Lawyer nomination embroiled in case against Chinese technology expert lapses

The nomination as an assistant US attorney of a prosecutor who falsely prosecuted a Chinese-born professor under the now-defunct China Initiative has timed out, and President Joe Biden has decided not to renominate him.

Casey Arrowood, the lead prosecutor of Anming Hu, a nanotechnology expert at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, was nominated by Biden in late July to serve as US attorney for the Eastern District of Tennessee for a term of four years.

US attorneys are appointed by the president and approved by the Senate as the top federal law enforcement officials in their federal districts and represent the government in both civil and criminal cases.

The Senate Judiciary Committee logged Arrowood's nomination on Aug 1 but had not set a date for a vote before the last session of the Senate ended last month. An expired nomination means the president needs to renominate the candidate or choose another one for the Senate to consider.

However, Biden has decided not to renominate Arrowood as top prosecutor in the Eastern District of Tennessee amid strong opposition from Asian American and academic organizations, the newspaper the Knoxville News Sentinel reported.

Biden's decision has caused anger among some Republican senators who recommended and supported the controversial prosecutor.

At a Senate Judiciary Committee meeting last month Senator Marsha Blackburn, a Tennessee Republican and a prominent China hawk, blamed a Democratic member of the judiciary panel for blocking Arrowood's nomination. She threatened to stall other US attorney nominations in retaliation for Biden's not renominating Arrowood.

After the nomination was announced in August it provoked a nationwide campaign calling on the White House to withdraw it and for the Senate Judiciary Committee to investigate and hold a hearing.

The campaign's organizers said "Arrowood's wrongful prosecution of Professor Hu betrayed the public trust and confidence" and "failed to uphold justice and fairness".

Hu's prosecution was the first in a series of similar prosecutions under the China Initiative, a program launched by the administration of former president Donald Trump in November 2018 to target researchers with ties to China to combat economic espionage.