WASHINGTON — The U.S. Justice Department says it filed a civil complaint on October 1 seeking to revoke Ping Li’s naturalized citizenship, extending a case that already produced a criminal guilty plea and a four-year prison sentence.
The new filing does not reopen the question of whether Li committed the federal offense at issue in the criminal case. In August 2024, Li pleaded guilty to conspiring to act as an agent of the People’s Republic of China without notifying the attorney general. In November 2024, a federal judge sentenced him to 48 months in prison, imposed a $250,000 fine and ordered three years of supervised release.
According to the plea agreement as summarized by the Justice Department, Li admitted that from at least 2012 he worked as a cooperative contact at the direction of officers of China’s Ministry of State Security. The department said he obtained and reported information concerning Chinese dissidents, pro-democracy advocates, Falun Gong practitioners and U.S.-based nongovernmental organizations, and also supplied information obtained through his employers.
The October 2026 complaint is a separate civil action. The Justice Department alleges that Li’s conduct shows he was not attached to the principles of the U.S. Constitution and was not well disposed to the good order and happiness of the United States when he naturalized. On that basis, the government is asking a federal court to revoke his citizenship.
That request is not itself a judgment. The criminal plea and sentence are established facts; the denaturalization theory is an allegation that the government must prove in civil court. The Justice Department’s October 5 announcement expressly says that claims in the complaints are allegations and that no determination of liability has been made.
Why the distinction matters
Denaturalization is a civil remedy with consequences different from a criminal sentence. Reporting should therefore separate three stages: the 2024 criminal charge, the guilty plea and sentence, and the new civil effort to revoke citizenship. Combining them into a single claim risks implying that the latest requested remedy has already been granted.
FCM assessment
The established record shows why democratic governments must protect dissidents and civil-society groups from foreign intelligence collection. It also shows why accountability is strongest when legal boundaries remain clear. A conviction may support a new civil case, but it does not eliminate the government’s burden to prove the elements required for denaturalization.