Trump vows to crush federal censorship with new appointees, executive order if elected in 2024

Former President Donald Trump is vowing to dismantle the federal machinery built by the Biden administration to censor political speech in America, saying he will appoint new leaders of agencies that have engaged in silencing free speech. He also said he would sign an Executive Order banning government employees from participating in projects that infringe the First Amendment.

The 45th president made the comments Thursday during an interview on the "Just the News, No Noise" television show when asked about the Biden administration’s well-documented and now-failed efforts to create a government disinformation office. He also highlighted President Biden's letting federal agencies like Homeland Security and the FBI work with, if not coerce, private parties to pressure Big Tech to censor Americans.

Federal Judge Terry Doughty of the District Court for the Western District of Louisiana ruled on July 4th in Missouri v. Biden that such activities targeting Americans violated the Constitution, and he imposed an injunction banning government agencies from having contact with Big Tech firms designed to restrain political speech.

The administration appealed the injunction to the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, where Judge Jennifer Walker Elrod said that the Biden administration's efforts to persuade social media companies to remove, throttle and suppress purported misinformation on COVID-19, Hunter Biden's laptop and elections "reminded her of a mafia movie."

“The best thing is, you put the right people at the head of those agencies,” Trump told Just the News when asked how to address the censorship problem. “…I know we have some great people in our country. So I think that's very important. Yes, I would do executive orders also."

In a wide-ranging interview, the former president also urged Congress and the FBI to probe evidence of ballot application fraud scheme uncovered by Michigan cops.

Just the News reported Thursday on police documents showing Michigan authorities uncovered in 2020 what they believed was a multistate ballot application fraud scheme connected to a Democrat-funded firm and referred evidence to the FBI, which is now declining to say what it did to probe the allegations.

You can read those documents here.

“It’s a big story,” Trump said of the Michigan revelations.

“I hope they follow through. There'll be world heroes if they do,” he said of the FBI. “And there'll be literally the greatest of all patriots because it's a disgrace. What went on with that election is disgraceful.”

Trump also threw his support behind launching an impeachment inquiry against his successor, but urged House Republicans to conduct such a probe fairly and to determine once and for all whether Joe Biden financially benefitted from his son Hunter’s overseas business exploits.

He said the evidence gathered by House Oversight Chairman James Comer against President Biden – from three secret pseudonym email accounts, suspicious bank activity reports and repeated contacts with shady business partners in China, Russia, Ukraine, Romania and Kazakhstan to an FBI informant allegation of a $10 mililon cash bribe – all warrant an impeachment inquiry.

“I don't think when you have all these preparations, and you have all of these different methods, even all the aliases – whoever heard of (having) more aliases than Al Capone – I would think that, you know, a fair person because you want it to be fair, it has to be fair … But a fair person would have no choice but to impeach,” he said during a wide-ranging interview Thursday night on the "Just the News, No Noise" television show.

“The bottom line is if this cash is true, if all these things are true – you know the statement is true about the billion dollars, because he's got that (on video). I don't know actually, how Republicans could not do it. I think a Republican would be primaried and lose immediately, no matter what district they're in.”

Trump said he did not believe the manner in which House Democrats impeached him in 2019 and again in 2021 was fair and that was why he was acquitted by the Senate.

The 45th president – trying to win the GOP nomination to run anew against Biden in 2024 – also reacted to revelations reported by Just the News last week that Joe Biden, while vice president, acted against specific U.S. policy recommendation when he withheld a $1 billion loan guarantee in late 2015, forcing Ukraine to fire its chief prosecutor.

That same prosecutor just happened to be investigating the Burisma Holdings energy firm that was paying Hunter Biden millions at the time.

Regarding the threat to withhold the loan, Biden's defenders insisted during the 2019 impeachment and since that he was simply carrying out U.S. policy crafted by career federal officials. But State Department memos obtained by Just the News show that in fact Justice, State and Treasury officials had recommended that the prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, was doing a good enough job and that the U.S. should give Ukraine the loan guarantees.

Trump said he was surprised to see the new evidence and that he believed it had been withheld from the 2019 impeachment proceedings that accused him of abusing his power by asking Ukraine’s president to investigate the Biden dealings inside that former Soviet republic. He said his request had merit then and the new documents prove it.

“I was treated unfairly. I was exactly right,” he said at one point.

Trump said asking Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky in 2019 to probe Hunter Biden’s dealings in the country was legally appropriate. He added that the FBI subsequently revealed it had been receiving similar information from a trusted informant that Burisma may have provided a bribe to the Biden family.

“What I said was exactly right. I said, ‘if you see any corruption, you must report it not to me, to the Attorney General of the United States.’ And they didn't do that.” Trump explained.

Trump also cast doubt on whether Biden will be the eventual Democrat nominee.

“He's the most incompetent president in history. And he's the most corrupt president in history,” Trump said. “And it's incredible if he gets to the starting gate. He's physically incapable, and he's mentally worse than physical. And if he gets started it would be a miracle to me.”