Several FBI whistleblowers told the House Judiciary Committee on Monday that the bureau’s leaders failed to take steps to abide by a U.S. District judge’s temporary injunction against the Biden administration working with social media companies to censor speech.
According to the disclosures, the FBI usually would immediately disseminate information and provide training when the federal judiciary issues new legal guidance or directives.
The information typically would come in email alerts, the immediate circulation of training materials and official guidance from FBI headquarters in Washington.
But when U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty of Louisiana granted the injunction against government-coordinated censorship on social media, FBI Director Christopher A. Wray and his lieutenants never took steps to comply, according to several FBI agents who provided separate disclosures to Congress.
The Washington Times reviewed the disclosures.
The FBI denied the whistleblowers’ claims. In a statement to The Washington Times the bureau said: “Any suggestion that the FBI did not provide official guidance on this matter is false. A copy of the judgment and compliance instructions were distributed on July 6, 2023, by the Office of the General Counsel to all field office and headquarters management and legal counsel for compliance and further dissemination to their divisions.”
Immediately after the July 4 court order, the White House said the Justice Department was reviewing the injunction and evaluating options. Two days later, the DOJ asked the court to stay the injunction.
On Monday, Judge Doughty rejected the Justice Department’s bid to stay his injunction. The administration then went to the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals seeking a temporary block of Judge Doughty’s order.
Whistleblowers have been in the spotlight in Washington as a flood of FBI workers came forward with allegations of politically motivated investigations, politically biased leadership and misconduct by senior officials at America’s premier law enforcement agency.
“Neither FBI Director Wray nor FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate issued bureau-wide emails to address the issue with the agents, task force officers, and analysts that may in the course of their duties have contact with the social media companies,” each disclosure reads.
“In doing so, Director Wray and Deputy Director Abbate have willfully disregarded the judicial authority and limitations that federal courts have over the FBI.”
The agents’ disclosures said: “The federal court decision may impact communications between multiple FBI employees. It may also impact the taskings of FBI executives who have retired, gone to work for social media companies, and then became paid informants (Confidential Human Sources) for the FBI while working for the social media companies. It may also impact undercover employees who are secretly working for social media companies.”
Additionally, the agents told the House Judiciary Committee that FBI leadership did not send out messages requesting that bureau employees report the types of contacts they are currently having with social media companies, which would enable FBI headquarters to assess whether there were potential violations of the court order.
On July 4, Judge Doughty issued a temporary injunction barring several federal agencies, including the FBI, from engaging in various types of communication with social media companies. The order also bars the agencies and officials from pressuring social media companies “in any manner” to suppress posts.
The injunction was granted in response to a 2022 lawsuit by attorneys general in Louisiana and Missouri. The lawsuit charged that the federal government overstepped in its efforts to convince social media companies to address postings that could result in vaccine hesitancy during the COVID-19 pandemic or affect elections.
Sen. Eric Schmitt, Missouri Republican, who was a state attorney general in the case at the time, told The Washington Times in response to the FBI whistleblower disclosures, “The court was eminently clear in their decision — the FBI and other government officials have absolutely no business censoring Americans’ freedom of speech.”
“I will always be a staunch defender of the First Amendment and will work to ensure compliance with the Court’s order in the coming days and weeks,” he said.
In his original ruling that granted the injunction, Judge Doughty, a Trump appointee, cited “substantial evidence” of a far-reaching censorship campaign.
He wrote that the “evidence produced thus far depicts an almost dystopian scenario. During the COVID-19 pandemic, a period perhaps best characterized by widespread doubt and uncertainty, the United States Government seems to have assumed a role similar to an Orwellian’ Ministry of Truth.’”
The judge denied a motion by the Justice Department for a stay pending an appeal and a motion for an administrative stay on the injunction, keeping it in place.
In their motion filed with the federal appeals court, Biden administration attorneys said Judge Doughty’s ruling could cause “grave harm” by preventing the government from “engaging in a vast range of lawful and responsible conduct.”
The request to stay the order was the administration’s first substantive response to the ruling.
In the Biden administration’s filing to Judge Doughty, attorneys led by Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Brian M. Boynton called the order “ambiguous.” They said it could prevent the administration from “speaking on matters of public concern and working with social media companies on initiatives to prevent grave harm to the American people and our democratic processes.”
“These immediate and ongoing harms to the government outweigh any risk of injury to plaintiffs if a stay is granted,” the administration said.
Judge Doughty was not swayed.
• Kerry Picket can be reached at kpicket@washingtontimes.com.
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