The Biden Administration is facing another lawsuit on top of the one filed in May. The suit has been filed by Missouri and Louisiana against the White House in the United States District Court for the Western District of Louisiana.
It names a number of Biden Administration officials and agencies as defendants, and it alleges that they colluded with social media companies to both suppress and censor free speech on several issues. One of the issues is Hunter Biden’s laptop, and another is the Wuhan lab leak theory concerning the origins of COVID-19.
In place of the previous White House Press Secretary, Jen Psaki, Karine Jean-Pierre is now named as a defendant. And Dr. Anthony Fauci is now a named defendant.
Missouri and Louisiana have come together with a joint statement revealing what has been uncovered in the suit so far, and it does not look good for Biden’s team.
Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt said, “We have already received a number of documents that clearly prove that the federal government has an incestuous relationship with social media companies and clearly coordinated to censor freedom of speech, but we’re not done,” Schmitt said. “The Department of Justice is cowering behind executive privilege and has refused to turn over communications between the highest-ranking Biden Administration officials and social media companies. That’s why, yesterday, we asked the Court to compel the Department of Justice to produce those records. We’re just getting started – stay tuned.”
The joint statement from the two states referred to what took place as a vast “Censorship Enterprise.” It details how the DOJ provided them with information that identified 45 federal officials who have connected with social media companies with misinformation. Meta, the company over Facebook, also identified 32 more federal officials that included White House officials.
Judge Terry A. Doughty issued an order that called on Dr. Fauci and Jean-Pierre to respond to discovery requests and gave them 21 days to comply.
Previously, Judge Doughty granted the plaintiff’s request for expedited discovery. But several issues made it necessary for the judge to require an additional ruling. One of those issues was whether or not government defendants should be required to identify federal officials and agencies they know of that engaged in communications with social media platforms about misinformation, disinformation, or misinformation, and/or censorship or suppression of speech or social media. The question was if that official had to produce evidence of these communications that were in their possession.
There was also an issue of whether the White House defendants, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and Chief Medical Advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci should be compelled to respond to Plaintiffs’ interrogatories and document requests. The answer from the court was “yes” on both issues, and the defendants had 21 days to respond accordingly.
Attorney General Schmitt recently said that up until this point, the Department of Justice has refused to cooperate with the requests of the lawsuit, and the White House was claiming “executive privilege.”
“The American people deserve answers on how the federal government has colluded with social media companies to censor free speech on these major platforms. We will continue to fight to uncover more of this vast censorship enterprise,” Schmitt said.
There will be added pressure on the Biden Administration now that Jean-Pierre and Dr. Fauci are under the spotlight. The attorneys for Missouri and Louisiana are pressuring the federal District Court to compel the Department of Justice to turn over communications between high-ranking Biden Administration officials from the White House, HHS, and others, and major social media companies.
Ultimately, what is being discovered is likely going to be even more damaging to the White House.
