Sen. Eric Schmitt said he is being ‘targeted by Communist China’ in what he called a ‘lawfare campaign.’
China’s communist regime has sued the state of Missouri and its former attorney general in a Chinese court, in retaliation for a March federal court ruling that awarded Missouri $24 billion in a COVID-19 lawsuit against Beijing.
Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.) announced China’s lawsuit against him, the state of Missouri, and former Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey, who is now co-deputy FBI director, in a statement on Dec. 16. Schmitt filed the COVID-19 lawsuit against the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the Chinese city of Wuhan, the Wuhan Institute of Virology, and several other Chinese entities in April 2020 when he was Missouri’s attorney general.
“Communist China has sanctioned me, and now sued me in a $50 billion lawfare campaign all for standing up for the great people of Missouri,” he told The Epoch Times.
The lawsuit in China was filed in the Intermediate People’s Court in Wuhan by the Wuhan municipal government, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
The Chinese plaintiffs demand joint compensation of 356.4 billion yuan (about $50.5 billion), according to the complaint, accusing Missouri’s 2020 COVID-19 lawsuit of defaming the plaintiffs’ reputation and causing them “huge economic losses.”
Missouri was the first U.S. state to take legal action against Beijing over the pandemic.
“China’s sinister malfeasance during the COVID-19 pandemic led to over a million Americans losing their lives, economic turmoil that rocked our country for years, and an enormous amount of human suffering,” Schmitt said, adding that he was “proud to file suit to hold them accountable.”
The CCP’s initial cover-up of the virus outbreak has been well-documented. The Wuhan Institute of Virology, which the State Department said had been conducting experiments on bat coronavirus starting in at least 2016, continues to be suspected as the source of COVID-19, given its proximity to a local wet market where clusters of infection cases were first reported in late 2019.
By Frank Fang and Eva Fu
