A controversial medical expert during the coronavirus pandemic, Dr. Anthony Fauci, and other top officials of the administration of President Joe Biden of the United States (U.S.), including five social media giants are facing lawsuit on allegations of connivance to suppress freedom of speech “under the guise of combating misinformation.” They have been given 30 days to respond to subpoenas and discovery requests in a lawsuit by the Missouri Attorney General, Eric Schmitt, and Louisiana Attorney General, Jeff Landry, alleging that the government connived with social media companies to suppress freedom of speech “under the guise of combating misinformation.”
Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt and Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry had served third party subpoenas on Twitter, Meta (Facebook’s parent company), Youtube, Instagram and LinkedIn last Wednesday.
Also, Schmitt and Landry had on Tuesday filed discovery requests for documents and information from the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and Fauci, its director; White House Press Secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre;; Surgeon General, Dr, Vivek Murthy; and former executive director of Disinformation Governance Board, Nina Jankowicz.
Also included in the Discovery requests were Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC); the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and its director, Jen Easterly; the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS); and the U.S. Department of Health and human Services (HHS).
Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt in a statement declared: “In May, Missouri and Louisiana filed a landmark lawsuit against top-ranking Biden Administration officials for allegedly colluding with social media giants to suppress free speech on topics like COVID-19 and election security.
“Earlier this month, a federal court granted our motion for expedited discovery, allowing us to collect important documents from Biden Administration officials. Yesterday, we served discovery requests and today served third-party subpoenas to do exactly that.
“We will fight to get to the bottom of this alleged collusion and expose the suppression of freedom of speech by social media giants at the behest of top-ranking government officials.”
Schmitt had protested that government officials “both pressured and colluded with social media giants Meta, Twitter and Youtube to censor free speech in the name of combating so-called ‘disinformation’ and ‘misinformation,’ which led to the suppression and censorship of truthful information on several topics, including COVID-19.”
According to Schmitt: “The Court’s decision cleared the way for Missouri and Louisiana to gather discovery and documents from Biden Administration officials and social media companies.
“The order states, ‘The First Amendment obviously applies to the citizens of Missouri and Louisiana, so Missouri and Louisiana have the authority to assert those rights.’”
Schmitt had in a statement on twitter after the court granted the attorneys general’s request, declared: “A federal court granted our request for discovery and documents from top ranking Biden officials and social media companies to get to the bottom of their collusion to suppress and censor free speech.
“No one has had the chance to look under the hood before – now we do.” pic.twitter.com/TzrxtC3piN
— Eric Schmitt (@Eric_Schmitt) July 12, 2022