Breaking: Supreme Court Rules Horribly on Most Important Free Speech Case in a Century — Murthy v. Missouri with Gateway Pundit’s Jim Hoft as 1 of 5 Top Plaintiffs Is Rejected by Court
UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT RULES HORRIBLY ON MURTHY V. MISSOURI—The Most Important Free Speech Case in a Century!
In a stunning 6-3 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that the Biden Administration’s policy of deleting, suppressing, and deplatforming specific people, topics, and ideas is immune from suit, leaving no one able to challenge it in court.
The ruling, written by Justice Amy Coney Barrett, came down with the following key decision: “Neither the individual nor the state plaintiffs have established Article III standing to seek an injunction against any defendant.”
In sum, the court rules that the two different types of parties, states, and individuals harmed by these government policies, do not have ‘standing’ to sue. This case procedurally related to the request for a preliminary injunction for the government to stop the censorship regime while the case was going on.
This decision will make the trial court action in this case more difficult but, insiders say, not impossible. “It’s a horrible decision, but the underlying case at the lower court marches forward. The Gateway Pundit is dedicated to fighting the government for the free speech rights of everyone, we are committed to ultimate victory,” said John Burns, General Counsel for the Gateway Pundit.
In addition, Justice Coney Barrett let the government off the hook for the censorship regime the government created and maintained. Here’s the key passage:
“platforms had independent incentives to moderate content and often exercised their own judgment. To be sure, the record reflects that the Government defendants played a role in at least some of the platforms’ moderation choices. But the Fifth Circuit, by attributing every platform decision at least in part to the defendants, glossed over complexities in the evidence.”
There were no “complexities in the evidence” – the evidence was clear: the FBI, White House, and other officials were specifically directing, demanding, and coercing social media companies to take down posts that related to topics they wanted suppressed.
Here are some of the key topics brought out in discovery that the government was most interested in suppressing, generally:
- Hunter Biden’s laptop
- Vaccines
- Voter fraud in the 2020 election
- COVID policy, masking, lockdowns, vaccine mandates
These are the topics the Supreme Court is now enabling the government to once again suppress.
Justice Sam Alito said, in dissent, “This is one of the most important free speech cases to reach this Court in years.”
Instead of standing for the First Amendment, these six Justices, Amy Coney Barrett, John Roberts, Elena Kagan, Ketanji Brown-Jackson, Brett Kavanaugh, and Sonia Sotomayor, stood for speech suppression. SHAME!
The Supreme Court is making it procedurally impossible for a citizen or a state to challenge the government’s ability to silence your digital speech. The practical consequence of this decision is to re-open the floodgates of social media censorship and speech suppression.
Thank you to US Senator Eric Schmitt and Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry for launching this investigation! Thank you to Attorney John Sauer for his brilliant work in moving this case forward.
And a special thanks to Missouri AG Andrew Bailey and Louisiana AG Liz Murrill who led the efforts at the US Supreme Court oral arguments in March. They are true free speech champions.
The case presented three key issues for the nation’s highest court to resolve:
- whether the plaintiffs had standing, which is a legal concept meaning that the courts allow that person to claim an injury,
- whether the government’s urging social media companies to deplatform, delete, and suppress the content of specific citizens and topics such as Hunter Biden’s laptop, vaccines, voter fraud in the 2020 election, COVID policy, among others, were violations of the first amendment, and
- whether the terms of the trial courts injunction, meaning a court order for the government to stop suppressing speech while the case was ongoing, was proper.
Free Speech champions have said that this case is the most significant free speech case in a generation.
The Gateway Pundit Publisher Jim Hoft is one of the lead Plaintiffs in the case.
Because of the way legal appeals are procedurally handled, the appeal to the Supreme Court is styled as Murthy v. Missouri, but the underlying case at the trial court is Missouri v. Biden, even though they are all legal actions originating out of the same case.
On March 18, 2024, the US Supreme Court heard arguments from Louisiana Solicitor General Benjamin Aguiñaga representing The Gateway Pundit’s Jim Hoft , the state of Missouri, the state of Louisiana, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, Dr. Martin Kulldorff, Aaron Kheriaty, and Jill Hines (“Free Speech Plaintiffs”) in our case against the Biden Administration and an army of government agencies.
Before all of the appeals, the case originally started after the States of Missouri and Louisiana, joined by The Gateway Pundit and the other individuals, noted above, alleged that the Biden White House and DOZENS of federal officials and agencies were conspiring with and/ or coercing Social Media Companies such as Facebook, Twitter and others to censor the speech of MILLIONS OF AMERICAN CITIZENS, particularly during COVID and the lead-up to and aftermath of the 2020 Presidential Election.
The evidence clearly showed – and even Mark Zuckerberg admitted to this, that the FBI pressured Facebook to take down the Hunter Biden laptop story – in true Fascist manner, the Feds worked with or otherwise demanded that Big Tech police the speech that they disagreed with and that went against the government’s approved party dogma.
The Gateway Pundit and the other Plaintiffs initially sought out a preliminary injunction and were able to acquire a substantial amount of evidence in support of that injunction. You may recall that, probably not coincidentally, on July 4, 2023, Federal Judge Terry Doughty issued an order granting Gateway Pundit, et al’s motion for the preliminary injunction, preventing the government from working with Big Tech to censor Americans’ speech while the full lawsuit was being battled (likely to be a multi-year period).
The government immediately appealed this Order to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, arguing that the injunction was improper and that the plaintiffs lacked the proper authority to challenge government action.
The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals substantially agreed with the good guys, and the scheming government tyrants were left with no choice but to appeal their case yet again – this time to the Supreme Court of the United States.
A variety of left-wing groups shamefully came out to side with the government, on the side of suppressing citizen speech, in the name of combatting ‘disinformation.’ including Stanford University, Senator Mark Warner, and a small group of far-left Secretaries of State. Those siding with free speech included America’s Frontline Doctors, Americans for Prosperity, Atlantic Legal Foundation, Charlie Kirk, Claremont Institute, Foundation for Individual Rights in Education “FIRE”, Steven Crowder, journalist Matt Taibbi.
The Chamber of Commerce filed an amicus brief siding with neither party.
Lawyers involved with the case told the Gateway Pundit that from oral arguments it became clear there was a core 3-3 split on the court, with Ketanji Brown-Jackson, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, firmly on the side of letting the government suppress speech. Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Brett Kavanaugh appeared to be on the side of free speech. The case, they believed, hinged on the way in which Amy Coney Barrett and Chief Justice John Roberts ruled.
The appeal was filed with the Supreme Court on September 14, 2023, so it has taken over nine months to get a decision on this issue, primed before the height of the 2024 election cycle, where the Biden Administration was gearing up to use these expansive powers once again to police social media to suppress news, views, and commentary of citizens it disliked.
In March, the champions for each side made their case at oral arguments in person before the assembled Supreme Court.
Gateway Pundit founder and publisher Jim Hoft and Gateway Pundit attorney John Burns were present at the oral arguments.
In March, Jim Hoft interviewed his fellow individual free speech plaintiff-respondents in the Murthy v. Missouri case.
See HERE for the interview with Dr. Jay Bhattacharya.
See HERE for the interview with Dr. Martin Kulldorff.
See HERE for the interview with Aaron Kheriaty.
See HERE for the interview with Ms. Jill Hines.
Each of these individuals is a spectacular advocate for the First Amendment and freedom from tyranny. We hope you can take the opportunity to watch these highly inspiring interviews, which offer firsthand accounts from these exceptional Americans who have and continue to fight against government censorship and oppression.
FREEDOM ISN’T FREE – and neither is fighting tyrants. The Gateway Pundit needs your help. PLEASE DONATE TO GATEWAY PUNDIT’S legal fund to help our fight against illegal censorship – both governmental AND private.
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