alt Hacker Newsremember, the only evidence of any criminal activity here is the leak of this story, which is a felony unless directly authorized by a classified executive order.
> The close relationship between the president and Mr. Huang has impeded efforts to clamp down on Nvidia’s chip sales abroad, current and former U.S. officials said.
> This account is based on interviews with people briefed on the surveillance
the most likely scenario here is that the faction that supports export bans leaked the initial story to try to blackmail Huang into dropping his support for free trade, he refused, so they released the package to damage him as much as possible. likely route, based on the named sources, is senate or house intel agency staffers, using elected officials and classified briefings as cover.
NY Times, Jonathan Swan, and Maggie Haberman would identify this as being firmly located in the anti-Trump faction, so unless it is some super devious reverse play, which seems unlikely for Trump, it is a criminal leak.