extensive experience and intelligence national security the complaint contains factual matter accepted this true just had a claim of early plausible on his space that is not conjecture or speculative to survive a motion to dismiss this case is all about mr kelly excuse me please if in order to find some subject matter jurisdiction in this case would we have to overrule our precedent namely ins international versus order to determine diversity and the citizenship of a u s citizen who is domiciled outside of the citizen that that citizen cannot doesn't have statehood essentially for  with unincorporated association and diversity jurisdiction right yes so in if we were to find subject matter jurisdiction for you here would we have to overrule that case i think that we're really putting the cart and one of the horse we're just at the complaint stage and we don't know for a fact they're not there is necessarily a stateless membership you rendering you filed that in your statement of jurisdiction with the a domicile for tax purposes or u s citizen can never be state let's just go paying citizen tax purposes that that that brings me back and i'm sorry to interrupt but that brings me back to us international where we said fo diversity purposes not tax purposes those are two separate inquiries for diversity purposes in individual who is stateless namely a u s citizen who is domiciled outside of the united states cannot that that defeats diversity so i go back to my original question given that some of the perkins kui partners here in the partnership that you have named as a defendant in the case argue us citizens but are domiciled outside of the united states if we were to find diversity citizen diversity here and that there is subject matter jurisdiction would we have to over our precedent in this case it would again be premature because we need to we need to deliver jurisdictional discovery to the defendant the  determination at the outset i what we don't know is that section of discovery you've already said that in a pleading with the court so what would discovery as to citizenship not personal jurisdiction we don't know whether or not there was a down the silent member of the firm in china or elsewhere at the time the complaint was filed therefore we need to diversity or rather  again i think it would be premature to make any type of conclusion that these folks and china hong kong beijing wherever they may be are necessarily domicile there when they're still in the u s consider to be u s citizens if we were not your points clear on the factual issue the ship may have sailed on you not sure there but if you if we get to the legal it's a legal point you were making you might be right as a practical matter this outcome doesn't make a lot of sense today you know world of l l c in other non corporate forms that operate but wasn't that precisely the point at the end and where the supreme court said the time is the time may be upon us for the diversity jurisdiction statute to be amended in modified and updated but that's the role of congress named defendants in this case has nothing to do a china china is completely beyond the scope of consideration here but isn't that wasn't that throughout the scott and alan partner that we talked about in i s i international in two thousand and three the scot and alan partner that lived in canada well at this point this is our allegations and explain or based on information and belief made in good faith that everyone is we'll turn to you thank you judge government please the court even barry from laughing watkins on behalf of defendants has your honors there are two basic jurisdictional defects in this matter and each independently supports the district court's decision to dismiss the case in its entirety st as your honour's questions alluded to the court lacks subject matter jurisdiction because perkins can he has three stateless partners which precludes diversity jurisdiction and there is no federal claim certain this case the supreme court held in cardin that a partnership assumes the citizenship of its partners and consistent with the supreme court's newman green decision in this court's holding in saddam or smirked as a us citizen d outside of the united states is not a citizen of any us state purposes of the federal versity statute taking those two principles together a partnership is stateless and diversity jurisdiction is unavailable if any of its partners are u s citizens brought this court as as you indicated judge sane even judge scotter reached exactly that conclusion and i assign our national into our knowledge every other circuit court to would consider this issue including specifically as applied to international law firms has come out the same way plain just haven't identified a case to the contrary and we don't cause any of you know is this point all right that's all fine and dandy on the law but we have no idea as a matter of fact who lives where it is a member of the partnership and we need some discovery to get this all ironed out so judge cutter we did submit three sworn affidavits with our responsive brief neither in their brief nor during argument a moment ago the plaintiff's counsel actually dispute any of the facts call into question their veracity or or for that matter and maybe more importantly dispute the application of what we think are well settled principles to those facts so i do think i assign our national clearly applies here i think that case is consistent with the way that every other court is it has addressed this and i think absent some specific dispute well well founded dispute  to the facts contain those affidavits i don't think there's any reason for the court to allow the sort of kind of broad brushstrokes fictional discovery that the plaintiff has as generally suggested it might be here without at all defining exactly what information  argument that he doesn't know the citizenship of these three partners at the time he filed the complaint so he doesn't know they were stateless back in two thousand and sixteen jud that is clearly addressed in the affidavits that lay out with specificity the timing of each individual's domicile in china and so again a don't think there's any reason to question it and we haven't heard any so i do think your honour's that i s i international flies here we think that squarely addresses the subject matter jurisdiction issue i think judge scotter you're exactly right that the sort of policy concerns that claim this counsel raise in their briefs are exactly the ones that the supreme court addressed in its current decision and then it acknowledged that the this rule is is it's precedent bound is technical but it is it is the law and it is a an issue for the legislature to decide and we think it clearly applies here turning to the nd jurisdictional deficiency in this case  as an independent grounds for dismissal an obviously the one that the district court dismissed the case on this case simply has nothing to do with the state of illinois and we believe that this report correctly held the plaintiffs have not established civic personal british intelligence officer to conduct political opposition research outside of the united states this year and there a reason that the district court addressed personal terrorist actions rather than subject matter jurisdiction and all the loss that the court can decide either or hierarchy we think the lack of personal jurisdiction was was obvious frankly on the face of the complaint and so it was it was a threshold issue that the court in its discretion could reach st we do certainly think this court could reach there's there's no harm alleged in illinois and so the question really is what could possibly connect this case to illinois and on that score plaintiff point to two things st they point to a letter sent by perkins who used general counsel in october twenty seven teen more than a year after publication of the september two thousand and sixteen article that allegedly contained the family or information we think it's telling that the complaint mentions the g c only in passing as an unnamed senior chicago lawyer in just two paragraphs and describes the letter rightly as narrowly related to a decision in the context of the congressional inquiry to release fusion g p s of its confidential obligations in part implausibly your honour's plaintiff now pivot from those allegations and try to paint the g c as as the mastermind of this supposed scheme to defame them but there's really nothing at all that ties  incidental form contact that this court has consistently rejected since fission the nd thing plaintiffs point to is this vague allegation that the perkins creep political law group that mr elias overseas in d c quote has sixteen and seventy two that mr elias in d c quote organized and directed the opposition research by fusion g p s and plaintiffs similarly suggested system with that in their opening brief at page five  honour's we've been playing this filed this suit in illinois for one reason and that is forum shopping as paragraphs one o four through one of six of the complaint acknowledge this is the nd unsuccessful lawsuit plaintiffs filed against these defendants and it was simply too late to file defamation claims without at least the possible application of a savings statute like illinois but not d c and not most other jurisdictions provides and so plaintiffs pieced together to help tenuous illinois connections to create the appearance of personal jurisdiction were not aware of a single case of the seven circuit court is found or a stiction based on such a thin relationship among the defendant the forum in the litigation and so we think that this report was right to reject what they called a patchwork of unrelated illinois connections and plaintiffs so called efforts to blow smoke and the reality is that plaintiff claims that this report phrase quote consist entirely of out of state activity by out of eliminated by on a number of different points involving the pattern this triggers activities match through managing attorney for the law from chicago office and each of those would certainly can down a specific terrorist action which we have alleged in this particular case indeed a stateless actor stateless type of partnership which has been discussed a bit earlier and all we're seeking is more information we've made these allegations based on information and belief and in good faith  office in a report not recently released and the f b i agent who completely abused the intelligence and that process resulted in criminal charges and a conviction receiving probation that f b i agent's name was mr klein smith and this is really just a travesty to mr or dr potter at the time in chicago when all this news broke he left the country you know here he is now being painted as some sort of international fugitive this is just improper and wrong and we would stand on the complaint for jurisdictional reasons thank you very much your honor and an opportunity to proponents propound