by Katelynn Richardson
A federal judge ruled Tuesday that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. can continue to pursue his censorship lawsuit against the Biden administration.
The Supreme Court ruled in June that state and individual plaintiffs who alleged the Biden administration violated their First Amendment rights when it pressured social media companies to suppress speech did not have standing to sue. District Court Judge Terry Doughty found Kennedy meets the standard set by the Supreme Court because there is “ample evidence” to show he has been censored in the past at the direction of government actors and “substantial risk” that the censorship will continue.
Under the Supreme Court’s Murthy v. Missouri ruling, Doughty explained that “a court must make specific findings that a particular defendant pressured a particular platform to censor a particular topic before the platform suppressed a particular plaintiff’s speech on that topic.”
🚨 BREAKING: RFK Jr. and CHD Get Green Light to Sue Biden Administration for Censorship
A Louisiana district court ruled late Tuesday that plaintiffs @RobertKennedyJr and Children’s Health Defense have the legal right to sue the Biden administration for pressuring tech giants… pic.twitter.com/54ZjXdsivt
— Children’s Health Defense (@ChildrensHD) August 21, 2024
Kennedy was part of the “Disinformation Dozen” specifically targeted by the government over alleged COVID-19 misinformation, Doughty noted. He wrote there is “not much dispute” that Kennedy, along with the organization he leads, Children’s Health Defense, “were specifically targeted by the White House, the Office of Surgeon General, and CISA [Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency].”
“The Court finds that there is further risk for future risk injury here because Kennedy is a 2024 presidential candidate,” Doughty wrote. “For example, if, hypothetically, the FBI saw a piece of information related to the 2024 presidential election posted by the Kennedy campaign on social media that it deemed to be ‘misinformation,’ then it reached out to CISA, who worked closely with the EIP, who then removed the posts, Kennedy would be censored by the action of one Government Defendant in response to another.”
Doughty granted Kennedy an injunction in February blocking multiple federal agencies from coercing or significantly encouraging platforms to suppress protected speech, which he put on hold pending the Supreme Court’s ruling. In response to the government’s appeal, the Fifth Circuit in July sent the case back to the district court to rule on the plaintiffs’ standing.
“It is gratifying that Judge Doughty found RFK, Jr. and Children’s Health Defense have standing, even under the draconian requirements the Supreme Court developed in Murthy,” New Civil Liberties Alliance litigation counsel Jenin Younes told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “We are assessing next steps for the Murthy plaintiffs in light of Judge Doughty’s opinion, which will also assist us in crafting discovery requests to ensure we can demonstrate standing going forward.”
The Kennedy campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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Katelynn Richardson is a reporter at Daily Caller News Foundation.
Photo “RFK Jr.” by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Background Photo “Courtroom” by Karen Neoh. CC BY 2.0.
