Missouri attorney general sues China for 'campaign of deceit' around COVID outbreak

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt has filed a lawsuit against the Chinese government for allegedly running an "appalling campaign of deceit, concealment, misfeasance, and inaction" amid the novel coronavirus outbreak.

The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern State of Missouri, alleges that the People's Republic of China, the Communist Party of China and other governing bodies in the country misrepresented and concealed the seriousness of the outbreak from the rest of the world during the period of December 2019 through January 2020.

"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 -- thus causing a global pandemic that was unnecessary and preventable," according to a copy of the lawsuit.

The Chinese government has not yet responded to the lawsuit. However, the government did deny a story from The Associated Press, which claimed that officials there did not warn the public of the pandemic for six key days, and said that the government immediately reported the outbreak to the World Health Organization.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/missouri-attorney-general-sues-china-for-campaign-of-deceit-around-covid-outbreak/ar-BB1308Z8?li=BBnb7Kz

Lots of luck dumbfuck.

[kimbutgar]

1. Way to go AG. China will never buy food again from Iowa.

[sinkingfeeling]

13. Missouri?

[kimbutgar]

16. Missouri

Never answer on dU after drinking a nice glass of wine!

[uponit7771]

2. The reason why our testing supply chain is broken is Trumps China trade war, this doesn't help

[elleng]

3. Nothing better to do with his time?

STAY AT HOME!

[csziggy]

4. Maybe the Missouri AG should watch this

[zonkers]

5. This asshat is wasting time and taxpayers money on this BS. Now? Wow. Dereliction of duty.

[msongs]

6. more republican planned diversion nt

[Celerity]

21. +100000

[Windy City Charlie]

7. Trying to re-write

Another effort to try and re-write the history books to cover up for Trump's failure in responding to the virus.

[stillcool]

8. I read the other day

that China was going to be a focus for their election campaigns, to pivot from what is happening. Everything is so orchestrated, I wonder how they decide who gets to do what.

[Windy City Charlie]

11. I can believe that

I can believe that. They know how the cult rallies against an "enemy", especially if it the enemy comes from the international sector.

[stillcool]

14. yeah..any non-white will do..

and they sure do scarf it down, and barf it up.

[Thomas Hurt]

9. Dude is angling to replace Barr....LOL, fn idiot.

[keithbvadu2]

10. Sue closer to home... Just change 'China' to 'Trump'.

Sue closer to home... Just change 'China' to 'Trump'.

[struggle4progress]

12. Missouri's lockdown didn't begin until 6 April. The governor is talking about getting back to work

The lawsuit looks like nothing more than cover for Trump's incompetence, since it complains about the Chinese lying and hoarding PPE

My guess: the AG hopes the Chinese will regard this as nonsense and no-show

[Blue_true]

15. It would be great if China lawyer-up and take that asshole down in Court.

His claims are unprovable. He is following the GOP playbook, "bash the yellow people and hope no one seeks out the truth".

[struggle4progress]

17. I'm not a lawyer but I looked at the USC the suit cites, and it looks like he's try to blow

smoke from his butt up everybody else's skirt

"What can I do to get attention?"

[Blue_true]

18. Your last sentence and the one before it, right on target. nt

[dalton99a]

19. No, China Can't Be Sued Over Coronavirus:

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-03-24/can-china-be-sued-over-the-coronavirus
No, China Can't Be Sued Over Coronavirus
Nation-states are immune from such lawsuits.
By Stephen L. Carter
March 24, 2020, 10:00 AM CDT
Stephen L. Carter is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He is a professor of law at Yale University and was a clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall. His novels include “The Emperor of Ocean Park,” and his latest nonfiction book is “Invisible: The Forgotten Story of the Black Woman Lawyer Who Took Down America's Most Powerful Mobster.”

...

Legal liability, however, is another matter. The government of China is protected by the doctrine of sovereign immunity, and the regime’s undoubted misconduct does not constitute sufficient grounds for a waiver.

Sovereign immunity is not a favor courts do for foreign regimes. It’s an act of reciprocity, a peace treaty resting on a shared understanding that we will not allow our people to sue you if you will not allow your people to sue us. So broad is the traditional doctrine that a British court held in 1894 that even if a foreign ruler moves into one’s country, takes on an assumed name and conceals his true position, and enters into a contract, a lawsuit against him for breach is still barred.

Until 1952, the U.S. generally took the position that the immunity of foreign sovereigns was absolute. 1 That year, the State Department took the position that it would more closely scrutinize claims of immunity where the case involved a commercial dispute. That in turn led to the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, known as FSIA, passed in 1976, a statute intended (in the words of one federal court) “to protect foreign sovereigns from the burdens of litigation, including the cost and aggravation of discovery.”

So broad are the statute’s protections that the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that a foreign country need not even file an answer to a complaint — what lawyers call entering an appearance — in order for immunity to apply. 2 For example, when the family of a boy allegedly killed by a malfunctioning hunting rifle sued the manufacturer, a company owned by the Chinese government, the defendant did not bother offering a response in court. Instead, the company just sent the lawsuit documents back to the plaintiff, and the company was held to be immune.

[struggle4progress]

20. The AG's theory is that this is a commercial dispute, but his link is thin