Temple professor asks court to reinstate lawsuit against FBI

WASHINGTON (AP) — A Temple University physicist who was charged with sharing scientific technology with China only for the case to collapse before trial and be dismissed by the Justice Department asked a federal appeals court on Monday to reinstate his lawsuit against the U.S. government.

Lawyers for Xiaoxing Xi and his wife say in a brief filed Monday with a Philadelphia-based appeals court that a judge erred last year when he dismissed their claims for damages, asserting that the FBI agent who led the investigation “intentionally, knowingly or recklessly” made false statements and misrepresented evidence so that prosecutors could get an indictment.

“When law enforcement agents abuse the legal process by obtaining indictments and search warrants based on misrepresentations or by fabricating evidence, it undermines the legitimacy of the courts,” Xi’s legal team, which includes lawyers from the American Civil Liberties Union, wrote in the brief.

“The judiciary has a stake in ensuring that malicious prosecutions and illegal searches do not go unchecked, and the courts have well-established standards for assessing such claims,” the brief says. “Moreover, the harm to Professor Xi, his family, and society at large, as well as the need to deter further misconduct, strongly weigh in favor of allowing these claims to proceed.”

The bungled case against Xi was brought three years before the Justice Department in 2018 launched what's known as the China Initiative, an effort to counter trade secret theft and economic espionage by Beijing.

Many of the cases have targeted American professors suspected of concealing Chinese ties on applications for federal funding. Despite some convictions, the effort has endured notable setbacks, with prosecutors forced to dismiss several cases...