Article by Collin Anderson in "The Washington Free Beacon":
Missouri attorney general Eric Schmitt is
"confident" he will secure damages from the Chinese government for its
responsibility in unleashing the coronavirus pandemic.
While congressional Republicans have
floated legislation to allow American citizens to sue China for
mishandling the coronavirus, Schmitt on Tuesday made Missouri the first
state to file a lawsuit against the communist nation. The suit says the
Chinese government must be held liable for the "enormous loss of life,
human suffering, and economic turmoil" brought on by the deadly disease.
Schmitt estimates that the virus has caused tens of billions of dollars
in economic damage in the Show-Me State alone.
"The fact is, by the cover-up, by the
deception, by the lies, by the silencing of whistleblowers, by the
hoarding of protective equipment, by not informing the world about how
deadly the virus would be, a pandemic was unleashed on the world,"
Schmitt said in an interview with the Washington Free Beacon. "All of that certainly points to the Chinese government for its malfeasance, and we want to hold them accountable for that."
Schmitt's lawsuit identifies
multiple defendants, including the Chinese Communist Party, the
nation's health and emergency ministries, provincial and city
governments in Hubei and Wuhan, and the Wuhan Institute of Virology, a
superlab which some U.S. officials suspect played a role in the
outbreak. The suit outlines an array of facts highlighting China's
abuses in the early stages of the outbreak that resulted in an
"unnecessary and preventable" pandemic.
"During the critical weeks of the initial
outbreak, Chinese authorities deceived the public, suppressed crucial
information, arrested whistleblowers, denied human-to-human transmission
in the face of mounting evidence, destroyed critical medical research,
permitted millions of people to be exposed to the virus, and even
hoarded personal protective equipment," the suit says.
The Republican AG expressed confidence in
the suit's legal merit, saying he expects other states to launch similar
efforts in the near future.
"We feel confident in our legal case and think that other states are probably going to follow suit," he told the Free Beacon.
While Missouri has not been hit as hard by
the virus as some of the urban epicenters of the pandemic in the United
States, the state ranks among the top half in coronavirus cases,
according to the CDC.
More than 6,000 Missouri residents have been diagnosed with the
disease, which emerged in China in December. Schmitt said that those
responsible for the outbreak must compensate victims of the virus and
the "tremendous" economic devastation brought on by public shutdowns.
"I represent 6 million Missourians. We've
got over 6,000 cases now, over 200 deaths. It's a tremendous impact,"
Schmitt said. "The human toll of people losing loved ones, not being
able to visit family suffering from the virus, [and] not attending
funerals. That's not even mentioning the economic impact. People living
paycheck to paycheck can't feed their families now. All because the
Chinese government lied about this."
China could typically claim immunity from
the lawsuit under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, which inhibits
the ability to sue sovereign nations in U.S. courts. Schmitt said that
blanket immunity should not apply, pointing to the exemptions made for
commercial activities. The law states in part that a foreign actor may
lose its immunity by partaking in commercial activity outside of America
that has a "direct effect" in the United States. The regime's behavior
in suppressing the existence of the disease, as well as hoarding medical
equipment made by American companies in China, forfeited those legal
protections.
"We're essentially claiming a public
nuisance," Schmitt said. "In our complaint, we allege that by being
engaged in the hoarding of protective equipment, by being engaged in
running hospitals, by being engaged in running the virology lab, China
is pulled out of the normal protection that they may be able to claim."
Schmitt has taken further steps to advance
the suit past immunity claims. The lawsuit names non-state actors as
defendants, which could limit China's ability to claim sovereignty.
"One thing that's unique about our lawsuit
is that we also name non-state actors, in addition to the Communist
Party," Schmitt said. "The assertion there is that the Chinese
government is running everything anyway, so they don't get to claim
immunity because they have a non-state actor in charge of the actions or
inactions that led to these damages that we're asserting."
Sen. Tom Cotton (R., Ark.) and Rep. Dan
Crenshaw (R., Texas) introduced legislation in April to create a new
exception specifically related to damages caused by China's pandemic
response. Schmitt said the merits of his suit should suffice even if the
bill is not passed.
"I think our complaint is strong," he said.
https://freebeacon.com/coronavirus/missouri-ag-schmitt-confident-he-can-make-china-pay/