FBI and White House Slapped Down By Judge in Major Censorship Case

Bonchie reporting for RedState 

Are the wheels finally coming off the White House’s censorship train? It’s too soon to say for sure, but the Biden administration and the FBI got slapped down by a federal judge on Wednesday in a landmark case centering on the issue.

The judge has ruled that the FBI can’t shield special agent Elvis Chan from being deposed in a lawsuit brought by Missouri AG (and soon-to-be senator) Eric Schmitt and Louisiana AG Jeff Landry.

Officials in Louisiana and Missouri recently launched a lawsuit against the Biden administration seeking information about alleged collusion between the FBI, the DoJ, and other agencies with social media companies to censor information unflattering to the White House. Lawyers for the White House attempted to prevent some of the depositions from taking place, including that of FBI special agent Elvis Chan. Agent Chan had been identified as having worked directly with Meta to remove certain news stories on Facebook. But U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana shot down the request, allowing the depositions to go forward. Needless to say, there are probably some very nervous people biting their fingernails in the White House this week.

As RedState previously reported, Meta (Facebook) was at the center of censoring the Hunter Biden story prior to the 2020 election, possibly swinging the outcome. Its founder, Mark Zuckerberg, inadvertently admitted on Joe Rogan’s podcast that the FBI had come to them with more than a wink and nudge, suggesting that the story was actually Russian disinformation. Making matters worse, the FBI obviously knew at that point that the laptop story was true given they had been in possession of the hard drive for ever a year.

Why was the FBI going to Facebook (and presumably, other social media companies) to knock down a negative story about Joe Biden and his son? The only logical answer given what we know is that they were trying to influence the election. Mission accomplished, I suppose.

The lawsuit doesn’t stop with Chan, though. Figures working for the NIH, the CDC, and other government agencies are also being targeted. That’s because, for years, they have obviously worked with social media companies to push the administration’s chosen narratives. The censorship of the COVID-19 lab leak theory has been one of the more high-profile examples, but hardly the only one.

For all the talk of threats to “democracy,” I’d suggest it’s a pretty big threat to our electoral system to have the federal government violating rights by proxy in order to benefit partisan goals. It also happens to probably be illegal. What the Biden administration did and likely continues to do is anti-American tripe, attempting to put their fingers on the scale even in the face of truthful information.

Lastly, can we talk about how abusive it is to even try to shield Chan from being deposed under the guise of national security? I’m pretty sure the FBI lying to harm its political opponents (which conservatives clearly are) isn’t an issue of national security. It’s an issue of corruption, and the fact that the Biden administration might end up with egg on its face (and possibly legal sanctions) isn’t an excuse to hide the facts from the public any longer.