Yao Yaojiang Reviews Real-Life Legal Drama: How US Prosecutors Accuse Ren Zhengfei's Huawei

This episode reviews the first week of the trial of the century that Huawei is facing at the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York. Through witness testimony, internal emails, flight records, and surveillance footage, the prosecution accused Huawei of systematically stealing trade secrets and concealing its business in Iran. Meanwhile, Huawei's defense attorneys dismantled the prosecution's narrative point by point, emphasizing that the employees' actions were either individual transgressions or normal business cooperation. The prosecution and defense engaged in a fierce confrontation centered on Iranian surveillance equipment and T-Mobile's testing robot.

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Hello everyone, I am Yao Yao Jiang, who loves to think and values logic. Over the past week, the Chinese internet has been chasing a nanny van driving toward the seaside in Shenzhen in the early hours of the morning. Rumors claimed that Ren Zhengfei was fleeing with his entire family. Everyone is asking where Ren Zhengfei went, but few have noticed that a trial of the century, which truly concerns the fate of Huawei, has already begun in New York.

On August 22, 2018, the Trump administration's Department of Justice filed a sealed indictment with the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York. On January 28, 2019, the indictment was unsealed, and the U.S. government officially announced the prosecution of Huawei. This case spanned the four years of the Biden administration and dragged on into the second year of Trump's second term. On September 8, 2026, the court began jury selection; on September 9, the prosecution and defense officially went to war. In the first week of the trial, the smell of gunpowder was already in the air. Today, we will follow the actual order of events in court to reconstruct the first round of clashes between the prosecutors, Huawei's lawyers, and the witnesses, to see what cards the U.S. government has prepared over eight years, and how Huawei plans to counter them.

On September 8, the jury was selected. Before the trial officially began, presiding Judge Ann M. Donnelly drew a line for everyone: China and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) are not the defendants in this case. Sitting in the defendant's seat is Huawei. Jurors cannot decide whether Huawei is guilty or innocent based on whether they like or dislike China. They can only look at the evidence presented by the U.S. government. This statement also reminds us: no matter how significant the political background is, in court, it must ultimately come down to specific individuals, specific emails, and specific actions. Prosecutors cannot just say Huawei threatens the United States to get the jury to convict.

The next day, Judge Donnelly reminded the jurors not to watch the news, not to post on social media, and not to discuss the case privately. Subsequently, she looked at the prosecution and asked: Is the U.S. government ready?

Department of Justice trial attorney Taylor Stout stood up and said only three words: Theft. Lies. Cover-up. The story the prosecution prepared to tell is simple. Huawei wanted to enter the U.S. market but lacked some key technologies. So, some people secretly photographed competitors' equipment, some took parts from T-Mobile's testing robots, and some brought Cisco's router source code into Huawei. After these incidents were exposed, Huawei shifted the blame onto these employees. Another thread took place in Iran. The prosecution says that while Huawei was doing business in Iran, helping the local area build communication networks with monitoring and filtering functions, it was simultaneously using Skycom to cover up its relationship with these operations, allowing U.S. dollar transactions to continue passing through American banks. Stout told the jury that these incidents were not just accidental mishaps by a few employees. Huawei's U.S. company was merely an outpost; the real orders came from the Chinese headquarters. The prosecution also pointed its finger at Ren Zhengfei and Meng Wanzhou, saying this line went all the way to the company's top leadership. This is why the prosecution used RICO. RICO was originally often used to combat the Mafia and criminal gangs. Huawei's lawyers reminded the jury that these words easily bring to mind criminal bosses in secret rooms and subordinates acting on orders. However, a scary name does not equal sufficient evidence.

If this is your first time watching this Huawei trial and you are not yet clear why the U.S. government is using RICO to prosecute Huawei, you can watch the previous episode to catch up. That episode covered the ins and outs of this major case, as well as the four-page statement of facts signed by Meng Wanzhou. This episode will not repeat the background, but will only look at the courtroom clashes of the first week. Now, just remember one question: Can the U.S. government connect events that happened in different places over more than twenty years? To put it bluntly, the U.S. government believes that these so-called "mistakes" by employees were organized actions by the Huawei company.

Huawei's lead defense attorney, Brian Heberlig, immediately began to dismantle this narrative. He said that Huawei grew from Ren Zhengfei starting the business with five thousand dollars to having two hundred thousand employees, with operations in over 170 countries. Yet, the prosecution picked out a few bad things from over twenty years and stitched them together into a corporate crime. The secret photography at the Fujitsu booth was a judgment error by one employee, and Huawei fired him after discovering it. The Cisco and T-Mobile incidents were also individual employees overstepping, which the company subsequently handled. As for Iran, Huawei had no reason to deceive banks. Many banks had long known that Huawei had business there and were still competing to do business with Huawei. If Huawei really wanted to avoid the U.S. financial system, it could have used the Euro; there was no need to go through the U.S. dollar system. Heberlig also reminded the jury that monitoring itself is not necessarily illegal. Many countries require communication companies to provide lawful monitoring functions. Jurors may not like the Iranian government, but they cannot conclude that Huawei deceived banks just because they dislike the Iranian government. The prosecution says: There is the same company behind these things. Huawei's lawyers say: There is no common criminal blueprint between these things.

Next, witnesses took the stand one after another. The prosecution's first witness was named Parham Beheshti; let's call him "Little Par." He is a U.S. citizen who once worked in the Iranian telecommunications industry. As soon as he opened his mouth, he took the jury to Iran.

The prosecutor asked: How many data centers did Huawei build in Iran? Little Par replied: One has already been built, and another is under construction. About 90% of the technical staff there were from China; the Iranian employees were mainly responsible for sales. Who really mastered the technology? Little Par said, it was the Chinese.

Subsequently, the prosecutor had him identify a Huawei proposal. A term that sounded quite normal appeared in the document: lawful interception. Communication companies cooperating with law enforcement agencies to monitor phone calls does not only happen in Iran. The U.S. has similar requirements. What really made the jurors alert were the numbers that followed. The prosecutor asked what "high performance" meant in the proposal. Little Par replied that the system could monitor 1% of users simultaneously, and the people being monitored would not know. Next was a content filtering proposal. Little Par admitted that this technology has two uses. Parents can use it to prevent children from browsing inappropriate websites, and governments can also use it to monitor the public and block content. The technology has not changed, but the person holding the switch has changed, and the result is completely different. Little Par also mentioned an example that happened in China. During the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Beijing Unicom used Huawei technology to control certain websites. He wanted to illustrate that this system did not just exist on paper; it had already been used to restrict what people could see. He also said that later, some people used this capability to monitor corporate emails. It was precisely because of these experiences that he began participating in activities against the Iranian regime in 2010 and cooperated with the U.S. government. The prosecutor asked him what his reaction was when he saw these materials. Little Par said he felt shocked and angry because this capability was being handed over to a cruel regime. This is why the prosecution had him take the stand first. Router source code and touchscreen testing require a long time to explain. However, any juror can understand that a communication system can secretly monitor its own citizens. The prosecution wants to first make the jurors believe that what Huawei did in Iran was not an ordinary business deal, and then go on to talk about banks and U.S. dollar transactions.

When it was the turn of Huawei's lawyers, the direction in the courtroom suddenly shifted. Instead of first arguing whether the equipment could be used for eavesdropping, the lawyers focused on the prosecution witness, Mr. Sahar, himself. You have been cooperating with the U.S. government since 2010, correct? Yes. Agents from the U.S. Department of Commerce once warned you that you were in danger? Yes. The U.S. government also helped your son leave Iran? Yes. Your goal is to strike at the Iranian regime? Mr. Sahar replied: What I want is justice. Huawei's lawyers also made him admit that communication equipment must comply with U.S. standards regarding call records. The implication was clear: the ability to eavesdrop does not mean the equipment was specifically designed to suppress the public. The prosecution wanted the jurors to see the tools in the hands of the Iranian regime; the defense wanted them to see that communication equipment inherently possesses the potential for eavesdropping.

On September 10, cross-examination continued. Huawei's lawyers placed a security clearance form in front of Mr. Sahar. You are an American, yet you worked in Iran. You knew this was illegal and lied about it, didn't you? Mr. Sahar did not follow the lawyer's narrative. He only replied: I signed that form. The lawyer pressed: You wrote lies on the security clearance form, right? Mr. Sahar said: I did not fill out the form. But you signed it? I signed it. So, as long as you believe the goal is righteous, the means do not matter? Mr. Sahar still only said: I signed that form. What Huawei's lawyers really wanted was not to investigate who filled out the form, but to make Mr. Sahar admit in his own words: I lied. Once they obtained that "yes," his subsequent testimony might be discounted in the minds of the jurors. Mr. Sahar's response was also clear: he only admitted to the unavoidable fact—that the signature was his—but he did not accept the conclusion the lawyer tried to insert into the question—that because he didn't fill out the form, he was not admitting that he had lied. This way of answering blocked the testimony Huawei's lawyers wanted most, but it did not eliminate the doubts left by the signature. Jurors might still wonder: since you didn't fill out the form, why did you sign it? Huawei's lawyers also wanted to ask why the U.S. government did not prosecute him. The prosecutor immediately objected, and the judge agreed to stop that line of questioning. This round of cross-examination did not prove that the Iranian project Mr. Sahar spoke of did not exist, but it did leave a question regarding his credibility: the person appearing in court to testify against Huawei had himself signed a document that was alleged to contain false information. The prosecution did not conduct a redirect examination. Mr. Sahar stepped down from the witness stand.

Linda Schnider once worked at Apple and Sun Microsystems before joining Huawei's U.S. research subsidiary, Futurewei. She was in charge of cloud computing and worked there for a total of three years; her supervisor, Andy Chen, came from Huawei's headquarters in China. Schnider said that engineers from China would look through patents and then use the information within them for research and development. These engineers were not only unashamed but rather proud of it. Patents are, by nature, public documents. Looking at patents and studying how competitors solve problems is not uncommon in the tech industry. What the prosecution really wanted to ask was: after someone inside the company felt something was wrong, how did the supervisors handle it? Schnider said she told Andy Chen about her concerns, and nothing changed. Her team lead, Jim Hughes, also agreed with her assessment. Next, the prosecutor asked about another matter. Where was Futurewei's data backed up? Schnider replied: Backed up to Huawei in China. Were you worried? Worried. Did you report it? No. Why? She said it was because she believed that even if she reported it, nothing would happen. By the following Monday, she had submitted her resignation. Here, two things must be distinguished. She had reported the patent issue to her supervisor; she did not report the data backup to China again. She used her resignation to express her judgment, but she could not prove that management had received this specific warning.

Huawei lawyer Ryan Poscablo began his cross-examination. He first had Schnider acknowledge that Huawei's U.S. subsidiary paid her a higher salary and that the company had even recommended her for a U.S. Department of State program for women in technology. The prosecution immediately objected. Judge Donnelly also did not see how this was relevant to the case. The defense wanted to argue that Futurewei was not as bad as Schnider described, and that the company paid her well and helped her gain recognition. However, the judge did not allow the lawyer to use these "good deeds" to offset the specific actions the prosecution was questioning. Subsequently, Huawei lawyer Poscablo produced an approved export control form, attempting to prove that Futurewei had also complied with regulations. The judge used a very straightforward analogy: if this were a bank robbery case, the lawyer could not defend the defendant by pointing to days in the past when he did not rob a bank. In the afternoon, the cross-examination continued. The Huawei lawyer again tried to get Schnider to admit that having the Chinese headquarters make decisions was a common management practice for large companies. He also wanted to suggest that everyone in the courtroom had a boss, except for the judge. Judge Donnelly told him to return to the case itself. The defense did not overturn the fact that data was backed up to China, but it held onto an important distinction: headquarters making decisions does not equal headquarters ordering employees to commit crimes; Schnider feeling that reports were useless does not mean she actually reported them. The prosecution must next produce emails or documents to prove that this was not just Schnider's personal judgment.

The next story took place in 2004, at a telecommunications exhibition in Chicago. Teresa was in charge of the Fujitsu booth at the time. After the exhibition closed, she returned to the scene and saw an Asian man in a suit and tie holding a camera. Teresa asked him, "Are you with Fujitsu?" The man did not answer. Security personnel subsequently stopped him. Teresa said this was an unusual arrangement. Her husband, Timothy, also testified. When he arrived at the scene, he saw the police, Teresa, and the man standing together. The man appeared very nervous. A Fujitsu executive in charge of corporate intelligence was having dinner in Chicago at the time. After receiving a call, he immediately rushed back to the exhibition hall. He saw a Chinese passport, a notebook, and a camera. The passport had been issued a few weeks earlier. The camera contained photos of different equipment, some belonging to Fujitsu and some not. Finally, he took the memory card back to Texas and handed it over to the company's general counsel. The prosecution presented this scene to the jury to illustrate that, long before the T-Mobile incident, there were Huawei employees taking photos at competitors' booths. In his opening statement, the Huawei lawyer had already admitted that this employee did something stupid and that Huawei later fired him. The defense did not dispute that "something happened at the scene," only whether this incident could represent the company.

During cross-examination, the Huawei lawyer began to narrow the scope of the testimony bit by bit. Teresa admitted that she was the first person to remain at the scene; the prosecution had later shown her photos to help her recall. She saw the man holding a camera but did not state that she saw him press the shutter with her own eyes. The man also did not have any company badge on him. The Fujitsu executive similarly admitted that the incident had already occurred by the time he arrived. He did not see who took the photos. During the exhibition's open hours, peers could naturally observe exhibits, and he himself would look at others' products, just keeping a distance. He did not make a formal inventory of items that night, only writing a record for himself. The Huawei lawyer finally asked about a rather dramatic detail: this executive in charge of corporate intelligence had once been a board member of the International Spy Museum. This question, of course, could not make the photos in the camera disappear. What the Huawei lawyer really wanted to remind the jurors of was the perspective from which this witness viewed the event: his job was to prevent commercial espionage, and he had been a board member of a spy museum. Could this make him more likely to view a violation at an exhibition as a planned act of commercial theft?

By this point, the strategies of both sides were clear. The prosecution used the booth after closing, the Chinese passport, the camera, and the memory card to piece together a scene of Huawei obtaining a competitor's technology. The Huawei lawyer did not deny that the scene looked bad, but instead dismantled the prosecution's story piece by piece: Teresa did not see the man press the shutter; the executive who arrived later did not see how the photos were taken; no formal inventory was made that night. Most importantly, the prosecution had not yet proven who sent the employee, who the photos were later given to, and whether Huawei used them. Therefore, in this round, the prosecution proved that a Huawei employee appeared where he should not have been, and that photos of equipment were indeed left in the camera; but it had not yet proven that this was an operation arranged by Huawei. What the prosecution needs next is someone from inside the company. He must tell the jury whether bringing technology from a previous company into Futurewei was indeed a practice encouraged within Huawei.

On September 15, a witness whose public record was listed only as Martin took the stand. He once worked at Cisco and later joined Futurewei. He had visited Huawei's Shenzhen headquarters and entered an office building known as the "White House." Cell phones were not allowed in there. Staff members would even use electrical tape to cover the webcams on laptops. Every desk was equipped with a safe, and nothing could be left on the desktop after work. These rules by themselves could not prove that Huawei stole technology. On the contrary, they first showed that Huawei cared deeply about protecting its own secrets. What the prosecutors really wanted was a sentence that Martin recalled next. Martin said that his supervisor once told him: "Your value to your next employer depends on what you take with you from your previous employer." If this statement was true, the matter was no longer just an individual employee crossing the line. A supervisor at Futurewei was treating the things employees brought from their former companies as part of the employees' value. It was neither a company policy nor an order issued by Ren Zhengfei, but it gave the prosecution its first opportunity to link the personal behavior of employees with the company's internal management practices. Martin said that he later left Futurewei because he could not achieve results there and it even damaged his reputation.

Huawei's lawyers had no documents to directly refute this recollection, so they turned to questioning Martin's own background. Martin was laid off by Cisco back then. He also admitted that it was not Huawei that actively poached him, but rather that he contacted Huawei's U.S. company, Futurewei, to apply for a job. The lawyer asked, what was strange about competitors setting up offices near each other? Don't McDonald's and Burger King often open next to each other? Martin did not accept this analogy. He said the information only flowed in one direction, and he felt that Huawei's U.S. company intentionally recruited people from competitors. The lawyer then produced a photo of Huawei's Shenzhen campus. Martin glanced at it and said what he saw was not like that; however, he also admitted that he had never flown up into the air to overlook the campus. Someone in the courtroom laughed. Next, Huawei's lawyer asked, isn't reverse engineering very common in the tech industry? Martin replied: I don't do it. The lawyer continued, commercial secrets might no longer exist in products already on the market. The judge immediately interrupted, not allowing the witness to answer legal questions on behalf of the jury. The lawyer then asked about the safes in the Shenzhen office building: were they keys or passwords? Martin said they were passwords. The campus also had three metal detector gates specifically to prevent employees from taking tools out. Huawei's lawyer interrupted, saying this was not what he asked. The defense had wanted to use the safes and metal detectors to show that Huawei also attached great importance to protecting its secrets; instead, Martin interpreted these measures as the company not trusting its employees. Martin also admitted that it was he who introduced Dave Piazza and Joe Veni to Huawei. But he immediately added a sentence: later I was excluded from the discussions. Therefore, this round was not a matter of who defeated whom in questioning. The prosecution could use Martin's statement to argue that employees bringing things from former companies might have been encouraged by supervisors. The defense, on the other hand, let the jurors see that Martin proactively applied for a job and also proactively introduced others to join, and later became dissatisfied because he was excluded from the discussions. This could not prove Martin was lying, but it would make jurors re-evaluate this recollection. However, a single recollection still could not prove that the company arranged for employees to steal technology. The prosecution needed written records, needing to let jurors see: who made the request, who was responsible for receiving it, and who sent the materials back. The next day, those emails appeared.

Tappy is a robot used by T-Mobile to test mobile phone touchscreens.

It uses a robotic arm and a test head to repeatedly tap the phone screen with a fixed force.

Whenever a tap is not recognized by the phone, the system records it.

For a mobile phone to enter T-Mobile stores, it must first pass testing and certification.

This process can last a year.

For Huawei, which was eager to break into the U.S. market at the time, Tappy was not an ordinary machine; it was directly related to whether the phone could be launched quickly.

Huawei's phones encountered touchscreen missed-touch problems. To solve the problem, one needed to know how Tappy tested, what force it used, and what material the test head was made of.

The problem was that Tappy belonged to T-Mobile, and T-Mobile was not willing to hand over these details to mobile phone manufacturers.

On September 16, an FBI agent stood on the witness stand, and the prosecutor had him stick individual names onto a board.

Adam Zhong, Pingfang Zheng, Richard Yao... Richard Yao's position was technical acceptance manager.

After the names were posted, the prosecutor began to display internal Huawei emails.

The first email stated that T-Mobile would not provide robot data to mobile phone manufacturers. In other words, Huawei knew the other party was unwilling to give it.

Subsequently, an email reminded colleagues that they needed to obtain materials from the T-Mobile US lab to improve Huawei's own robot.

In another email, Richard Yao said that Adam had already entered the lab to conduct tests.

Then someone urged: I haven't received it yet, please send it today.

The subsequent reply said that if more similarities with the T-Mobile robot were found, some photos could be taken. Adam then replied with only three words: See attachment.

Moving the timeline further back.

On November 16, 2012, about half a year before the lab incident occurred, someone in an email had already asked about the T-Mobile robotic arm.

Richard Yao wrote that T-Mobile was unwilling to share, but he would find a way.

Another email stated it more bluntly: Headquarters wants to know about the T-Mobile robotic arm.

The reply received was that T-Mobile was now refusing to provide any more information.

Yao also reminded colleagues that T-Mobile was "very angry" at their constant questioning.

However, there was a second half to that sentence: We can still access the robot.

This half-sentence changed the nature of the whole affair.

If a client refuses to provide materials and is already angry about the questions, the normal course of action should be to stop. What was being discussed in the Huawei emails, however, was how to continue using the opportunity of entering the lab to obtain the robot's secrets.

There were also emails saying that the lab was installing cameras, and everyone understood what that meant.

Not long after, the emails talked about applying for business visas and a trip to Seattle from May 13 to 18.

The prosecution showed the jury flight records.

On May 14, a photo of Frank Wong appearing in the T-Mobile lab was sent in an email with the subject "Robot photos."

Records also show that he had been kicked out of the lab, later got back in, and was kicked out a second time.

In the same batch of emails, someone reported to headquarters that Huawei's own "robot testing system" had made significant progress.

But on the other side, T-Mobile employee Trey once again found Frank Wong in the lab and kicked him out.

With the two statements placed together, the prosecution wanted the jurors to draw their own connections: Is there any relationship between the "significant progress" mentioned within Huawei and the employees repeatedly entering the T-Mobile lab?

Subsequently, an image of the T-Mobile robot appeared on the courtroom's large screen.

The prosecutor asked, what is written at the bottom of the page?

The FBI agent replied: Huawei confidential information.

The judge asked: But whose robot is this?

The agent replied: T-Mobile's.

These emails did not state who ordered the theft of the parts, nor did they specify who exactly the "headquarters" in the emails referred to, but they pushed the issue from the actions of a single employee to the needs and urgings within the company.

At this point, the prosecutor took out a photo of a computer screen and asked the FBI agent: What is written on the screen?

Huawei's lawyer immediately objected. The judge did not rule immediately, but first asked the agent: Can you be sure?

The agent replied: I have my own judgment, but I cannot be sure.

The judge then supported the Huawei lawyer and did not allow the agent to state his judgment.

The prosecutor had to move to the next page and have him confirm that the image was a photo of the T-Mobile testing robot.

Huawei's lawyer won a point in this small round. The photo could be shown to the jurors, but the FBI agent could not guess the answer for a photo that was not clear.

The prosecution wanted to use the FBI agent to make this photo prove one step further, but the Huawei lawyer blocked that step.

On September 16, the court played surveillance footage.

The FBI agent identified the person in the footage as Adam Zhong. In the video, he removes a component from the T-Mobile robot and then puts it into his backpack.

The prosecution had previewed this footage on the first day of the opening statement. Now, the emails and itinerary had laid the groundwork, and the footage appeared.

Its power lies not in technical details, but in the clarity of the action.

Context can be argued for emails, and the accuracy of a witness's memory can also be questioned.

When someone puts a component from someone else's equipment into their own backpack, jurors don't need an engineering background to understand it.

Putting the evidence from September 16 together, the version given by the prosecution had taken shape: Huawei phones had problems in touch testing, and headquarters wanted to know about Tappy; T-Mobile refused to give it and was already angry; Huawei personnel still used lab access to take photos and measurements; finally, someone put a component into a backpack.

This is much more powerful than playing a piece of footage alone.

The footage only proves that someone took something, while the emails attempt to explain why he went to take it and who else in the company was waiting for the results.

However, this is still just the version told by the prosecution.

On September 17, the T-Mobile manager in charge of Tappy continued to sit on the witness stand.

Huawei's defense attorney Heberlig did not claim the video was fake, nor did he deny that the person in the footage was a Huawei employee.

He first steered the questioning back to the mobile phone testing itself.

Did touch-input omissions occur only on Huawei phones?

The witness replied that his job was to help manufacturers improve their products, not to declare which phone had failed.

Did T-Mobile hand over the rubber testing tip to other companies?

The witness said he was not sure.

Heberlig then produced an email belonging to the witness himself. The prosecution objected, but Judge Donnelly overruled it, allowing Huawei's lawyer to continue.

At the other end of the email was the touchscreen company Synaptics.

It produced the touchscreens used in Huawei phones. An attachment also contained a video showing a metal testing tip repeatedly tapping a screen.

Huawei's lawyer Heberlig asked the prosecution witness: Was that made of copper?

The witness said: I don't know, it could also be aluminum.

The lawyer asked again whether phones from other brands had experienced issues during T-Mobile testing.

Recalling the past, the witness noted that Google's G-1 phone also encountered initial problems.

Huawei's lawyer then asked whether "Buddy" in the email was the codename for a certain prototype device.

The witness replied that it might just be the English word "buddy." The lawyer then attempted to ask whether it was normal to use a certain amount of force during testing. The prosecution objected, the judge sustained it, and the question was not allowed to proceed further.

The purpose of Huawei's lawyer's string of questions was not to prove that nothing happened in the video, but rather to turn the smooth narrative told by the prosecution back into a pile of debatable details: What material was the testing tip made of? Did other phones also have problems? What did the word in the email actually mean?

This was Huawei's explanation: mobile phone testing inherently involves manufacturers, carriers, and component suppliers jointly troubleshooting issues.

Huawei brought Synaptics into the testing process and had also obtained testing information.

Contact with Tappy may not have been intended from the very beginning to steal trade secrets.

When cross-examining, the prosecution focused on only one thing: Were there non-disclosure agreements between T-Mobile and the companies participating in the testing?

The witness replied: Yes.

The issue was dragged back by the prosecution.

Joint troubleshooting could explain why Huawei entered the lab, but it could not automatically explain why someone continued taking photos after the customer had already refused, gotten angry, and even prepared to install security cameras, nor could it explain why someone put a component into a backpack.

At this point, the judge needed to consult privately with both sets of lawyers on an issue.

She called the prosecutors and Huawei's defense counsel to the bench, where they spoke in hushed tones.

To prevent the jurors, witnesses, and gallery from hearing the conversation, the court simultaneously turned on white noise. A continuous rustling sound emerged from the loudspeakers, drowning out the voices of the judge and the lawyers.

The T-Mobile manager saw the lawyers leave their questioning positions, assumed his testimony was over, and stood up to leave.

Judge Donnelly quickly called him back: "Not you, we might still have questions. You almost got away.

A burst of laughter echoed in the courtroom.

After returning to his seat, Huawei's lawyer added only one question: Was it Huawei that brought in the touchscreen maker Synaptics?

The witness replied: Yes.

This answer scored a point for Huawei: at least some of the technical exchanges and testing were conducted openly with T-Mobile's knowledge.

Young, who took the stand next, worked at T-Mobile from 2003 to 2021.

He was responsible for deciding which phones could enter retail stores for sale.

Completing certification for a phone could take up to a year, and companies were required to sign non-disclosure agreements.

Young's testimony connected a small testing component to genuine commercial interests.

Why was Huawei in such a hurry to figure out the Tappy robotic arm? Because if touch issues could not be resolved, the phone could not pass certification; without certification, it could not enter T-Mobile stores, nor could it secure massive orders.

The most fascinating battle of the first week took place right here.

Using internal emails, the prosecution infused the video with motive and background. The defense, on the other hand, emphasized that normal commercial cooperation inherently existed in the lab: other phones also failed tests, suppliers participated in troubleshooting, and Huawei's participation in testing was no secret.

What both sides were truly arguing about was not whether Huawei personnel had touched the Tappy robotic arm, but at which exact step that line crossed the boundary of normal cooperation.

Another card that many observers cared about was not actually played during the first week.

That was the four-page statement of facts signed by Meng Wanzhou in the deferred prosecution agreement.

On June 17 this year, Judge Donnelly ruled that the prosecution could use this material in Huawei's trial. Huawei objected on the grounds that the document was signed by Meng Wanzhou individually, the company had not signed it, and it had no opportunity to cross-examine her in court.

However, as of September 17, publicly available court records had not yet shown that the prosecution had formally presented the four pages of paper to the jury.

It mainly targets the Iran business, Skycom, and bank transactions. In the first week, Mr. Pa only brought the jury into Iran to see what Huawei was doing there; the prosecution has not yet fully explained how Huawei later explained these businesses to the banks, and why the prosecution believes that was a concealment.

Only when these four pages of documents actually appear will the Iran line move from surveillance equipment to Meng Wanzhou and Huawei's top management.

After the first week, judging from the currently public trial records, the prosecution has temporarily gained the upper hand in the narrative. Its biggest gain is not what any single witness said, but that different pieces of evidence have begun to align.

Most of the evidence in the first half of the week only shows that the business was sensitive, that some people inside were worried, or that individual employees crossed the line. These materials are still a distance away from "organized corporate action."

When it came to Tappy, emails, itineraries, photos, and videos began to corroborate each other, and the question shifted from "what did this employee do" to "who in the company made the request, who urged it, and who was waiting for the results."

Huawei's lawyers' strategy also ran through the week: when facing witnesses, they questioned their stance and memory; when facing on-site incidents, they questioned who gave the orders and where the results went; when facing Tappy, they explained every action within the context of normal business cooperation.

It did not make the unfavorable evidence disappear, but it kept reminding the jurors that there is still a lack of a clear instruction between employees crossing the line and corporate crime.

Therefore, at the end of the first week, the U.S. government had not yet proven that employees crossing the line was an organized arrangement by Huawei. The prosecution still needs to prove who approved these actions, who received the results, and who was responsible for the cover-up.

Huawei also has to answer several very simple questions: After T-Mobile refused, why was there still internal urging? T-Mobile was already angry and even prepared to install cameras, so why did people continue to enter the laboratory? If it was just joint troubleshooting, why were the photos of the T-Mobile robot labeled as "Huawei Confidential Information"?

These questions are easier for ordinary jurors to remember than legal terms like RICO, corporate liability, or trade secrets.

This trial certainly has a political background.

The U.S. government views Huawei as a representative of the Chinese state's power expanding outward, while the CCP packages Huawei as a national hero suffering from U.S. suppression.

But once inside the courtroom, slogans must temporarily give way to evidence.

The four characters of "independent innovation" must also undergo the most concrete examination: Who created this technology? Who proposed to take it back? After the other party refused, what did Huawei do internally?

People online are still guessing where Ren Zhengfei has gone. In the New York courtroom, the jurors are pursuing another question: To whom exactly was the stuff that Huawei employees brought back handed over?

Next week, the prosecution will continue to supplement evidence, and Huawei's lawyers will continue their defensive counterattacks.

After the five days of offense and defense next week are over, I will continue to explain this trial of the century, which has been eight years in the making, to everyone. That is all for today. If this episode is valuable to you,

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I am Yao Yao Jiang, who loves to think and values logic. See you in the next episode.