MO Attorney General Eric Schmitt Requests 47 More Government Defendants for Depositions in Case with Gateway Pundit on Govt. Collusion with Tech Giants to Silence Speech

As we reported back in August – Jim Hoft of The Gateway Pundit is a key plaintiff in a lawsuit filed by the State of Missouri.   State of Missouri ex rel. Schmitt, et al. v. Joseph R. Biden, Jr., et al., 3:22-cv-01213. The lawsuit alleges that the public statements, emails, and recently released documents, establish that the President of the United States and other senior officials in the Biden Administration violated the First Amendment by directing social-media companies to censor viewpoints that conflict with the government’s messaging on Covid-19 and election integrity concerns relating to the 2020 general election, and is a direct assault on the First Amendment.

Additional plaintiffs, joining Hoft and the State of Missouri, include the State of Louisiana, epidemiologists Drs. Jayanta Bhattacharya and Martin Kulldorff, Dr. Aaron Kheriaty and Jill Hines.

The collusion of the Biden administration, in coordination with multiple departments within the United States government and big tech, has led to the censorship, silencing and de-platforming of individuals and organizations and it is a direct assault of the First Amendment.

The Biden Administration has been engaged in an ongoing campaign to extinguish any and all speech that deviates from the Administration’s world view, with the ultimately goal of removing opposing views entirely from the public square.

This devious campaign was highlighted in recently revealed emails from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to social media companies, instructing and collaborating with the companies to censor nonpreferred speech of Americans.

This censorship has taken on a variety of forms including banning temporary and permanent banning of social media accounts, shadowing banning (where speech is restricted without the author of audience being aware of the restrictions) demonetization of accounts, restricting and eliminating access to content, warning labels and other methods to stifle free speech.

On Monday Missouri Secretary of State and GOP Senatorial Candiate Eric Schmitt announced that the states of Missouri and Louisiana are adding 47 new defendants to their lawsuit against the federal government for allegedly colluding with social media giants to censor speech.

AG Eric Schmitt posted a series of tweets announcing the news on Twitter.

Included on the list of new defendants are top White House officials Andy Slavitt and Rob Flaherty and WH 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.

— Eric Schmitt (@Eric_Schmitt) October 10, 2022

MO and LA 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.

— Eric Schmitt (@Eric_Schmitt) October 10, 2022

** Read the 2nd Amended Complaint here.

The Gateway Pundit’s Editor Jim Hoft wrote ths back in August: “In 2016, the Gateway Pundit was the 4th most influential conservative media outlet on Facebook and Twitter according to Harvard and Columbia Journalism Review.  At the time, there was a free flow of ideas and information on social media platforms.  Following the election of President Donald Trump, all of that changed. The Gateway Pundit was first to be targeted by social media companies resulting in a 90% loss of traffic from social media sites.  Twitter followed Facebook in censoring prominent conservative websites and ultimately, TGP was permanently banned from the platform in 2021 after releasing video of vans dropping off late night ballot deliveries at the Detroit TCF  Center.

“Turns out the Deep State is actually a real thing.  Censoring Americans’ Wrongthink on 2020 election integrity concerns and COVID vaccine concerns is, literally, fascism: the government and oligarchic industries coordinating to set social policy,” said TGP General Counsel John Burns.  “This attack on the First Amendment is just the camel’s nose under the tent.  Unless we fully expose and end these First Amendment rights deprivations, the list of forbidden thoughts will grow bigger and bigger.  And the oligarch totalitarians behind this insanity will finally get what they want: the annihilation of both the First Amendment and the freedom of thought in America.  This suit is the tip of the spear for the good guys.”

TGP continues to be one of the most targeted media outlets online today.  Our social media accounts had hundreds of thousands of followers before the tech giants decided to stifle our traffic, ban us, and demonetize us.  We now know that led US government, in a coordinated attack involving tech giants and far left organizations was also leading efforts to censor and ban our content because, although true, it provides information that does did not conform with their unproven propaganda.  We have been targeted, censored, banned, demonitized, smeared and erased.  The Gateway Pundit has, however, kept the receipts.  We are excited to see our case presented by the Missouri and Louisiana Attorneys General.

About the Gateway Pundit:

Founded in 2004, The Gateway Pundit is an online news publication consisting of news, commentary, and analysis.

Located in St. Louis, Missouri, TGP focuses on topics Heartland Americans care about. Since its founding, TGP has grown into one of America’s leading news outlets with over 2.5 million daily readers in 2021. Millions of Americans have lost trust in the purportedly unbiased nature of the mainstream media. TGP addresses this gap as a reliable news source for the stories and views that are largely untold or ignored by traditional news outlets.

For more information contact: [email protected]

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