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A court approved a request Friday to depose Dr. Anthony Fauci, former White House press secretary Jen Psaki, and a bevy of other Biden administration officials in a free speech case.
The attorneys general for Missouri and Louisiana have accused the Biden administration of “colluding to suppress freedom of speech” with major tech companies and first filed in May. The duo has specifically alleged Big Tech and the Biden administration worked to suppress speech about COVID-19, election integrity, and other matters unfairly.
“After finding documentation of a collusive relationship between the Biden Administration and social media companies to censor free speech, we immediately filed a motion to get these officials under oath,” Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt said. “It is high time we shine a light on this censorship enterprise.”
He backed the lawsuit along with fellow Republican Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry. The U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana approved the deposition request.
The lawsuit alleged that the collusion amounted to an infringement upon the First Amendment rights of everyday people. It also alleged Action in Excess of Statutory Authority Administrative Procedure Act Violations by Health and Human Services officials and Administrative Procedure Act violations by Department of Homeland Security officials.
In addition to Fauci and Psaki, the court also approved the deposition of the Director of White House Digital Strategy Rob Flaherty, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Director Jen Easterly, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, and FBI supervisory special agent Elvis Chan.
In a lengthy 26-page order, U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty, appointed by former President Donald Trump, went through the list of officials requested for deposition and concluded that Schmitt and Landry satisfied the burden of proof for testimony.
For example, Doughty agreed with the plaintiffs’ arguments that there were “compelling reasons that suggest Dr. Fauci has acted through intermediaries” to communicate with Big Tech.
Purported Big Tech censorship has become a rallying cry for conservatives over recent years. Meanwhile, liberals, including the Biden administration, have fretted over the prevalence of misinformation online and have pushed social media platforms to crack down on it.
Two examples cited in the suit were the suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story and efforts to curb mentions of the so-called lab leak theory, which hypothesized COVID-19 originated from a lab in Wuhan, China.
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Featured image is from Children’s Health Defense
