A federal judge has given the Biden administration just 21 days to turn over emails sent from Dr. Anthony Fauci, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, and other officials to social media companies regarding “misinformation” during the pandemic.
Judge Terry Doughty’s decision comes as part of a lawsuit filed in May by Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt and Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry.
Schmitt and Landry have alleged that numerous federal officials across multiple departments colluded with big tech giants to coordinate the censorship of what they consider misinformation.
“This Court believes Plaintiffs are entitled to external communications by Jean-Pierre and Dr. Fauci in their capacities as White House Press Secretary and Chief Medical Advisor to the President to third-party social media platforms,” Judge Doughty said.
The DOJ had argued that the email correspondence between the two with social media companies was protected under executive privilege.
BREAKING: In our lawsuit against the Biden Admin for colluding with social media companies to censor speech, the Court just ordered DOJ to produce records from key WH & HHS officials like Dr. Fauci, the WH Press Secretary, and others.
— Eric Schmitt (@Eric_Schmitt) September 6, 2022
RELATED: White House Admits They’re Actively Working With Facebook To Flag ‘Disinformation’
Did WH Officials Like Fauci and Jean-Pierre Coordinate Censorship of Americans?
Attorney General Eric Schmitt celebrated the ruling that the DOJ must turn over the emails.
“Up until this point, the Department of Justice has refused to cooperate with our requests for discovery from top officials in the Biden Administration under the guise of ‘executive privilege,’” he said in a statement. “Today, the Court entered an order that requires that the federal government turn over the records we’ve long requested.”
“The American people deserve answers on how the federal government has colluded with social media companies to censor free speech on these major platforms,” Schmitt added.
“We will continue to fight to uncover more of this vast censorship enterprise.”
In May, We filed a landmark lawsuit against top ranking Biden Admin. officials for colluding with social media companies to censor free speech. We have already received documents that show their cozy relationship, and now we’re demanding more.
— Eric Schmitt (@Eric_Schmitt) September 1, 2022
Documents released by Schmitt and Landry last week show officials flagging instances of supposed “misinformation” and even providing rebuttal talking points to Facebook employees for use to counter such postings.
One CDC official had allegedly requested monthly meetings with Facebook to plan “debunking” strategies.
The CDC also proposed a monthly debunking meeting with Facebook to help them censor free speech as well as regular “Be on the Lookout” calls with major social media outlets. pic.twitter.com/oSAjbxbT8b
— Eric Schmitt (@Eric_Schmitt) September 1, 2022
RELATED: Biden-Linked Groups, DNC Want Private Text Messages Monitored For Vaccine ‘Misinformation’
White House Has Admitted It
In their response to the judge’s decision, an administration official didn’t even bother to defend their actions, issuing a statement to Fox News that practically confirms the censorship efforts.
“As we have said over and over again since the beginning of the administration in our battle against COVID-19, it has been critical for the American people to have access to factual, accurate, science-based information,” the official said.
A White House official was even concerned about parody Fauci accounts and coordinated with Facebook to take them down. pic.twitter.com/UJwn6z7BOy
— Eric Schmitt (@Eric_Schmitt) September 1, 2022
This should come as no surprise since former press secretary Jen Psaki over a year ago admitted the White House was working with Facebook to flag ‘disinformation’ regarding vaccines and COVID-19.
“We are in regular touch with the social media platforms and those engagements typically happen through members of our senior staff and also members of our COVID-19 team,” Psaki told reporters.
“We’ve increased disinformation research and tracking within the Surgeon General’s Office,” she added. “We are flagging problematic posts for Facebook that spread disinformation.”
.@PressSec: “We’re flagging problematic posts for Facebook that spread disinformation.” pic.twitter.com/xTCvg3tyFQ
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) July 15, 2021
A subsequent report shortly thereafter indicated that groups aligned with President Biden, including the DNC, were pushing text message carriers to help monitor ‘misinformation’ regarding COVID-19 vaccines.
‘Potentially a death sentence’: White House goes off on vaccine fearmongers. Read here how the Biden administration is working with SMS (text) companies to censor your personal texts that mention vaccine fears that the administration disagrees with. https://t.co/InlTSwxx04
— Travis Tritt (@Travistritt) July 13, 2021
In their initial lawsuit filing, Schmitt and Landry called the actions by White House officials “a phase of open collusion with social-media platforms under the Orwellian guise of halting so-called ‘disinformation,’ ‘misinformation,’ and ‘malinformation’.”
“As a result of these actions, there has been an unprecedented rise of censorship and suppression of free speech – including core political speech – on social media platforms,” the lawsuit says.
“Not just fringe views, but perfectly legitimate, responsible viewpoints and speakers have been unlawfully and unconstitutionally threatened in the modern public square.”
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg also dropped jaws recently by admitting Facebook throttled information about the Hunter Biden laptop scandal just before the 2020 presidential election.
Zuckerberg said the FBI paid a visit to employees and “warned” Facebook about “Russian disinformation” stories.
If you’re wondering why Facebook almost immediately censored the NYPost story on Hunter Biden’s laptop, Zuckerberg tells Joe Rogan that the FBI warned the company about “Russian disinformation” right before the story went live. pic.twitter.com/H34g8NZxHw
— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) August 25, 2022
Zuckerberg pointed out that a visit from the FBI, which he called a “legitimate institution,” prompted him to take their warning “seriously” and subsequently admitted that Facebook had algorithmically throttled the reach on any posts involving the Hunter Biden laptop.
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The post Judge Orders Biden To Turn Over Emails From Fauci, Jean-Pierre Allegedly Coordinating Censorship of ‘Misinformation’ With Social Media appeared first on The Political Insider.
