Former Obama Attorney General Suing Department of Defense on Behalf of Chinese Company

A former high-ranking cabinet official in the Obama Administration is providing legal services to a Chinese military company as it files a lawsuit against the Department of Defense (DOD).

As the Daily Caller reports, former Attorney General Loretta Lynch, who served as the final Attorney General in Barack Obama’s Cabinet from 2015 to 2017, is one of the five attorneys representing Chinese drone manufacturer DJI. Her services, along with the other four lawyers, are being provided by the firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton, & Garrison.

DJI filed its lawsuit on October 18th, challenging the Pentagon’s decision to designate the company as a “Chinese military company.” DJI was added to the Pentagon’s list of Section 1260H entities, determining that the company is “directly or indirectly owned, controlled or beneficially owned by” the Chinese military, and provides direct support to Chinese weapons manufacturing.

Lynch’s lawsuit claims that DJI “is neither owned nor controlled by the Chinese military and … sells only ‘consumer and commercial’ — not military — drones.” The company also insists that, as a result of the designation by the DOD, the company has suffered “ongoing financial and reputational harm.”

In a blistering statement on Monday, Congresswoman Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), declared that “Barack Obama’s former Attorney General Loretta Lynch has turned her back on her nation, selling out to our greatest adversary Communist China and suing the United States on behalf of CCP-owned drone company DJI.”

“Not only is her lawsuit full of factual errors, it is also an obvious effort by DJI to distract from CBP’s recent halting of DJI imports due to Uyghur slave labor concerns and a futile attempt to disrupt the momentum behind my unanimously passed Countering CCP Drones Act,” Stefanik continued. “DJI’s time in the United States is rightfully coming to an end and Loretta Lynch’s sham lawsuit is not going to save them.”

Stefanik has previously championed legislation in Congress to ban the use of DJI drones in the United States, due to national security concerns over their Chinese origin.

Lynch had previously advocated for DJI back in 2023, writing a letter to the Pentagon demanding that the company be removed from the 1260H entity list.