Judge Rules RFK Jr. Can Bring Lawsuit Against Federal Agencies in Censorship Case

Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. speaks at the Nixon library in Yorba Linda, Calif., on June 12, 2024. John Fredricks/The Epoch Times

A federal judge on Tuesday ruled that independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. can continue to pursue his lawsuit, which alleges a violation of his First Amendment rights, against multiple U.S. government agencies.

The Supreme Court issued a ruling in June that sided with the Biden administration in a separate lawsuit, Murthy v. Missouri, brought by the attorneys general of Missouri and Louisiana, that challenged federal agencies’ capacity to communicate with social media companies. The court rejected a challenge made on free speech grounds to how officials encouraged the removal of posts deemed misinformation, including about elections and COVID-19.

Specifically, the court ruled that the plaintiffs who claimed that the government violated their First Amendment rights lacked the standing to file their lawsuit. But in a ruling on Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty wrote that Kennedy does have standing.

There is evidence to show that Kennedy has been “directly censored in the past,” he wrote on Tuesday, adding that there is a “substantial risk” that “in the near future,” he will “suffer an injury that is traceable to a Government defendant, and redressable by the injunction they seek.”

Under the high court’s Murthy v. Missouri order, “a court must make specific findings that a particular defendant pressured a particular platform to censor a particular topic before the platform suppressed a particular plaintiff’s speech on that topic,” Doughty also wrote.

He argued that Kennedy and his Children’s Health Defense organization “were specifically targeted” by government agencies over alleged misinformation about COVID-19 and vaccines.

“The Court finds that there is further risk for future risk injury here because Kennedy is a 2024 presidential candidate,” Doughty wrote. “For example, if, hypothetically, the FBI saw a piece of information related to the 2024 presidential election posted by the Kennedy campaign on social media that it deemed to be ‘misinformation,’ then it reached out to [the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency], who worked closely with [social media firms], who then removed the posts, Kennedy would be censored by the action of one Government Defendant in response to another.”

His ruling came before Kennedy’s campaign announced that he would be making an announcement on Friday related to his campaign. His running mate said the candidate will either form his own party or back former President Donald Trump.

The justices, in a 6–3 ruling, specifically overturned a lower court’s 2023 decision that various federal officials likely violated the First Amendment, which protects against governmental abridgment of free speech, in a case brought by the states of Missouri and Louisiana as well as five individuals.

Prior to the Supreme Court’s action, the New Orleans-based Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had issued an injunction constraining such contacts by the administration. But Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who authored the Supreme Court’s ruling, wrote that the two Republican-led states and the other plaintiffs lacked the required legal standing to sue the administration in federal court.

Earlier this year, Doughty granted Kennedy an injunction that blocked several agencies from encouraging platforms to remove content. His lawsuit had contended that the social media companies and federal officials colluded to censor his statements on vaccines.

DOJ Files Motion in Case

Last month, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a motion on behalf of multiple federal agencies named in the lawsuit that sought to remove the injunction related to Kennedy’s lawsuit, saying that the Supreme Court’s June decision warrants that it be lifted.

“At a minimum, the injunction here is substantially overbroad in light of the Supreme Court’s Missouri decision—it covers defendants who had nothing to do with the COVID-19-related posts that are the subject of the Kennedy Plaintiffs’ complaint, and it applies universally, to all posts, by anyone, on any platform, on any subject,” reads the court filing, submitted by DOJ attorneys.

Should the court find that “some of the Kennedy Plaintiffs might still have standing notwithstanding Missouri, dissolution of the injunction is prudent so that this Court can reevaluate the situation with the benefit of additional briefing,” they wrote. “If the Court enters such a ruling, the government would ask the Fifth Circuit to remand ... to allow this Court to dissolve the injunction.”

The Epoch Times contacted the DOJ and Kennedy’s Children’s Health Defense for comment on Thursday but received no reply by publication time.