A Chinese drone manufacturer has filed a lawsuit against the Defense Department and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin over being designated as a “military company” by the Pentagon, and one of its top lawyers should be very familiar to Americans.
On Friday, Shenzhen DJI Innovation Technology Co., Ltd. which is known as DJI filed a lawsuit over its inclusion on the list warning U.S. interests of doing business with the China-based company and the potential risk to national security.
“DJI is neither owned nor controlled by the Chinese military and … sells only ‘consumer and commercial’ — not military — drones,” the lawsuit alleges.
https://t.co/aG80UIKuyD pic.twitter.com/H4M4SzPGbe
— Ben Tallmadge (@BenTallmadge01) October 19, 2024
The suit names Austin and Deputy Defense Secretary for Industrial Base Policy Laura Taylor-Kale as co-defendants in the filing in U.S District Court in Washington, D.C. by law firm Paul Weiss, alleging that the Pentagon has refused “to provide its rationale for DJI’s designation” and ignoring requests to meet with company representatives, according to a report by Politico.
“After attempting to engage with the DoD for more than sixteen months, DJI determined it had no alternative other than to seek relief in federal court,” the company said in a statement.
One of the attorneys who represents the company is former attorney general Loretta Lynch who held the top spot at the Department of Justice from 2015 to 2017, the historic first black female to be named to the job after she was hand-picked by Barack Obama to replace his “wingman” Eric Holder who passed through the revolving door from government back to his lucrative gig as a high-powered lawyer.
Loretta Lynch currently is a partner at Paul Weiss, one of first foreign law firms to establish an office in mainland China, opening in Beijing in 1981.https://t.co/aR0OJSBXTY pic.twitter.com/DX1OZCuAcZ
— Ben Tallmadge (@BenTallmadge01) March 11, 2024
Lynch’s involvement with DJI has been a matter of controversy with some House Republicans, with Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) slamming the former Obama official for lobbying the Defense Department on behalf of a Chinese-owned company.
“It is disgraceful but unsurprising that Barack Obama’s former Attorney General Loretta Lynch is now working on behalf of a Communist Chinese drone company that the Department of Defense has identified as a Chinese military company,” the House GOP Conference Chair told Fox News Digital in March.
“Former Attorney General Loretta Lynch is lobbying the DOD to request they remove DJI from this list so the Communist Chinese company can operate with impunity in America. U.S. government officials, both past and present, should be working to ban these Communist Chinese spy drones and bolster the domestic drone industry, not advocating on behalf of a Chinese military company and the Chinese Communist Party,” Stefanik said.
Last month, the House of Representatives voted to bar new drones from the company from operating in the U.S. The bill is waiting on action from the Democrat-controlled Senate.
“With this action, Congress will ensure that future versions of DJI drones cannot be imported, marketed or sold in the United States,” said Rep. Frank Pallone (D-NY) who sits on the Energy and Commerce Committee.
The company which sells over half of the drones in the U.S. is opposed to the bill which it says “restricts the ability of U.S. drone operators to buy and use the right equipment for their work, solely on the basis of the equipment’s country of origin,” according to Reuters.
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