BATON ROUGE – Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry has joined an 18-state effort calling on Congress to investigate the communist Chinese government’s role in the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a statement.

In a letter to the U.S. House and Senate Foreign Relations Committee and other Congressional leaders, General Landry and his colleagues 'highlight the havoc COVID-19 has wreaked' on their states.

“More than 30,000 Louisianans have contracted the coronavirus, and over 2000 have lost their lives,” General Landry said. “Additionally: a countless number of our State’s employers, employees, and their families have been economically devastated.”

“Recent reports suggest that the communist Chinese government willfully and knowingly concealed information about the severity of the virus while simultaneously stockpiling personal protective equipment,” General Landry and his colleagues wrote. “In what Secretary of State Pompeo has described as a ‘classic communist disinformation effort,’ the Chinese government, aided by the World Health Organization, appears to have intentionally misled the world over the last six months.”

Landry and the fellow members of his Attorney General coalition want to 'hold China accountable for its actions.' 

According to the statement, they are asking for Congressional Hearings to better understand where COVID-19 originated from, in addition to the efforts by the Chinese government to 'deceive the international community.'