The New York Times - USA (2020-10-10)

A18 Y THE NEW YORK TIMES NATIONALSATURDAY, OCTOBER 10, 2020

Charles M. Lieber, a prominent
scientist, filed a lawsuit against
Harvard on Friday, asserting that
the university abandoned him, in
a breach of contract, after the Jus-
tice Department charged Dr.
Lieber with concealing research
funds he had received from a Chi-
nese state-run initiative.
Dr. Lieber, a tenured professor
and leader in the field of nanoscale
electronics, was arrested in Janu-
ary, part of an aggressive push by
the Justice Department to root out
scientists transferring research
from American laboratories to
China.
And Dr. Lieber has been ag-
gressive in fighting back. Unlike
other scientists targeted by the
initiative — many of them Chinese
graduate students and re-
searchers working in American
laboratories — he has pleaded not
guilty to the charges. He hired a
criminal defense lawyer, Marc L.
Mukasey, who last year success-
fully defended Chief Petty Officer
Edward Gallagher, a former Navy
SEAL, against murder charges.
The lawsuit claims that Har-

vard failed to fulfill its contractual

obligations to Dr. Lieber because

it has refused to indemnify him or

contribute to his legal defense.

“Harvard is cooperating with

the United States attorney’s office

in the prosecution of Professor

Lieber,” the lawsuit says. “It is dis-

turbing that Harvard acted solely

in its own self-interest by turning

its back on a dedicated faculty

member who suffers from a termi-

nal illness and who is presumed

innocent. More importantly, it is il-

legal.”

Dr. Lieber has follicular lym-

phoma, a form of blood cancer, ac-

cording to his lawyer.

The lawsuit argues that Har-

vard, for years, benefited from Dr.

Lieber’s research, which attracted

$10 million in research grants to

the university, but then “left Pro-

fessor Lieber in the lurch, seeking

to distance itself from him

through denial of his advance-

ment and indemnification re-

quests.”

Jason Newton, a spokesman for

Harvard, said the university could

not comment on pending litiga-

tion.

Derek Adams, a former federal

prosecutor who has consulted

with universities on similar cases,

said universities typically dis-

tance themselves from re-

searchers who come under fed-

eral investigation because the in-

stitutions rely heavily on govern-

ment grants and because grant

submissions are made in the uni-

versity’s name.

“I’m not saying that the univer-

sities throw the professors under

the bus,” Mr. Adams said. “I just

think that when you have criminal

charges filed, in most cases it

makes it impossible for them to

continue to stand side by side.”

He said he was not aware of a

single case in which an accused

researcher had remained em-

ployed through a criminal trial, or

where a university had “taken

ownership themselves of miscon-

duct.”

Dr. Lieber came under federal

scrutiny in 2018, when investiga-

tors began questioning him about

secondary sources of income.

Prosecutors say he misled in-

vestigators and Harvard about

participating in a Chinese recruit-

ment program called Thousand

Talents, in which generous grants

are used to attract foreign-edu-

cated scientists to China.

This summer, he was charged

with failing to disclose his Chinese

sources of funding, filing false tax

returns and failing to file a report

of a foreign bank account. The

charges could result in a prison

term of more than 10 years or fines

of more than $500,000.

According to court documents,

Dr. Lieber signed an agreement to

become a “strategic scientist” at

Wuhan University of Technology

in China, entitling him to a $50,

monthly salary, $150,000 in annu-

al living expenses and more than

$1.5 million for a second laborato-

ry in Wuhan.

Prosecutors say he was in-

formed in 2012 that he had been

selected to participate in the

Thousand Talents plan. But in

2018, when investigators from the

Defense Department questioned

him about second sources of in-

come, he told them he had never

been invited to participate in

Thousand Talents, prosecutors

said.

Harvard was then required to

submit a detailed report about Dr.

Lieber to the National Institutes of

Health, which had provided $

million in grants for his research

projects. He told university offi-

cials that he “is not and has never

been” a participant in the Thou-

sand Talents plan, prosecutors

said.

Mr. Adams, a partner at Poto-

mac Law Group, said this element

of the charge put Harvard at odds

with its professor.

“Harvard’s interests clearly do

not align with Charles Lieber’s in-

terests,” he said. “Their interest is

in protecting Harvard University

so that trust is built back up be-

tween the school, N.I.H. and the

federal government. It would be a

challenging situation for Harvard

to stand shoulder-to-shoulder

with Charles Lieber.”

Professor Sues Harvard After His Arrest

By ELLEN BARRY

Charles M. Lieber, a leader in the field of nanoscale electronics,

says Harvard failed to fulfill its contractual obligation to aid him.

KATHERINE TAYLOR/REUTERS

A top scientist charged

with concealing funds

received from China.

CHICAGO — Kyle Rittenhouse,
a 17-year-old accused in the fatal
shootings of two protesters dur-
ing demonstrations in Kenosha,
Wis., has become a cause célèbre
for conservatives who insist he
acted in self-defense. Hundreds
of thousands of dollars from

strangers have poured into his le-

gal fund. And on Friday, his law-

yer successfully delayed a typical-

ly routine extradition from his

home state of Illinois, arguing that

Mr. Rittenhouse should remain in

a facility there for his own safety

rather than be transferred to Wis-

consin where he is to face charges

in the deaths.

“There is danger to this detain-

ee,” John M. Pierce, a lawyer for

Mr. Rittenhouse, said in a court

hearing on Friday, adding that the

situation surrounding Mr. Ritten-

house’s prosecution had been in-

flamed by the presidential elec-

tion.

Mr. Rittenhouse appeared on a

live video stream from a juvenile

detention facility in Lake County,

Ill., wearing a face mask and a

baggy black shirt, and staying si-

lent during the proceedings.

Judge Paul B. Novak of Lake

County Circuit Court scheduled

another hearing on Mr. Ritten-

house’s extradition, which his law-

yer has promised to fight, for Oct.

30.

Though brief, the hearing on

Friday, coupled with court filings

this week, offered a glimpse into

what could be Mr. Rittenhouse’s

defense during a trial.

Mr. Rittenhouse has been

charged with six criminal counts,

including first-degree intentional

homicide, for the shootings on

Aug. 25 that left two protesters

dead and a third injured. The

shootings occurred after scuffles

broke out between demonstra-

tors, who were protesting a white

police officer’s shooting of Jacob

Blake, a Black Kenosha resident,

and armed civilians with guns

who said they had come to down-

town Kenosha to protect busi-

nesses and private property after

two nights of fires, looting and de-

struction.

In court filings, Mr. Ritten-

house’s lawyers described him as

a teenager who was not part of

those scuffles, but a citizen who

“answered his patriotic and civic

duty to serve nearby Kenosha,

Wis., during a destructive insur-

rection.”

The court filings say that Mr.

Rittenhouse was there to work as

a medic, carried his own medical

bag “to provide first aid and had a

rifle to protect himself.”

Before Mr. Rittenhouse shot his

gun, the court filing says, he was

being chased into a parking lot

and was “under grave risk of im-

mediate harm.”

Video footage from that night

shows that Mr. Rittenhouse was

being pursued by a group of peo-

ple, including one of the men he

subsequently shot and killed. That

man, Joseph Rosenbaum, was

shirtless and, according to a crimi-

nal complaint filed in August, un-

armed. After shooting Mr. Rosen-

baum, the complaint said, Mr. Rit-

tenhouse ran away and “can be

heard saying on the phone, ‘I just

killed somebody.’ ”

The sheriff of Kenosha County,

David Beth, has said that though

Wisconsin is an open-carry state,

he did not approve of the actions of

the armed men who patrolled the

streets of Kenosha during the un-

rest.

However, the police officers and

National Guardsmen who were

under his command did not at-

tempt to intervene during physi-

cal scuffles between armed men

and protesters. Police officers did

not appear at any point to check

the identification of Mr. Ritten-

house, who as a minor was not

permitted under Wisconsin law to

carry a gun openly in public.

Instead, authorities in an ar-

mored vehicle that night handed

water bottles to Mr. Rittenhouse

and others, and thanked them for

patrolling the streets.

Mr. Rittenhouse was taken into

custody the day after the shoot-

ings at his home in Antioch, Ill., a

town about a 30-minute drive

from Kenosha.

In the weeks following his ar-

rest, Mr. Rittenhouse has become

a minor hero within the most con-

servative elements of the Republi-

can Party.

Representative Thomas Massie

of Kentucky told a local radio host

that Mr. Rittenhouse showed “in-

credible restraint.” Marjorie Tay-

lor Greene, a Georgia Republican

likely to win a House seat, called

him “an innocent child.” Murals li-

onizing him appeared in Colorado.

Last month Mr. Rittenhouse’s

mother, Wendy, received a stand-

ing ovation at an event hosted by

the Waukesha County Republican

Party.

Even President Trump sug-

gested that Mr. Rittenhouse’s ac-

tions were legitimate.

“He was trying to get away

from them, I guess, it looks like,”

Mr. Trump said during a news

conference in August. “I guess he

was in very big trouble. He proba-

bly would have been killed.”

At the same time, two of Mr. Rit-

tenhouse’s lawyers, L. Lin Wood

and Lawson Pedigo, say they have

raised close to $2 million for his le-

gal defense fund. Mr. Wood, like

Ms. Greene, has frequently posted

slogans from QAnon, the sprawl-

ing, far-right conspiracy theories

that posit the world is run by Sa-

tan-worshiping pedophiles plot-

ting against Mr. Trump while op-

erating a global child sex-traffick-

ing ring.

Mr. Wood and Mr. Pedigo did

not return requests for comment.

Nor did officials with the Wauke-

sha County Republican Party or

Ms. Rittenhouse.

Extradition Is Delayed for 17-Year-Old Accused of Killing Two Protesters in Kenosha

A glimpse into what

Kyle Rittenhouse’s

legal defense may be.

By JULIE BOSMAN

Reid J. Epstein contributed report-

ing from Washington. Susan C.

Beachy contributed research.

For the past decade, gun own-
ers dressed in flak jackets and
camouflage fatigues have brought
their rifles into the Michigan Leg-
islature at least twice every year,
asserting their vehement support
for gun rights by displaying weap-
ons in the hallways.
This spring, those gatherings
intensified as participants turned
what had been a declaration about
the Second Amendment into a
protest over how far the govern-
ment could go in limiting individ-
ual behavior amid the pandemic.
Hundreds turned out to demand
an end to lockdowns, social dis-
tancing and mask wearing.
Among the demonstrators who
stormed into the Capitol to protest
those measures were two broth-
ers who have now been charged
as part of an extremist plot to kid-
nap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and
to commit other violence. The
brothers subscribed to a larger
anti-government movement that
has evolved in Michigan and
throughout the United States over
decades, but was spurred on this
year by the pandemic, social jus-
tice protests and the presidential
election.
With its fervent gun culture and
its gaping differences between ur-
ban and rural populations, Michi-
gan has seen its divisions grow
ever wider since at least the 1990s,
when armed groups on the right
adopted increasingly extreme po-
sitions on limiting the govern-
ment’s power.
The brothers are among 13 men
who face a variety of charges re-
lated to the kidnapping plot, in-
cluding terrorism, conspiracy and
weapons possession. The authori-
ties said the men were also affiliat-
ed with an extremist group called
the Wolverine Watchmen, which
court documents called “an anti-
government, anti-law enforce-
ment militia group.” Such groups
have existed in Michigan for dec-
ades, most notably in 1994 with
the formation of the Michigan Mi-
litia.
“There have been militia-type
groups in Michigan even before
we started using the phrase do-
mestic terrorism,” said Bill Bal-
lenger, a former Republican state
senator who represented a rural
area. “Before it never got to
armed insurrection or an attempt
to overthrow the government or
assassinate people or anything
like that.”
In a sense, experts said, the
fight over measures like mask re-
quirements to contain the spread

of the virus was the latest exam-

ple of what these groups see as

government overreach. “It is re-

ally the perfect issue for far-right

conspiracy theorists to rally

around,” said Daniel Levitas, a

lawyer and the author of “The Ter-

rorist Next Door,” a history of ex-

tremist groups.

In the early 1990s, armed

groups in Michigan, and around

the country, were formed in reac-

tion to bloody federal sieges

against Randy Weaver and his

family in Ruby Ridge, Idaho, in

1992 and against an armed cult in

Waco, Texas, in 1993. The latter

ended with the death of 76 people.

The new far-right organizations

accused the government of tyr-

anny and began conducting para-

military training and obtaining

military equipment.

Timothy McVeigh and Terry

Nichols, later convicted of bomb-

ing a federal office building in Ok-

lahoma City in April 1995, killing

168 people, attended some of the

earliest meetings of the Michigan

Militia. The gory details from the

trial diminished the appeal of such

groups, but they continued to ex-

ist.

“It has been a particularly fer-

tile place for them,” said Mark Pit-

cavage, a senior research fellow

with the Anti-Defamation

League’s Center on Extremism.

Various violent plots emerged

in Michigan during the 1990s and

2000s, including the murder of a

state police officer. In the 1990s,

there was a plot to attack Camp

Grayling in northern Michigan be-

cause Russian tanks captured

during the gulf war and used there

for training were seen as part of a

scheme to store armaments for a

Communist invasion of Michigan,

Mr. Levitas said.

In 2010, the F.B.I. arrested five

members of a group called the

Hutaree and charged them with

sedition based on a plot to over-

throw the government, but a fed-

eral judge threw out most of the

charges based on lack of evidence.

Various factors contribute to

the current strength of the anti-

government movement in Michi-

gan, including the collapse of the

auto industry, which stripped the

state of countless jobs, said Amy

Cooter, a senior sociology lecturer

at Vanderbilt University in Nash-

ville, Tenn., who has been study-

ing such groups for a decade.

“We’ve always had some

groups who had the potential to

take things very personally,” she

said, and they saw Ms. Whitmer’s

handling of the pandemic as an af-

front. “They didn’t think it was be-

ing handled appropriately,” she

said.

The pandemic hit much harder

in cities like Detroit compared

with rural areas, and the governor

drew criticism from some parts of

the state by using executive or-

ders to put into place one-size-fits-

all measures that treated counties

with very few cases the same way

as urban centers. She often

clashed with President Trump,

who during the protests tweeted,

“Liberate Michigan!”

Accusations by the president

that Democrats like Ms. Whitmer

were trying to steal the election

have fed a certain paranoia and

anxiety about the government

that is standard among many of

these extremist groups, experts

said.

“It’s feeding into their beliefs

that Trump will not get a fair

shake and they’re seeing the open

tensions between Trump and

Whitmer,” Dr. Cooter said.

The anti-government move-

ments in Michigan share ideology

with other far-right groups across

the country.

One of the men accused this

week, Joseph Morrison, is consid-

ered the leader of the Wolverine

Watchmen and used the online

name Boogaloo Bunyan.

Adherents of the boogaloo

movement express strong anti-

government sentiments. The

name “boogaloo” is a pop culture

reference derived from a 1984

movie flop that became a cult clas-

sic called “Breakin’ 2: Electric

Boogaloo.” It went through vari-

ous mutations online and

emerged sometimes as the “Big

Luau.”

That is why adherents some-

times wear Hawaiian shirts, in-

cluding numerous armed pro-

testers at the State Capitol in Lan-

sing, Mich., in April. At least one of

the men charged this week had

posted a picture of himself in a Ha-

waiian shirt.

The six men directly accused of

plotting to kidnap the governor

seemed to adhere to a slightly dif-

ferent ideology, experts said, one

that relied on a distorted interpre-

tation of the Constitution. They

contend it upholds individual lib-

erty over all else, with people al-

lowed to make citizen’s arrests

against those who infringe on

such rights. They labeled Ms.

Whitmer a “tyrant,” and often

couch their beliefs in the language

of the American Revolution.

Both movements believe that

only a new revolution or civil war

will prevent the government from

trying to control Americans, with

the best government being almost

none at all. Anti-immigrant, Is-

lamophobic and anti-Semitic sen-

timents are widespread.

Given that many such groups

support Mr. Trump, they have di-

minished their ire toward the fed-

eral government and focused on

state governments instead, Mr.

Pitcavage said.

Most lawmakers in the state

strongly condemned the violent

threat to Ms. Whitmer.

“A threat against our Governor

is a threat against us all,” State

Senator Mike Shirkey, a Republi-

can, wrote in a tweet on Thursday.

But others adopted the false

line that it was all a left-wing plot.

“Anarchists want to destroy the

government,” said State Repre-

sentative Beau LaFave, a Republi-

can, who blamed the governor for

“turning up the heat on the parti-

san divide in the state.”

Mark Koernke, a broadcaster

whose support of the Michigan

Militia helped its spread in the

early 1990s, wrote on Facebook,

“Same FBI that let antifa burn

down the country now attacking

militia in Michigan to promote the

Communist agenda.”

State Senator Dayna Polehanki,

a Democrat, took pictures on April

30 of the protesters with rifles in

the State Legislature, including

two of the men arrested in the plot

against the governor. She said she

saw no hope that the divided, Re-

publican-dominated Legislature

would act any time soon to ban

armed protesters from the build-

ing.

“Maybe they were recruiting

that day, or sending up a trial bal-

loon for how it might go some-

where down the road,” she said.

“To learn that the men in that

photo are co-conspirators shakes

me to my core.”

Michigan Produced ‘Fertile’ Ground, and the Extremist Groups Grew

By NEIL MacFARQUHAR

and KATHLEEN GRAY

From right, William Null and Michael Null in April. They have been charged as part of a plot to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

SETH HERALD/REUTERS