Beijing Launches $50 Billion COVID-19 Countersuit Against Missouri, GOP Senator

Sen. Eric Schmitt said he is being ‘targeted by Communist China’ in what he called a ‘lawfare campaign.’

Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.) speaks during the second day of the 2024 Republican National Convention at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee on July 16, 2024. Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images

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.

“Instead of trying to defend its indefensible behavior, communist China responded with frivolous lawfare, attempting to absolve themselves of all wrongdoing in the early days of the pandemic,” Schmitt said, adding that his state will “easily beat back” any “fake judgment” issued by a Chinese court.

“This novel lawsuit is factually baseless, legally meritless,” he stated. “This is their way of distracting from what the world already knows, China has blood on its hands.”

In addition to monetary compensation, the Chinese plaintiffs are asking the defendants to issue public apologies via U.S. media outlets, including CNN and The Wall Street Journal, as well as Chinese news outlets, according to the complaint.

“I find it extremely telling that the Chinese blame our great state for ‘belittling the social evaluation’ of The Wuhan Institute of Virology,” Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway said in a statement on Dec. 16.

“This lawsuit is a stalling tactic and tells me that we have been on the right side of this issue all along. We stand undeterred in our mission to collect on our $24 billion judgment that was lawfully handed down in federal court.”

The 2020 COVID-19 lawsuit accused China of running an “appalling campaign of deceit, concealment, misfeasance, and inaction” during the initial outbreak. It also accused China of hoarding personal protective equipment and limiting its exports.

In March, a Missouri judge found the CCP liable for $24 billion for hoarding COVID-19 protective equipment. In response to the judge’s ruling, Bailey, who succeeded Schmitt in 2023 as Missouri’s attorney general, said that he would collect “every penny” of the award and seize Chinese-owned assets.

Hanaway became the state’s attorney general in September after Bailey left for the FBI.

Her office has pledged to continue to obtain certification that will allow the attorney general to begin seizing Chinese-owned assets, including real property, financial interests, and other holdings tied to Beijing.

The Chinese litigation came three months after a Chinese court sentenced Chinese citizen journalist Zhang Zhan to another four years in prison for her early reporting about the pandemic situation in Wuhan.

Schmitt said the sentencing and the lawsuit show the level of effort for the regime to suppress information it deemed undesirable.

“As China continues to jail whistleblowers and go after those who seek to expose the truth, like me, their regime shows the dark side of the CCP—lies, deceit, and dishonesty all in the name of their own gain,” he said.

On Dec. 17, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) applauded Schmitt for “standing up to this ridiculous lawfare campaign.”

“Communist China must pay for unleashing the COVID plague on the world and for waging economic war on America for decades,” Cotton wrote in a post on X.

Schmitt said he will “wear this lawsuit like a badge of honor,” because “no amount of CCP choreographed lawfare” will deter him from doing what’s right.