The United States is abandoning the case against the MIT professor accused of links with China
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WASHINGTON – Justice Department dropped case on Thursday against Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor accused of hiding ties with Chinese government, another setback to federal initiative to prevent Beijing from benefiting from investigation academic in American colleges and universities.
The department revealed its decision in the case against Gang Chen in a one-page filing in Boston federal court, saying it could no longer comply with its burden of proof.
U.S. Attorney General Rachael Rollins, Massachusetts’ chief federal prosecutor, said the measure was “in the interests of justice” and was the result of new information the government had received about the allegations.
“After a careful evaluation of this new information in the context of all the evidence, our office has concluded that we can no longer meet our burden of proof at trial,” Rollins said.
The result, which was previously expected and recommended by Boston prosecutors, is a blow to a Justice Department effort known as the China Initiative, which was set up in 2018 to crack down on Chinese economic espionage and theft of trade secrets.
One of the key aspects of the initiative has focused on U.S. academics accused of hiding research ties with China in grant applications, but critics have said it has unduly targeted researchers based on ethnicity.
The Justice Department is currently reviewing the future of the program, a process that is expected to be completed in the coming weeks, said spokesman Wyn Hornbuckle.
Chen, a professor of mechanical engineering at MIT, was arrested in the last days of the Trump administration and accused last year of hiding ties with Beijing while raising US dollars for his research in nanotechnology.
Prosecutors accused him at the time of signing undisclosed contracts and appointments with Chinese entities, including acting as a “foreign expert” for the Chinese government at the request of the Consulate Office of the People’s Republic of China in New York.
Many of these papers were “expressly intended to further the scientific and technological objectives of the PRC,” authorities said in court documents.
He was accused of failing to disclose information about connections with China in an application for a Department of Energy grant. Chen’s lawyers have consistently said that he did nothing wrong and that he revealed what he was supposed to reveal.
The case began to falter as the government received new information, including from the Department of Energy, a person familiar with the matter said last week.
In a statement Thursday, defense attorney Robert Fisher called the case a “whimsical indictment” and said his client was anxious to get back to work. He thanked “many witnesses who came forward and told the government how they misunderstood the details of scientific and academic collaboration.”
“Our defense was this: Gang did not commit any of the crimes he was accused of. Dot. He was never on a talent show. He was never a foreign scientist for Beijing. He revealed everything he was supposed to do. he had to reveal and never lied to the government or anyone, “Fisher said in a statement.
Many of the China Initiative cases that focused on teachers have focused on allegations of grant fraud, rather than allegations that investigators tried to pass on academic or secret studies in China.
The initiative won a landslide victory last month with the conviction of a Harvard University professor accused of hiding his links to a China-led recruitment program.
But other major cases presented as part of the China Initiative have failed.
A federal judge dismissed all charges in September against a University of Tennessee professor accused of hiding his relationship with a Chinese university while receiving NASA research grants, and the university has since offered to rejoin. -lo.
Critics of the China Initiative have called on the Justice Department to close the program. The department’s top national security official, Matthew Olsen, met Wednesday with members of the Caucus of the U.S. Asia-Pacific Congress, who expressed concern.
Andrew Lelling, who was the U.S. attorney in Boston when Chen was indicted, wrote in a LinkedIn post several weeks ago that the “initiative has drifted and somehow significantly lost its The DOJ should renew and close parts of the program to prevent unnecessary scientific and business partnerships with Chinese partners. “
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