Between the focus on the Democratic National Convention and the RFK Jr. announcement that he was dropping out of the presidential race and endorsing Trump, there was an interesting piece of legal news that flew under the radar last week. On Tuesday, U.S. District Court Judge Terry Doughty, who previously penned a Fourth of July masterpiece of a decision in the Murthy v. Missouri (f/k/a Missouri v. Biden) First Amendment case, issued a ruling declaring that Kennedy and his charity had standing to pursue a claim against the government for violating their First Amendment rights.
Robert Kennedy Jr. can sue the Biden administration for allegedly censoring social media posts for the Children’s Health Defense charity, which questions the safety of vaccines, a federal court ruled Tuesday.
“The Court finds that Kennedy is likely to succeed on his claim that suppression of content posted was caused by actions of Government Defendants, and there is a substantial risk that he will suffer similar injury in the near future,” US District Judge Terry Doughty of Lousiana wrote in a 20-page decision.
The ruling indicates there is evidence to support Kennedy’s claim that the government pressured big tech companies like Facebook, Instagram and YouTube to suppress content shared by his charity, the Children’s Health Defense (CHD).
The Kennedy v. Biden lawsuit claimed posts expressing CHD’s skepticism on the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccine mandates and lockdowns were specifically targeted as part of a broader effort by the government to combat what it labeled “misinformation,” Doughty wrote.
The ruling has significant import in light of the Supreme Court’s ruling in June finding that the Plaintiffs in Murthy failed to establish standing.
Supreme Court Deals First Amendment Blow in Murthy v. Missouri
Kennedy alluded to the ruling during his Friday announcement.
The Democratic Party’s censorship of social media was even more of a naked exercise of executive power. This week, a federal judge, Terry Doughty, upheld my injunction against President Biden, calling the White House’s censorship project: “The most egregious violation of the First Amendment in the history of the United States of America.” His previous, 155-page decision details how, just 37 hours after he took the oath of office swearing to uphold the Constitution, President Biden and his White House opened up a portal, and invited the CIA, the FBI, CISA, which is a censorship agency, the center of the censorship-industrial complex, DHS, the IRS and other agencies to censor me and other political dissidents on social media.
Even today, users who try to post my campaign videos to Facebook and YouTube get messages that this content violates community standards. Two days after Judge Doughty rendered his decision, this week, Facebook was still attaching warning labels to an online petition calling on ABC to include me in the upcoming debate. They said that violates their community standards.
The mainstream media was once the guardian of the First Amendment and democratic principles, but has since joined this systemic attack on democracy. Also, the media justifies their censorship on the grounds of combating misinformation, but governments and oppressors don’t censor lies, they don’t fear lies. They fear the truth, and that’s what they censor.
I don’t want any of this to sound like a personal complaint, because it’s not. For me, it’s all part of a journey, and it’s a journey I signed up for. But I need to make these observations because I think they’re critical for us doing the thing we need to do as citizens in a democracy to assess where we are in this country and what our democracy still looks like, and the assumptions about U.S. leadership around the globe. Are we really still a role model for democracy in this country? Or have we made it a kind of joke?
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The opinion, though brief relative to the one he rendered in Murthy, sets out the detailed chronology of the censorship efforts taken against Kennedy and the rationale for finding that he had adequate standing to pursue his claim:
This Court finds that there is significant evidence showing Kennedy was directly censored in the past, and there is likely a substantial risk that Kennedy’s content will be restricted in the future because of the actions of at least one of the Government Defendants. During the preliminary injunction stage, the movant is only required to demonstrate a likelihood of proving standing, which Kennedy has done here.
There is ample evidence in the record showing that Kennedy has been directly censored in the past. Not only was he a part of the alleged “Disinformation Dozen,” which was repeatedly flagged and/or censored at the behest of numerous Defendants, but he was also censored for his anti-vaccine and anti-COVID-19 rhetoric. Therefore, Kennedy has more than satisfied the first element for Article III standing, that is, he suffered an injury-in-fact when he was censored. The injury is traceable to the Government Defendants, as there were numerous orders that social-media companies censor the “Disinformation Dozen.” Finally, Kennedy has satisfied the third element of standing as this injury is likely to be redressed by a favorable judicial decision (in this case, a preliminary injunction).
The full decision may be viewed below.
RFK JR – Standing by Susie Moore on Scribd
