MONROE,
LA – Louisiana Attorney
General Jeff Landry and Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt have filed a
second amended complaint that adds 47 defendants (total of 67 defendants) to
their lawsuit against the federal government for allegedly colluding with
social media giants to censor freedom of speech. The list of new defendants
include top officials at the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the Federal
Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the White House, and others. Further, Louisiana
and Missouri plan to file a motion on Friday requesting that the Court allow
the states to take the depositions of a number of key defendants.
"Throughout
this case, we have uncovered a disturbing amount of collusion between Big Tech
and Big Government," said Attorney General Landry. "This egregious attack on
our First Amendment will be met with an equally full-hearted defense of the
rights of the American people."
"Missouri
and Louisiana filed a landmark lawsuit, seeking to expose that the federal
government has worked hand-in-hand with social media companies to censor
freedom of speech on their platforms. Our lawsuit has done exactly that – we've
found a staggering 'censorship enterprise' that extends to a multitude of
federal agencies and implicates government officials at the highest levels of
government, but we're not done yet," added Attorney General Schmitt. "Now,
we've added 47 additional defendants to our lawsuit, including several FBI
agents and more top-ranking White House officials. We're also asking the Court
to allow our offices to take depositions to question these officials under
oath. We're only just getting started."
Included
on the list of new defendants are top White House officials Andy Slavitt and
Rob Flaherty and White House Counsel Dana Remus, FBI Section Chief for the
Foreign Influence Task Force Laura Dehmlow, CDC Deputy Communications Director
Kate Galatas, and other top-ranking officials.
Referring
to the addition of the FBI defendants, the petition states, "Defendant
Laura Dehmlow is the Section Chief for the FBI's Foreign Influence Task Force.
She is sued in her official capacity… Defendant Elvis M. Chan is Supervisory
Special Agent of Squad CY-1 in the San Francisco Division of the FBI. On
information and belief, he has authority over cybersecurity issues for FBI in
that geographical region, which includes the headquarters of major social-
media platforms, and he plays a critical role for FBI and FITF in coordinating
with social-media platforms relating to censorship and suppression of speech on
their platforms."
The
petition continued, "Pursuant to the third-party subpoena, Meta has
identified the FBI's FITF, as supervised by Laura Dehmlow, and Elvis Chan as
involved in the communications between the FBI and Meta that led to Facebook's
suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story."
Louisiana
and Missouri have also provided an initial list of requested deposition
subjects to the Department of Justice, and plan to file a motion asking the
Court to grant deposition requests and allow Missouri and Louisiana to
question, under oath, certain defendants named in the lawsuit.
The
petition argues, "Such communications from the White House impose maximal
pressure on social-media companies, which clearly yields the sought-after
results. And federal officials are fully aware that such pressure is necessary
to induce social-media platforms to increase censorship of views that diverge
from the government's. CISA Director Jen Easterly, for example, texted with
Matthew Masterson about 'trying to get us in a place where Fed can work with
platforms to better understand the mis/dis trends so relevant agencies can try
to prebunk/debunk as useful,' and complained about the Government's need to
overcome the social-media platforms' 'hesitation' to working with the
government: 'Platforms have got to get more comfortable with gov't. It's really
interesting how hesitant they remain.'"
In that
same vein, the petition notes, "In fact, such pressure from government
officials on social- media companies, along with the many public statements
alleged in the Complaint, have succeeded on a grand scale. A veritable army of
federal bureaucrats are involved in censorship activities 'across the federal
enterprise.' There are so many, in fact, that CISA Director Easterly and
Matthew Masterson complained in text messages that 'chaos' would result if all
federal officials were 'independently' contacting social-media platforms about
so-called misinformation… On information and belief, as alleged above, the
'Disinformation Governance Board' was created to impose a bureaucratic
structure on the enormous censorship activities already occurring involving
dozens of federal officials and many federal agencies."
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