The Charles Lieber Conspiracy

a connect-the-dots game

Do you remember the Charles Lieber Conspiracy?

According to The Harvard Crimson in April 2020, it went something like this:

As the novel coronavirus spreads, conspiracy theories about its origin have spread with it — including those falsely alleging that the virus was made and sold by Harvard Chemistry professor Charles M. Lieber.

Posts falsely claiming that Lieber was arrested for creating and selling the novel coronavirus have been shared more than 79,000 times on Facebook as of April 7, according to Reuters. Thousands of posts on Twitter and several YouTube videos have made similarly baseless claims connecting Lieber with the creation of the virus.

Here was the official story from the same article:

In fact, Lieber was arrested in January for allegedly concealing Chinese funding and lying to federal agents. While he reportedly participated in Chinese government research programs in Wuhan — the same city where the novel coronavirus originated — there is no evidence to suggest that Lieber, a nanoscientist, engineered a biological agent, nor did the federal government press charges against him related to the coronavirus.

Lieber, who is currently on paid administrative leave, did not respond to a request for comment.

A growing body of scientific evidence suggests the novel coronavirus originated in nature, without data to the contrary.

A coalition of over 25 public health scientists and medical professionals signed a letter in the medical journal The Lancet to “strongly condemn” theories suggesting the virus was artificially constructed. (emphasis mine)

“Scientists from multiple countries have published and analysed genomes of the causative agent, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2), and they overwhelmingly conclude that this coronavirus originated in wildlife,” they wrote. “Conspiracy theories do nothing but create fear, rumours, and prejudice that jeopardise our global collaboration in the fight against this virus.”

There is no evidence to suggest… I see this phrase a lot.

The story, like the science, has “evolved” since that time.

So some of us have done some digging:

What was Charles Lieber really up to in 2020? What was in the vials? And what is his role in making us "hackable animals?"

I personally think the promoted version of the conspiracy theory is a straw man (just like most promoted versions are, and certainly everything fact-checkers debunk).

Lieber was into injectable mind control technology. I suspect he’s part of a bigger picture, one that Josha Stylman covers in great detail in his MKUltra Series. It’s not that I link him to MKUltra in the way we think of MKUltra, but I do think he was probably more interested in what was going into the syringes, and what data could be collected from the injected.

In Los Angeles Magazine, Michele McPhee explains:

Federal investigators had learned that Lieber—who worked on virus research as part of his military sponsored grant work—had been spending a lot of time in Wuhan, trips that he hid from Harvard and lied about to the Department of Defense for years.

…But Lieber had not only been double dipping; prosecutors would also later prove that he had agreed to work for the Chinese government as a “strategic scientist” at the Wuhan University of Technology, where he was the director at $1.5 million research center called “the WUT-Harvard Joint Nano Key Laboratory,” as a member of the CCP’s controversial Thousand Talents Plan, which U.S. counterterrorism official have repeatedly described as an elaborate espionage operation and one of the greatest threats to American national security.

Lieber’s partnership with a lab in Wuhan, and the increasingly viable possibility that a lab error led to release of the deadly COVID-19 outbreak, has sparked what his attorneys call “shocking and unspeakable harassment,” connected with speculative allegations that whatever research he was conducting here could be related to “causing the Coronavirus outbreak.” (Lieber has steadfastly denied the allegation, which prosecutors have never alleged in his case.)

…On the same day Lieber was arrested, the Department of Justice announced it had issued an arrest warrant for a Boston researcher, Yanqing Ye, then 29, a Chinese national and lieutenant in the CCP’s Peoples Liberation Army…She fled back to China and remains at large.

A second Chinese national, Zaosong Zheng, whose student visa to work at a Harvard-affiliated nanotechnology lab had been sponsored by the university, was indicted days after Lieber’s arrest on charges that he was caught smuggling “21 vials of biological research,” bundled in socks hidden in his checked back for a flight to China…

It remains unclear if Lieber sponsored those lab assistants, but the government pointed out in its sentencing memo that Lieber, “without consulting anyone at Harvard, committed Harvard to a formal academic exchange program with WUT, enabling WUT students to travel to Harvard to work in Lieber’s lab, including on U.S. government-funded projects. Lieber supervised WUT students both in China and at his Harvard lab.”

And much of Lieber’s DoD sponsored research was directly related to biowarfare, the weaponization of viruses, and artificial intelligence, which has led to increased speculation about Lieber and the lab leak, which his lawyers say has led to unrelenting online attacks. (emphasis mine)

Substacker Laura Garcia dug up his associations with Moderna co-founder Robert Langer. You can read about that here.

Ultimately, Lieber was convicted of concealing Chinese funding and lying to federal agents, evaded prison due to incurable cancer (that was apparently diagnosed sometime between his conviction and his sentencing) and, two years later, landed another gig at a China’s Tsinghua Shenzhen International Graduate School (SIGS) on April 28.

Harvard's Charles Lieber, who evaded prison in 2023 due to "incurable" cancer, takes new position at Chinese university

https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2021/4/7/lieber-prepares-for-trial/

Tsinghua University seems to have has its eye on him since at least 2013, when Tsinghua University Press honored Lieber with the first Nano Research Award it had ever bestowed. Shortly thereafter, in 2014, the university launched a partnership between the University of California, Berkeley, Tsinghua University and the Shenzhen municipal government promoting research collaboration and graduate student education focusing on nanotechnology/nanomedicine, new energy technologies, data science and next-generation internet.

Lieber’s new position seems to bring these efforts full circle.

Digging Deeper

None of this has been sitting right with me. So I’ve been revisiting some of the articles, trying to figure out how Lieber could have just miraculously recovered to pick up right where he left off with virtually zero repercussions. His brain and nanotechnology research seems very important to a lot of people. He co-authored and published at least 8 studies and filed for at least one patent (on work contracted by the NIH) since his 2020 arrest and somehow got a judge’s permission to make numerous trips to China while supposedly on house arrest.

Lieber clearly has some influential supporters. Many vocally opposed his prosecution and the threat it allegedly posed to science:

His arrest drew backlash from many prominent scientists, including seven Nobel laureates and more than two dozen Harvard professors, who signed an open letter calling his prosecution “unjust.” The letter cautioned that similar legal actions could have a “chilling effect” on global scientific collaboration. https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2025/5/5/charles-lieber-china-professorship/

(Among these scientists are Moderna co-founder Robert Langer and Sir Andre K. Geim, who won a Nobel Prize in Physics in 2010 for his work with graphene. You might call them the scientific elite. I really wish the whole list would consider the “chilling effect” of some of their work on humanity.)

The scientific community was also quick to reframe the narrative around the China Initiative and prime us for a light sentence:

https://www.science.org/content/article/what-charles-lieber-verdict-says-about-u-s-china-initiative

Proponents say the campaign helps maintain U.S. preeminence in science, whereas critics say it has criminalized bookkeeping mistakes by otherwise blameless academic researchers…

(Did you catch that little hat trick?)

Critics of the China Initiative would also like to see fewer cases go to trial. But Lieber’s conviction hasn’t altered their stance that the campaign has actually slowed the pace of U.S. innovation by scaring scientists away from engaging in important research collaborations between the two countries. “Does taking [Lieber] down do anything to protect U.S. national interests?” asks one lawyer who requested anonymity because he works with other scientists facing similar charges. “I don’t think so.”

…His fate now rests with U.S. District Judge Rya Zobel, who will hear from both sides before imposing a sentence that could stretch up to 5 years in prison and a fine of $250,000.

…(Andrew) Lelling ( the former U.S. attorney who charged Lieber with lying about his research ties to China) expects the Biden administration’s leadership team at DOJ, including Matthew Olsen, the new head of the department’s national security division, to “recalibrate” the China Initiative in the wake of Lieber’s conviction in favor of “quality over quantity.” That would mean pursuing fewer “technical fouls,” his phrase for cases involving a scientist’s failure to disclose research ties, and putting more resources into pursuing alleged theft of intellectual property, trade secrets, and other forms of economic espionage…

…In Lieber’s case, Lelling says, those factors are likely to include his ongoing treatment for cancer, his exemplary scientific record, and his remorse. “I think you’ll hear him say, ‘I screwed up, and I shouldn’t have done it,’” Lelling predicts. “And that matters to judges. You’d be surprised at how many defendants do not show any remorse.”

Lelling’s bottom line: “I think it is highly unlikely that the government will seek jail time to Lieber. And it is equally unlikely that he will get any.”

Judge Rya Zobel delivered. Charles Lieber had no jail time.

And then Judge Denise J. Casper granted Lieber permission to visit China and Hong Kong for “employment networking” while serving an 18-month term of supervised release. We’ll come back to her in a minute.

After Conviction for Lying About China Ties, Ex-Harvard Chemist Gets Approval to Visit Beijing - The Harvard Crimson, October 30, 2024

A federal judge gave former Harvard Chemistry professor Charles M. Lieber permission to visit China for “employment networking” and give a lecture in Beijing — nearly three years after Lieber was convicted for lying to federal investigators about his relationship to China.

Lieber is currently serving a 18-month term of supervised release after completing six months of house arrest.

Lieber has been actively searching for employment in China since at least June, when he asked a judge if he could visit the University of Hong Kong the next month “to discuss potential faculty appointment and employment opportunities.”

Lieber has been awfully busy for someone who had advanced, incurable cancer at his sentencing. (A miraculous experimental cancer vaccine success story would complete this mad science bingo card.)

Partners in Crimes Against Humanity?

Here’s a odd little detail…

Judge Denise J. Casper, whose decision enabled Lieber’s new circumstance, is married to Marc N. Casper, President and CEO of Thermo Fisher Scientific.

I can’t find any direct links between Marc Casper and Charles Lieber, but their work seems to overlap and align on a similar mission. Something rhymes. Both were honored on The Analytical Scientist Top 100 Power List in 2013. Marc Casper is also a member of the World Economic Forum (Thermo Fisher Scientific is a WEF partner) and Chairman Emeritus of the U.S.-China Business Council.

Here’s Casper in July 2020 discussing his role in COVID pandemic efforts:

Government relations other than regulatory, historically has been a very small proportion of what we’ve been doing… now government has become an absolutely essential enabler of the response. Everything from dramatically accelerated regulatory pathways on products to working out all the logistics that we need to do to ship products… We’re helping them with different things than we were doing in the past… how do they accelerate vaccine production…what if they’re successful and you have to scale a therapeutic or a vaccine well beyond what was ever dreamed of? And we’re working through those various things.

Casper’s role in accelerating regulator pathways and facilitating government response is concerning, given Thermo Fisher Scientific’s potential role in human rights abuses in Tibet.

Commissioners from the bipartisan and bicameral Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC) today released a letter to Marc Casper, the President and Chief Executive Officer of Thermo Fisher Scientific expressing concerns that products made by his company are being used for mass DNA collection in Tibet which “could enable further gross violations” of the human rights of ethnic minorities in China. The bipartisan letter was signed by Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR) and Representative Jim McGovern (D-MA), Chair and Cochair respectively of the bipartisan and bicameral Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC), and Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Representative Chris Smith (R-NJ), the CECC’s ranking members.

https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/12/13/china-minority-region-collects-dna-millions

In his May 2024 article in The Wesleyan Argus, Miles Horner paints a pretty horrifying picture as he calls for the removal of Marc Casper from Wesleyan’s Board of Trustees.

He is the single most influential person at Thermo Fisher Scientific, one of the world’s largest biomedical companies, with a valuation of $220 billion as of May 2024. Casper has been the president and CEO of Thermo Fisher since 2009, and was elected chairman of its board in 2020. It’s for this reason that Tibetan activists recently targeted him in a campaign for Thermo Fisher to stop selling their Huaxia PCR DNA tests to Chinese police forces in Tibet. To understand why Casper and Thermo Fisher are being described as complicit in genocide, it’s important to look back to 2012.

In 2012, Casper joined the US-China Business Council, a multinational organization that connects US business leaders with Chinese executives and government officials to encourage economic cooperation. In 2022, Casper gave People’s Republic of China (PRC) President Xi Jinping a standing ovation after his speech, a moment that he later shared with board members as a point of pride. It’s likely through this connection on the US-China Business Council that Thermo Fisher was contracted by the Ministry of Public Security to assist in analyzing the DNA of Uyghur, Tibetan, and Hui ethnic minorities, as they did in 2013. At the time, China was building a dragnet, a DNA database whose stated goal was to “comprehensively improve public security organs’ ability to solve [criminal] cases, and manage and control society.”

Activists say the database, alongside China’s other surveillance operations, could be used to find any Uyghurs who refuse to comply with social control measures such as internment. They often use the justification that this DNA database will assist police in forensic investigations, but human rights groups and researchers highlight that it is often simply used as a surveillance tactic.

Importantly, the way that China has collected this genetic data is extremely coercive. Through a program called “Physicals for All,” the Chinese government collected blood samples and stored DNA data from nearly every person in the Xinjiang and Tibet regions of China. According to Uyghurs in the area, authorities told them that these medical checkups were required. Collecting people’s DNA without their free consent, let alone storing it indefinitely, is a flagrant violation of medical ethics, as noted by the Forensic Genetics Policy Initiative.

Thermo Fisher has sold the Chinese government testing kits that are specifically tailored to their mass DNA collection efforts. The Huaxia PCR amplification kit is designed to effectively identify genetic information from Uyghur, Tibetan, and Hui individuals. According to the New York Times, A Thermo Fisher researcher indicated in a 2017 talk (no longer available online) that the company had specifically calibrated the test to look for those ethnic groups, and that the test was made at the request of the Chinese Ministry of Public Security—likely to assist surveillance efforts in the campaign to intern and oppress the Uyghur people.

(Wesleyan President Michael Roth apparently responded to student concerns by claiming that one of the publications addressing the concerns was using antisemitic art work.)

Should Judge Denise Casper have recused herself? I’m no legal expert, but her husband’s deep ties to the scientific community in China make me very uncomfortable. You can view a random selection of how some folks feel about her other decisions here, here, here and here.

I know, I know. It’s all just links. Clues and fragments. I can’t come to any definitive conclusion based on the information here, but I want to put it all in one place because it speaks to the direction that powerful people that don’t make big headlines are collectively pushing us in. It feels creepy and sneaky and dark.

And sunlight is the best disinfectant.

So I’m also going to get myself some of that. I hope you will, too.