Missouri AG expects Biden admin to appeal free speech case to Supreme Court

Missouri Republican Attorney General Andrew Bailey on Monday asserted that the Biden administration was likely to appeal a recent free speech ruling to the Supreme Court in what could become a landmark First Amendment case.

"Defendants, and their employees and agents, shall take no actions, formal or informal, directly or indirectly, to coerce or significantly encourage social-media companies to remove, delete, suppress, or reduce, including through altering their algorithms, posted social-media content containing protected free speech," reads the decision. "That includes, but is not limited to, compelling the platforms to act, such as by intimating that some form of punishment will follow a failure to comply with any request, or supervising, directing, or otherwise meaningfully controlling the social-media companies' decision-making process."

Appearing on the "Just the News, No Noise" television show, Bailey celebrated a recent decision from the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals that upheld a lower court decision barring the administration from working with social media companies to censor disfavored viewpoints online.

"[T]his is a huge win for our First Amendment to the United States Constitution," he declared. "And I'm sure the fight's not over yet. And that's okay. We're gonna keep fighting to protect our right to free speech. You know, it's a relationship of coercion and collusion from the White House across a spectrum of federal bureaucratic agencies targeting conservative speech on big tech social media platforms, and censoring that speech censoring any viewpoint that dissents against Joe Biden, that's illegal, it's unconstitutional."

"The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals reviewed all of the evidence that we put on at the trial court and reviewed that preliminary injunction and affirmed it. The Department of Justice has 10 days to appeal, we're confident they will, this [case] is eventually going to the United States Supreme Court," he continued. "But for now, we can celebrate a huge win in defense of our constitutional right to free speech."

Ben Whedon is an editor and reporter for Just the News. Follow him on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.