Nvidia Chief Told Trump He Did Not Know Chinese Woman Was Suspected Spy

President Trump told reporters Monday that he believed Jensen Huang's account and said he did not recall receiving a briefing warning him about Mr. Huang's liaison.

President Trump said Monday that Jensen Huang, the chief executive of Nvidia, told him that he was not aware that a Chinese businesswoman with whom he was having a romantic relationship was an intelligence operative for Beijing.

"I asked him that question: 'Did you have any idea that she was a spy?'" Mr. Trump told reporters at the White House. "He said, 'I had no idea that she was a spy,' and I really believe him.'"

Mr. Trump's comments followed a series of reports by The New York Times revealing that U.S. officials had concluded that the woman, who goes by Alice Huang, had been recruited by China's main spy agency, and that Mr. Trump and other top officials had been warned about the relationship.

The Times reported last month that Mr. Trump had been briefed roughly a year ago about electronic surveillance showing that Ms. Huang was believed by the U.S. intelligence community to be an operative for China's government. The president chose not to do anything with the information at the time.

Marco Rubio, the national security adviser and secretary of state, oversaw the drafting of a highly classified memo in the spring, warning top Trump administration officials about Ms. Huang and intelligence assessments that she was a spy for China's Ministry of State Security, The Times reported Friday.

On Monday, Mr. Trump said that he did not recall receiving the information.

Asked whether he knew about the "alleged ties with the Chinese spy" in May when the president invited Mr. Huang aboard Air Force One on a trip to China, the president said, "No, I didn't hear about it then."

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