Judge Orders Biden Admin to Hand Over Communicatio
Post# of 123676
August 5, 2022
A federal judge has ordered the Biden administration to hand over communication documents between the federal government and big tech companies.
U.S. District Court Judge Terry Doughty, of the Western District of Louisiana, granted the order of discovery sought by Republican Attorneys General Eric Schmitt of Missouri and Jeff Landry of Louisiana.
President Joe Biden, members of his administration, and select social media companies must turn over documents and answer questions within the next 30 days during a discovery phase of a lawsuit alleging collusion to suppress freedom of speech, a court ruled.
The attorneys general of Louisiana and Missouri filed a lawsuit in May alleging Biden and eight high-ranking members of his administration and the government colluded with and/or coerced social media companies Meta, Twitter, and YouTube to suppress “disfavored speakers, viewpoints, and content on social medial platforms.”
On Tuesday, Terry Doughty, a judge in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana, ruled there is “good cause” for the discovery process and set a timetable, including specific deadlines for depositions.
“In May, Missouri and Louisiana filed a landmark lawsuit against top-ranking Biden Administration officials for allegedly colluding with social media giants to suppress freedom of speech on a number of topics including the origins of COVID-19, the efficacy of masks, and election integrity,” Missouri Republican Senate candidate and current Attorney General Eric Schmitt said. “Today, the Court granted our motion for discovery, paving the way for my office to gather important documents to get to the bottom of that alleged collusion. This is a huge development.”
The lawsuit alleges that social media companies labeled information as “misinformation” and “disinformation” in violation of the First Amendment and that the federal government went beyond its authority and the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Homeland Security violated the Administrative Procedure Act.
The lawsuit also said that the now disbanded “Disinformation Governance Board” suppressed information involving the Hunter Biden laptop story prior to the 2020 Presidential election, the lab-leak theory of COVID-19’s origin, the efficiency of masks and COVID-19 lockdowns, and election integrity.
“After the AGs filed a motion for expedited preliminary injunction-related discovery, the Biden administration filed an opposition. The Biden administration argued Louisiana and Missouri don’t have the authority to bring a parens Patria suit – an action to protect citizens unable to protect themselves – against the federal government,” the report said.
“The administration argued the states can’t meet an ‘injury in fact’ standard, defined as ‘it suffered ‘an invasion of a legally protected interest’ that is ‘concrete,’ ‘particularized,’ and ‘actual or imminent, not conjectural or hypothetical.’” The administration contended there wasn’t a link between alleged injuries to the states and the government’s alleged actions and argued the states can’t demonstrate how the court will provide justice for an alleged ‘injury in fact,’” it said.
Nina Jankowicz, who was supposed to be the head of the Disinformation Governance Board, or as some mockingly called it “The Ministry of Truth,” spoke to CNN host CNN’s Brian Stelter and complained that the administration did not do enough to defend her reputation.
And she said that the White House basically muzzled her so she could not defend herself.
She claimed that the board was supposed “to bring best practices to bear, and to make sure that we were up with the latest research, the latest trends, in disinformation and countering it and make sure that work was being done in a way that protected freedom of speech, protected civil rights, civil liberties, and privacy.”
“So, the sympathetic view, to you, is that the Disinformation Board was the victim of disinformation. Is that how you feel?” the host responded.
https://conservativebrief.com/judge-34-65213/?