It was recently revealed via a state-led lawsuit’s discovery process that dozens of Biden administration officials have been secretly colluding and coordinating with — and potentially coercing — social media companies to censor and suppress alleged “disinformation” and “misinformation” that the administration disagreed with.
Now the court overseeing that suit has ordered the Biden White House to turn over relevant records involving certain top White House officials, such as press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and Chief Medical Adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci, as part of that ongoing discovery process, the Daily Wire reported.
President Joe Biden’s White House had cited executive privilege and refused to comply with the initial general order for discovery in the lawsuit alleging censorship and suppression of free speech that was filed in May by the Republican attorneys general of Missouri and Louisiana.
Court smacks down Biden administration
Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt announced in a tweet on Tuesday, “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.”
In a statement, Schmitt said, “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.’ 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. We will continue to fight to uncover more of this vast censorship enterprise,” he added.
White House must comply with communications requests
In a 10-page order issued on Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty addressed a number of “remaining disputes” and related requests in the previously ordered expedited discovery process ahead of an eventual ruling on a state-requested preliminary injunction against the Biden administration.
One of those disputes was whether certain White House officials, such as Jean-Pierre and Fauci, should be compelled to respond to requests for communications between them and social media companies.
The judge agreed that they should be compelled to comply, given that such communications were relevant to the plaintiff’s claims, that they were external communications not covered by executive privilege, and that the plaintiff states couldn’t seek out the requested information elsewhere due to the expedited timeline.
Dozens of examples of coordinated censorship
This order came less than a week after AG Schmitt had heralded an initial victory in the lawsuit via the previously ordered discovery that resulted in thousands of emails being turned over that showed dozens of federal officials in several different agencies and departments had been in direct communication with social media companies about censoring and suppressing so-called “disinformation” and “misinformation” about such things as COVID-19, President Biden and son Hunter Biden, and the integrity of the 2020 election, among other things.
That tweet thread last week contained numerous examples of apparent collusion and coordination between the administration and the social media companies in which those platforms, whether willingly or under duress, engaged in censorship and suppression of certain content and users that the administration itself was prohibited from engaging in by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
Now, thanks to this most recent court order, it will soon be revealed that the collusion and coordination on social media censorship likely involved top-ranked White House officials like the press secretary and the president’s top medical adviser.