BATON ROUGE, LA – Yesterday, Louisiana Attorney General
Jeff Landry and Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt filed a Joint Statement
on Discovery Disputes, asking a federal court in the Western District of
Louisiana to compel the Department of Justice to turn over communications
between high-ranking Biden Administration officials from the White House,
Department of State, FBI, and others and major social media companies.
The filing is a result of a landmark lawsuit filed by the
two states in May. In July, the Court required the Biden Administration to turn
over communications between federal officials and social media companies. The
Department of Justice has already turned over communications between a number
of federal officials and social media companies but has refused to provide
communications between top-ranking officials and social media companies.
"When the federal government colludes with Big Tech
to censor speech, the American people become subjects rather than
citizens," said Attorney General Jeff Landry. "The USDOJ must not be
allowed to hide behind the vail of executive privilege, especially when there
is already compelling evidence that the people's government colluded with these
social media companies to suppress their right of free speech."
"Missouri and Louisiana filed a landmark lawsuit
back in May that seeks to expose how top Biden Administration officials
allegedly colluded with social media companies to censor freedom of speech on a
number of topics, including COVID-19. We won in court in July, and the Court
required the Biden Administration to turn over communications between federal
officials and social media companies," said Attorney General Schmitt.
"We have already received a number of documents that clearly prove that
the federal government has an incestuous relationship with social media
companies and clearly coordinate to censor freedom of speech, but we’re not
done. The Department of Justice is cowering behind executive privilege and has
refused to turn over communications between the highest-ranking Biden
Administration officials and social media companies. That’s why, yesterday, we
asked the Court to compel the Department of Justice to produce those records.
We’re just getting started – stay tuned."
The communications already provided by the Department of
Justice to the plaintiff states show a vast “Censorship Enterprise” across a
multitude of federal agencies. In response to discovery, the defendants
identified 45 federal officials at DHS, CISA, the CDC, NIAID, and the Office of
the Surgeon General (all of which are contained in either DHS or HHS) that
communicate with social media platforms about “misinformation” and censorship.
The joint statement points out, “But in these responses, Defendants did not
provide information about other federal officials at other federal agencies of
whom they are aware who engage in such communications with social-media
platforms about misinformation and censorship. Defendants’ document production,
however, revealed that such officials at other federal agencies exist—for
example, they include extensive copying of officials at the Census Bureau, and
they also include communications suggesting that the Departments of Treasury
and State may be involved as well.”
Beyond the Department of Justice’s production, “Meta
identified 32 federal officials—including senior officials at the FDA, the U.S.
Election Assistance Commission, and the White House— have communicated with Meta
about content moderation on its platforms, many of whom were not disclosed in
response to Plaintiffs’ interrogatories to Defendants. YouTube disclosed an
additional eleven officials, including officials at the Census Bureau and the
White House, many of whom were also not disclosed by Defendants.”
“The discovery provided so far demonstrates that this
Censorship Enterprise is extremely broad, including officials in the White
House, HHS, DHS, CISA, the CDC, NIAID, and the Office of the Surgeon
General," joint statement continues. "And evidently other agencies as
well, such as the Census Bureau, the FDA, the FBI, the State Department, the
Treasury Department, and the U.S. Election Assistance Commission. And it rises
to the highest levels of the U.S. Government, including numerous White House
officials. Defendants have objected to producing some of the most relevant and
probative information in their possession.”
This “Censorship Enterprise” is proven by the Department
of Justice’s productions thus far, but the full extent of federal officials’
collusion with social media companies on censorship is unknown until the
Department of Justice produces further communications requested by Louisiana
and Missouri.
A senior Facebook
official sent an email to the Surgeon General stating, “I know our teams met
today to better understand the scope of what the White House expects from us on
misinformation going forward.” This email chain follows the SG’s
“misinformation health advisory” in July 2021: https://ago.mo.gov/docs/default-source/press-releases/free-speechpitch-thread-docs/hhs-fb-email-1.pdf?sfvrsn=53bc4454_2
The same senior official sent a later email to HHS and
noted, "Thanks again for taking the time to meet earlier today."
Then, the official continued to discuss how Facebook is taking even more steps
to censor freedom of speech: https://ago.mo.gov/docs/default-source/press-releases/freespeech-pitch-thread-docs/hhs-fb-exhibit.pdf?sfvrsn=55bd83df_2
Twitter scheduled a meeting to debrief top White House
Officials on “vaccine misinformation.”: https://ago.mo.gov/docs/default-source/press-releases/free-speech-pitch-thread-docs/twittervaccine-meeting-wh.pdf?sfvrsn=6599e359_2b
There are several instances where Facebook wouldn’t
proceed with censoring freedom of speech on their platform until they had
input, or a “debunking” from the CDC. Twitter followed the same course in at
least one email.
• Twitter example:
https://ago.mo.gov/docs/default-source/press-releases/freespeech-pitch-thread-docs/twitter--cdc-action.pdf?sfvrsn=12c0dc46_2
The CDC also proposed a monthly debunking meeting with
Facebook to help them censor free speech as well (https://ago.mo.gov/docs/default-source/press-releases/free-speech-pitchthread-docs/cdc-fb-monthly-debunk.pdf?sfvrsn=3508a21f_2)
as regular “Be on the Lookout” calls with major social media outlets: https://ago.mo.gov/docs/default-source/pressreleases/free-speech-pitch-thread-docs/cdc-bolo-meeting.pdf?sfvrsn=9a060658_2
A White House
official was even concerned about parody Fauci accounts and coordinated with FB
to take them down: https://ago.mo.gov/docs/default-source/press-releases/free-speechpitch-thread-docs/fake-fauci.pdf?sfvrsn=a9d8f2bf_2