing I can think of is something related to the post-1989 weapons embargo. Being an unprincipled douche is not a crime, unfortunately.
What Brett said. It’ll be interesting to see what comes out, but this seems more complex than he taught Chinese pilots so he’s obvi doing treason and giving up all the secrets. Bet it’s more focused on some technicality.
He could have violated some sanctions and we go after non-citizens for that. Meng Wanzhou, the founder of Huawei's daughter and its CFO, was charged by the US for violating US sanctions against Iran because the transactions went through the US banking system at some point. We have a pretty expansive reach when it comes to being able to charge folks who are not US citizens or are not even in the US for violating US laws, just ask folks from Viktor Bout to the FIFA board members about that.
One thing that I keep coming back to, the fact that this guy gave up his American citizenship. I don't have much issue with folks who give up their American citizenship for whatever reason but a former US servicemember who does so, especially an officer, piques my interest. It wasn't necessary as Australia doesn't require giving up others citizenships to become an Aussie citizen, and he didn't join the RAAF which would be a good reason. So why give it up? Money has become a big reason lately, income reporting requirements for US citizens who earn income or have accounts overseas have become stricter and more onerous in the last decade or so even if they don't reside in the US. So if that is the reason you have to wonder if someone is willing to give up their citizenship to save money what else would they be willing to do for some $, or ¥ in this case?