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Title: Judge orders expedited discovery process in free speech lawsuit against Biden administration
Source: [None]
URL Source: https://americandigest.com/judge-or ... -against-biden-administration/
Published: Jul 31, 2022
Author: Sarah May
Post Date: 2022-07-31 18:10:58 by BTP Holdings
Keywords: None
Views: 45
Comments: 3

Judge orders expedited discovery process in free speech lawsuit against Biden administration

By Sarah May

July 31, 2022

In a potentially catastrophic blow to the Biden administration’s ongoing attempts to stifle free speech, a federal judge earlier this month ordered high-ranking White House officials to produce documents and sit for depositions in litigation filed by two state attorneys general, as The Center Square reports.

U.S. District Court Judge Terry Doughty granted a discovery order sought by plaintiffs in the aforementioned lawsuit and outlined a formal timetable and deadlines by which a number of high-ranking administration members must respond.

The case at issue was brought by Republican Attorneys General Eric Schmitt of Missouri and Jeff Landry of Louisiana back in May, and in it, President Joe Biden and other key officials are accused of engaging in collusion with tech giants such as Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube to suppress speech and censor content related to the pandemic, the 2020 election, and other subjects under the ruse of fighting against supposedly dangerous misinformation, as the Washington Examiner reported at the time.

In a press release announcing the lawsuit, Schmitt wrote, “We allege that government officials in the Biden Administration, including President Biden, Press Secretary Jen Psaki, Dr. Anthony Fauci, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, and others colluded with social media companies like Meta, Twitter, and YouTube to remove truthful information related to the lab-leak theory, the efficacy of masks, election integrity, and more.”

Further, the attorney generals allege that the Biden administration ran afoul of the law in its engagement and communication with Big Tech social media platforms and that the Administrative Procedures Act was also violated by high-ranking officials within the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Health and Human Services.

Though Doughty did not adopt the plaintiffs’ proposed schedule for expedited discovery, he did lay out his own schedule for discovery related to their motion for a preliminary injunction, with expeditious document production and deposition scheduling now required.

John Hinderaker of Powerline declared the order of expedited discovery to be “potentially seismic” in that the plaintiffs can serve document requests as well as subpoenas on government agencies and tech companies alike “seeking the identity of federal officials who have been and are communicating with social-media platforms about disinformation, misinformation, malinformation, and/or any censorship or suppression of speech on social media, including the nature and content of those communications.”

Encouraged by the order, Hinderaker added that “the upshot is that in the near future – a matter of a few months – we may know the details (or many of them, anyway) of how the Biden administration has leaned on, or conspired with, tech companies to censor disfavored information opinions.”

Though he noted that “the government will fight these disclosures tooth and nail to try to keep its censorship efforts secret,” Hinderaker also observed that Judge Doughty – unlike many others on the bench – does not appear “reflexively hostile to any challenge to the Biden administration, optimistically musing, “Who knows? In this case, justice might actually be done.”

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Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 3.

#1. To: BTP Holdings (#0)

Ho hum! The court of appeals will overturn the judges orders.

DWornock  posted on  2022-07-31   19:37:12 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#3. To: DWornock (#1) (Edited)

The court of appeals will overturn the judges orders.

Which Court of Appeals would this be? Historically, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has been traditionally liberal. But it seems some appointments made by Trump might have turned that around. ;)

BTP Holdings  posted on  2022-08-02   10:44:09 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


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