(RightWing.org) – On Tuesday, July 4, a federal judge released an adverse memorandum ruling against the Biden administration in a case involving allegations the government attempted to suppress certain viewpoints and ideas on social media platforms. Nevertheless, a former Clinton administration aide ignored basic facts and claimed the court erred by lending credibility to a conspiracy theory.
On Thursday, the Brennan Center CEO, Michael Waldman, joined MSNBC host Andrea Mitchell to discuss the judge’s ruling. Before joining the Brennan Center, he worked as a special assistant for former President Bill Clinton and as a member of President Joe Biden’s now-infamous Commission on the Supreme Court.
District Judge Terry Doughty, a Trump nominee, issued a 155-page memorandum ruling and accompanying seven-page preliminary injunction barring various executive branch departments, agencies, and personnel from interfering with citizen’s free speech rights by “meeting with members of social media companies” to encourage, pressure, or induce them to remove, suppress, or reduce “content containing free speech.”
The Republican attorneys general of Missouri and Louisiana brought the case, State of Missouri et al. v. Joseph Biden et al. (US District Court, Western District of Louisiana), in May 2022.
Waldman called the court’s decision to issue a preliminary injunct an “extraordinarily broad [and] radical ruling” made by a lone trial judge before he received discovery in the case. He went on to claim the judge took the side of “two very conservative” Republican attorneys general by lending credence to the “conspiracy theory that somehow the [Biden administration is]… censoring social media [content] and keeping conservative voices off [the platforms].”
However, Waldman seems to have overlooked several basic facts in the case.
- On June 14, 2022, the plaintiffs (Missouri and Louisiana) filed 15 sworn declarations from individuals supporting their motion for a preliminary injunction.
- March 2023, the plaintiffs and defendants filed hundreds of pages of deposition transcripts and exhibits.
- On May 3 and 22, the defendants filed nine additional exhibits.
- On May 26, the court heard oral arguments from both parties on the motion for a preliminary injunction. The total hearing time was 4 hours and 25 minutes, and both sides presented seven witnesses each.
On July 5, the defendants filed a notice of appeal. The following day they filed a motion for a stay on the preliminary motion pending the outcome of their appeal. Alternatively, the defendants asked the court for a seven-day administrative stay to give the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals time to consider a motion for a stay.
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