JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — Dr. Anthony Fauci, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, and other Biden administration officials have been accused of colluding with social media giants to suppress free speech under the pretense of stopping misinformation: that’s the claim made by Missouri and Louisiana in federal lawsuits against the Biden administration. The two states’ attorneys general last week filed subpoenas against Fauci and others as part of the suit.
On Tuesday, Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt and Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry served discovery requests on top Biden Administration Officials and later served third-party subpoenas on social media giants Twitter, Meta, Youtube, Instagram, and LinkedIn according to several media sources.
“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,” said Attorney General Schmitt. “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.”
According to LakeExpo.com, defendant White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, who was sued in her personal and official capacity, was served with interrogatories that requests for documents related to items like: (1) Identify every officer, official, employee, staff member, personnel, contractor, or any other person associated with the White House Communications Team who has communicated or is communicating with any Social-Media Platform relating to Content Modulation and/or Misinformation, (2) Identify all Communications with any Social-Media Platform relating to Content Modulation and/or Misinformation, (3) Identify all person(s) who “engage[s] regularly with all social media platforms about steps that can be taken” to address Misinformation on social media, which engagement “has continued, and … will continue,” as stated at the April 25, 2022 White House press briefing, including all Communications with any Social-Media Platform involved in such engagement, and more.
Defendant Nina Jankowicz was served with interrogatories and requests for documents relating to: (1) Identify all Communications with any Social-Media Platform relating to Content Modulation and/or Misinformation, (2) Identify the nature, purpose, participants, topics to be discussed, and topics actually discussed at the meeting between DHS personnel and Twitter executives Nick Pickles and Yoel Roth scheduled on or around April 28, 2022, and more.
Third-party subpoenas that were served to Twitter, Youtube, Meta, Instagram, and LinkedIn require documents from Defendant Dr. Fauci and NIAID to be handed over on certain items like:
1) Identify all Communications with any Social-Media Platform relating to Content Modulation and/or Misinformation,
2) Identify all meetings with any Social-Media Platform relating to Content Modulation and/or Misinformation,
3) Identify all Communications with Mark Zuckerberg from January 1, 2020, to the present, including but not limited to those referenced in Paragraphs 142- 145 of the Complaint,
4) Identify all Communications with any Social-Media Platform that relate to the Great Barrington Declaration, the authors of the Great Barrington Declaration, the original signers of the Great Barrington Declaration, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, Dr. Martin Kulldorff, Dr. Aaron Kheriaty, Dr. Sunetra Gupta, Dr. Scott Atlas, Alex Berenson, Dr. Peter Daszak, Dr. Shi Zhengli, the Wuhan Institute of Virology, EcoHealth Alliance, and/or any member of the so-called “Disinformation Dozen,” and more.
Defendants are required to respond to discovery requests within 30 days. Links to all subpoena requests can be found at LakeExpo.com.
