Thread by @beth_halford

I'm back at the Moakley courthouse in Boston for another day of the #LieberTrial. I wish I could take a photo from the lobby outside the courtroom. The view of Boston Harbor is splendid on this sunny day. Testimony should begin at 9 am EST with FBI agent Kara Spice.

The gov't is pointing out Lieber's affiliations on publications and the funding agencies in the acknowledgements section. Today it is a Nature Nanotechnology paper. Yesterday it was NanoLetters.

The gov't presented emails from Lieber in 2013 and 2014 which he is unhappy about not being selected as a foreign associate to the Chinese Academy of Sciences

Further emails from 2014 about getting funding from WUT to support grad students in Lieber's lab and an email about Lieber using his bank account in China.

By 2015, Lieber says in an email he does not want to be a top level expert at WUT.

In April 2018, Dept of Defense special agent reaches out to Lieber and Lieber emails a colleague that he is worried.

These are all from emails the gov't is presenting.

Gov't presents a 2018 email from Lieber to someone in China saying NIH is threatening to take away his funding and asking him to repay his last 3 years of funding.

Special agent Spice is now testifying about her interview with Lieber following his arrest on Jan. 28, 2020.

The gov't is now playing video clips from this interview.

Lieber tells investigators in the interview that he was not a heavy traveler and was never in China for more than a week each year. Says Harvard has all the records of his travel going back to 2008.

Lieber says in the interview that he thinks China uses money to “try to seduce people”.

He adds he was only paid by WUT to reimburse airfare, and says he’s not sure if he was in the Thousand Talents Plan, saying he probably did sign a document at Wuhan.

We're taking a short break now and will return to the videotaped interview in about 15 minutes.

There's a lot in the most recent video clip from the interview. Lieber seems shocked that the salary is supposed to have been paid. Starts to recall a bank account he has in China but says he hasn't been able to access it in the US.

When asked why he helped WUT, Lieber says in the interview that he ultimately did it not for any money but because he wanted to win a Nobel Prize.

During the FBI interview Lieber is asked about cash he was paid in China. “I guess I brought it back,”... “If I brought it back, I didn’t declare it and that’s illegal.” When asked what he did with the money, Lieber says he doesn't know and that his wife handled it.

He's asked how much cash he received in China and says he's not sure. “It could be more than $50,000 but I honestly think it must be less than $100,000” because he would remember.

Lieber goes on to say that he never took money from his bank account in China but did once check the balance while he was in the country and estimates there was about $200,000 in the account.

There's a lot more in the video that I will try to include it my summary later.

Mukasey is now beginning to cross-examine FBI special agent Spice. He is asking her if she is aware of the dispute Lieber had with Harvard. And she says she was not.

Mukasey is asking Spice if she has any record of deposits or withdrawals from Lieber's Chinese bank account and he says he does not.

Sorry. she says she does not.

Spice also says she has never seen evidence that any money was ever deposited in or withdrawn from that account.

Now Mukasey is asking what Spice knows about Liqiang Mai, and she says only what's in the emails she has read. She has never spoken to him.

Mukasey asked Spice if she ever saw a paystub for Lieber from WUT or the Thousand Talents Program and she says no. And he asks Spice to confirm that there is nothing illegal about the Thousand Talents Program, and she says no.

Now court is in recess for the weekend. More later today in my summary for @cenmag