Missouri’s lawsuit fighting censorship of conservatives on social media has revealed the “disgusting underbelly” of the Biden administration’s “vast censorship enterprise,” says U.S. Sen. Eric Schmitt – who filed the case as the state’s then-attorney general.
A district judge and appeals court have both issued injunctions in the case prohibiting the administration from colluding with social media companies to censor disfavored speech. The most recent injunction has been stayed until the U.S. Supreme Court hears arguments on Monday over whether it should stand, with a ruling expected by June.
The high court’s decision in the Missouri v. Biden case – known as Murthy v. Missouri on appeal – will do no less than set the ground rules for online freedom of speech during the remainder of the 2024 election cycle.
“Yeah, for sure,” Schmitt said in an exclusive interview with The Heartlander on Thursday. “Hopefully the Supreme Court will see it as the district court did, that the government can’t coerce, collude with Big Tech to censor Americans. So, it will set the ground rules.
“But I think no matter what, what the case did is it exposed this censorship enterprise that went from [government] agencies people have never heard of, deplatforming people, taking down speech, the government’s threatening some of these Big Tech companies with investigations and lawsuits if they didn’t censor more.
“So, I think that’s been exposed. I think with Elon Musk buying Twitter, it was further exposed; some of the House hearings here about that now on Capitol Hill have further amplified what we found in Missouri v. Biden.
“It’s a big, important, free speech case for sure, but it also was the very first glimpse behind the curtain of this Orwellian censorship scheme.”
What prompted that “first glimpse behind the curtain”?
“The Biden administration was almost bragging about some of this stuff,” Schmitt explained, noting the lawsuit’s genesis came even before release of the Twitter Files proving government involvement in censoring conservative posts. “Jen Psaki stood at that podium as the press secretary saying we are flagging these kinds of posts as it relates to COVID for Facebook and other social media companies. That was sort of an indication.
“Then they had this, again, Orwellian Ministry of Truth – the Disinformation Governance Board. I mean, this is scary stuff. So, they were kind of out in the open, and we thought there was more there. So we filed the lawsuit. We were able to get discovery. We were able to uncover the direct messages from senior administration officials to senior social media executives telling them, ‘Take this down’ – and then threats of lawsuits and investigations and antitrust actions if they didn’t.
“It really kind of revealed the disgusting underbelly of the federal government, and how they work with social media companies to control speech, which of course is what our First Amendment protects us from.”
The lawsuit, filed jointly with Louisiana and other plaintiffs, maintains the Biden administration has leaned on social media companies to curtail or remove conservative views on such things as COVID-19 policies and origins, the integrity of the 2020 election and the legitimacy of the Hunter Biden laptop.
“They’re not allowed to do that, and they’re also not allowed to outsource that to third parties like these Big Tech giants, to censor Americans,” Schmitt argues. “And so, my hope is that our election, and the process, is defined by free and open debate and not government having their thumb on the scale.”
The stakes could not be any higher, Schmitt warns.
“I think it’s the most important free speech case in the history of our country,” he says. “You had a weaponized federal government, a vast censorship enterprise, coercing and colluding with the biggest companies in the history of the world, these Big Tech giants that suppress speech. And it’s a scary proposition.
“It’s Orwellian. It’s been proven in that lawsuit, and now it’s before the Supreme Court and I’m hopeful that they’ll rule in Missouri’s favor.”
