Jen Psaki, the former White House media secretary, lost a legal battle when a federal judge ordered her to testify concerning the White House’s involvement in social media censorship.
On Monday, Judge Terry Doughty of the Western District of LA released his judgment.
Doughty refused Psaki’s attorney’s plea to stay a court order requiring her to testify, saying there was a public interest in “establishing whether First Amendment freedom of speech rights have been stifled.”
Republican District Attorneys Eric Schmitt of MO and Jeff Landry of LA filed the complaint, alleging that top officials in the Biden admin. suppressed free speech on social media sites “under the pretense of battling misinformation.”
Judge Doughty issued the initial ruling on October 21 requiring Psaki and Dr. Anthony Fauci to testify in the lawsuit.
“We quickly filed a motion to have these people under oath after discovering confirmation of a collusive relationship between the Biden admin. and social media corporations to restrict free expression,” Schmitt stated following the October ruling.
“It is about time we cast a light on this censoring industry and demand these authorities to admit the truth to the American people,” he added. “We will continue to press for the truth.”
Jonathan Turley, a legal professor at George Washington University, believes there is evidence to support the lawsuit’s claims.
“The concern for advocates of free speech is that there is a form of surrogate censorship, that Democratic leaders as well as other groups have been using social media to silence dissenting views, and you’ve had a large number of individuals that have been banned on social media or had tweets removed from the site that has proven to be correct,” Turley said.
“The govt. is not authorized to do indirectly what it has been barred from doing directly,” the legal professor warned of probable government-social media coordination.
As part of the case, the Biden admin. was required to give over emails pertaining to social media filtering in July. The emails, according to critics, revealed that the White House was involved in an effort to suppress free expression.
