Obama’s former Attorney General criticizes court ban on Biden administration’s censorship-by-proxy scheme as “pretty stupid.”

Former Attorney General Slams Court Decision Blocking Biden Administration’s Censorship Efforts

Eric Holder, who served as attorney general under President Barack Obama, has issued a scathing rebuke of a landmark court decision that blocks the Biden administration from pressuring social media companies to censor free speech.

“Well this is pretty stupid. And potentially dangerous,” Mr. Holder said in a tweet, commenting on a court injunction issued on Tuesday by a Louisiana judge blocking various federal agencies from taking a range of actions with respect to social media companies on cracking down on Americans’ freedom of speech.

Judge Terry A. Doughty of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana wrote in a July 4 ruling (pdf) that government agencies including the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Department of Justice (DOJ), are prohibited from contacting or working with big tech companies to remove posts or block user accounts.

Mr. Doughty’s decision was hailed by free speech advocates and the plaintiffs, Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry and Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey, who sued the Biden administration last year.

“This could be arguably one of the most important First Amendment cases in modern history,” Mr. Landry told The Epoch Times’ “American Thought Leaders” in an interview following the ruling.

“If you look at the opinion that the judge lays out, he takes from our argument that this is basically one of the most massive undertakings of the federal government to limit American speech in the history of our country. The things that we uncovered, in this case, should be both shocking, appalling, and concerning for all Americans,” Mr. Landry said.

The Biden administration filed an appeal Wednesday, asking the court to overturn the ruling. The Epoch Times has learned that DOJ officials anticipate a quick decision by the appeals court to block the various prohibitions.

Mr. Landry said in a statement that he expected the appeal and vowed to “aggressively defend it,” adding that he thinks the case will eventually be heard before the U.S. Supreme Court.

“We’re not done yet,” Mr. Bailey wrote in a post on social media. “We’re just getting started.”

The case traces back to a lawsuit brought by Louisiana and Missouri against President Joe Biden and several government agencies in May 2022, accusing them of pushing social media companies to censor posts and take down accounts in what their complaint (pdf) alleged was one of the “greatest assaults” on freedom of speech by federal officials in America’s history.

‘Shocking, Appalling, and Concerning’

Mr. Doughty, a Trump appointee, wrote in Wednesday’s decision that the Republican attorneys general who sued the Biden administration “have produced evidence of a massive effort by Defendants, from the White House to federal agencies, to suppress speech based on its content.”

The judge said that the agencies named in the lawsuit, along with their staff members, are prohibited from meeting or contacting by phone, email, or text message or “engaging in any communication of any kind with social-media companies urging, encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any manner for removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content containing protected free speech.”

The agencies are also barred the government from flagging content on posts on social media platforms and forwarding them to the companies with re