Journalist Alex Berenson has amended his lawsuit against Joe Biden (Berenson v. Biden, deliberated by a New York district court), to add new evidence regarding alleged government-social media censorship collusion.
We obtained a copy of the lawsuit for you here.
Berenson’s lawsuit revolves around the involvement of not just the Biden administration, but Covid vaccine maker Pfizer, and what the journalist believes is their joint effort (“conspiracy”) to get Twitter to ban him in 2021.
According to Berenson, formerly a New York Times reporter, the updated suit provides proof that many similar legislative efforts have been trying to present – namely, that Twitter’s censorship was “ultimately traceable” to the current White House, specifically, government pressure exerted upon social media companies.
This evidence related to the ban comes from Twitter’s archives thanks to Elon Musk and X making it available to the journalist, as well as the ongoing Congressional investigation.
Meanwhile, the mention of “traceable (injury)” has to do with the bar set by the US Supreme Court in Missouri v. Biden that has to be satisfied to allow a case to proceed to trial. Berenson believes that now with new evidence about what he calls coercive censorship, his lawsuit is “much stronger.”
The amended complaint includes internal Twitter emails where the company’s own top executives state that the platform made a mistake banning Berenson’s account, while another appears to show lobbyist middlemen put Pfizer Director (and former FDA chief) Scott Gottlieb’s outreach in touch with the Biden administration.
Yet another email reveals that Andy Slavitt, who had just resigned from the White House, communicated with Facebook to tell an exec there precisely how the White House – referred to as “WH” in the document – wants Facebook to treat content the government disapproves of.
Berenson goes into details regarding mutual relationships among all these actors, and what each of them stood to gain from what is now commonly referred to by opponents as collusion; the reporter also singles out Slavitt as having “the central role (…) in the conspiracy” to censor him personally.
In light of the new evidence, Berenson believes that his case will be allowed to proceed despite the defense team’s motions to dismiss it.
“But if it does not, if federal Judge Jessica G.L. Clarke dismisses it before even allowing discovery and appeals courts back that decision, free speech on the internet will be close to dead,” Berenson warns.
