After a federal judge ordered Jen Psaki to testify about the White House’s role in censorship on social media, the former White House press secretary has lost her battle in court. The decision was issued by judge Terry Doughty of the Western District of Louisiana. A motion by Psaki’s attorney was denied by Doughty, who asked to block a court order for her testimony and said there was a public interest in “determining whether First Amendment free speech rights have been suppressed.”
On the basis that high-ranking officials in the Biden administration had censored free speech on social media platforms “under the guise of combating misinformation,” Republican Attorneys General Eric Schmitt of Missouri and Jeff Landry of Louisiana have filed the lawsuit, reported The Blaze.
The judge who first ruled on October 21 that Psaki and Dr. Anthony Fauci must testify for the lawsuit was Judge Doughty. After the October ruling, Schmitt said: “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.”
“It is high time we shine a light on this censorship enterprise and force these officials to come clean to the American people, and this ruling will allow us to do just that,” said Schmitt. “We’ll keep pressing for the truth,” he added. That there was evidence to support the contentions made in the lawsuit, opined Jonathan Turley, a George Washington University law professor.
“The concern for free speech advocates is that there is a type of censorship by surrogate, that Democratic leaders and other groups have used social media to silence opposing voices, and you’ve had a number of people who’ve been banned on social media or had tweets taken down that have been proven correct,” said the legal scholar.
About possible collusion between the government and social media companies, Turley said that “the government is not allowed to do indirectly what it is prohibited from doing directly.” As a part of the lawsuit, the Biden administration was forced to turn over emails related to censorship on social media in July. It is believed by critics that the emails proved that the White House participated in a campaign to shut down free speech.
Correction: title had spelling error, fixed on 11/28