Judge Rules Jen Psaki Must Be Deposed in Lawsuit Alleging Big Tech Collusion

Former White House press secretary Jen Psaki must be deposed in the lawsuit alleging the Biden Administration colluded with Big Tech to stifle free speech, a federal judge ruled on Monday.

“Judge Terry Doughty of the Western District of Louisiana on Monday rejected a motion by attorneys for Psaki to block a court-ordered deposition, and said there is public interest in ‘determining whether First Amendment free speech rights have been suppressed,'” reported Fox News.

Earlier this month, Psaki sought to dodge the subpoena demanding she testify in the lawsuit brought by the Republican attorney generals of Missouri and Louisiana alleging Big Tech collusion. Joe Biden’s Department of Justice backed her claim. Per Reclaim the Net:

Psaki has in the past admitted that the Biden administration was flagging people’s speech to social media platforms.

The DOJ argued that Psaki’s deposition would result in a debate over executive privilege considering she was a top adviser to President Joe Biden.

The DOJ lawyer said: “If permitted to proceed, the deposition of Ms. Psaki would inevitably set the Executive and Judicial Branches ‘on a collision course’ through adjudications of executive privilege, thrusting the court into ‘the awkward position of evaluating the Executive’s claims of confidentiality and autonomy,’ and ‘difficult questions of separation of powers and checks and balances’ would quickly be pushed to the fore.”

As Breitbart News reported, the lawsuit alleges that social media executives regularly met with the Department of Homeland Security to discuss the censorship of Americans during the coronavirus pandemic. Conversations about the origins of the pandemic, the efficacy of vaccines, the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, and support for Ukraine were among the topics the DHS wanted censored.

In a statement following Judge Doughty’s ruling, John J. Vecchione, senior counsel for the New Civil Liberties Alliance (NCLA), said that the former White House press secretary’s effort “to eliminate or delay her deposition in this action had failed because of the swift action of two judges in widely dispersed courts, one in Virginia and one in Louisiana, and by the implausibility of her reasons for not testifying as to Federal efforts to censure social media that made quick resolution possible.”