Press Release
Washington, D.C. — On Nov. 17, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Dr. Joseph Mercola and Ty and Charlene Bollinger moved to intervene in the Missouri v. Biden First Amendment case on behalf of the public interest, themselves and their respective organizations — Children’s Health Defense (CHD), Mercola.com, The Truth About Vaccines (TTAV) and The Truth About Cancer (TTAC). The intervention will allow them — and the public at large — to gain access to specific discovery and depositions — including that of Dr. Anthony Fauci from Nov. 23 — for use in pending litigation against social media platforms.
The intervenors are among the 12 specifically disfavored speakers the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) has labeled the “Disinformation Dozen” due to content shared on social media and websites regarding vaccines. In actuality, they are prominent publishers of factual, alternative online news and criticism — including Big Pharma, all aspects of COVID-19 and the government’s response.
The motion to intervene explains that these free speech advocates and their organizations have been censored and de-platformed by major social media platforms that are working with — and taking orders from — the federal government. The intervenors seek open public access to critical sworn depositions and documents already produced by the federal defendants. These materials are expected to capture top-level communications between the federal branch and social media tech executives to censor and suppress a wide swath of online COVID-19 news, criticism of the government’s vaccine mandates and lockdowns, and discussion of the lab-leak theory of COVID-19’s origin.
“If the Biden Administration has instructed Big Tech to censor Bobby Kennedy, Children’s Health Defense (CHD), Mercola and the Bollingers, we need to see what they’ve said, and it must stop,” said CHD president and general counsel Mary Holland. “The First Amendment prohibits the government from censoring its critics — full stop. This is what our democracy requires as the bedrock of all other freedoms.”
Missouri and Louisiana filed a lawsuit against the Biden Administration in Louisiana Federal Court in May 2022. District Judge Terry Doughty has fast-tracked the case toward a hearing to stop in its tracks and enjoin the government-directed social media giants’ version of a “Ministry of Truth.”
“We were censored, shadowbanned, deplatformed for sharing stats, facts and scientific data taken from the government’s own websites about COVID-19 — the same facts the current director of the CDC, Fauci and others are now saying are true after two plus years of denying these facts. We were right all along,” said founder & CEO of The Truth About Cancer & Vaccines Charlene Bollinger. “We should never have been censored. The world needs to hear our voices in order to make informed decisions about their health. What has happened to RFK, Jr., Dr. Mercola, to us and many others should never have happened. Our government has colluded to hide the truth about COVID, and we need the truth to ensure this never happens again. Lives are on the line. Informed consent and real science will save countless lives. It is our mission to reach everyone with the truth to support life.”
“It’s neither beneficial to democracy nor public health that the audio-visual recordings of key depositions describing the secret communications between key government actors and social media executives remain hidden from the American people. Social media platforms continue to muzzle dissenters for exercising their First Amendment rights to criticize government policies while the proof of this illegal collaboration with government officials remains sealed,” said CHD chairman and chief litigation counsel Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
Judge Doughty has allowed the state’s attorneys general to take depositions of the critical federal censors, all of whom are well-known to the American public for their politically-motivated views about COVID-19: Dr. Anthony Fauci, ex-White House press secretary Jen Psaki, Director of White House Digital Strategy Rob Flaherty, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) Director Jen Easterly and FBI Agent Elvis Chan.
“Our federal government must be transparent to maintain trust, yet officials are violating our fundamental rights behind closed doors. The biggest threat to the First Amendment comes from the government’s censorship enterprise in collusion with social media tech giants,” said Dr. Joseph Mercola.
The Plaintiff States and the Federal Defendants’ Oppositions to the motion to intervene are due Dec. 1. The reply from Kennedy, Mercola and the Bollingers is due Dec. 8. Judge Doughty is expected to rule quickly thereafter.
“Possibly the most important First Amendment case of our lifetime, the outcome of which will determine whether we continue in the Orwellian/Huxley dystopian world that our federal and state bureaucracies have foisted upon us over the last decade and which has been exacerbated and accelerated over the COVID pandemic — or, whether we take back our God-given rights enshrined in our Constitution,” said G. Shelly Maturin, II, counsel for intervenors.
Notes:
From the motion: “These Defendants have colluded with private actors (1) to curb the Applicants’ criticism of government response to the Covid-19 pandemic, and (2) to silence the Applicants’ disfavored facts and opinions concerning a variety of subjects, including Covid-19’s possible lab-leak origin, the comparative benefits of early treatment and natural immunity, and the risks or inefficacy of Covid-19 vaccines authorized for emergency use.”
The biggest threat to the First Amendment in this country — and to the public’s ever getting to the truth about COVID-19 — does not come from free speech advocates but from the government’s own censorship enterprise in collusion with social media tech giants.