Judge Turns Down Former White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki’s Effort to Quash Subpoena

White House press secretary Jen Psaki speaks at a press conference in the James Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House in Washington, on April 27, 2022. Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

A U.S. judge in Virginia has turned down the bid by former White House press secretary Jen Psaki to quash a subpoena ahead of her scheduled deposition in a case dealing with Big Tech censorship.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Ivan Davis declined to rule in favor of Psaki, who was President Joe Biden’s press secretary until May, during a hearing in Alexandria on Nov. 18.

Davis instead transferred the motion to quash back to the same judge who ruled that Psaki must sit for a deposition.

That judge, U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty, has already rejected government efforts to quash subpoenas for several officials U.S. lawyers claim are high-ranking and thus should not be deposed, including U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy.

Doughty, a Trump appointee, has said the need for the depositions outweigh any inconvenience because evidence indicates the government colluded with Big Tech firms to censor users, raising concerns of constitutional violations.

Psaki had argued, with the government’s backing, that she should not be deposed because she lacks information about the censorship despite speaking about it during press conferences. Psaki’s lawyers also said she'd need to invest several days in preparing for the deposition.

Psaki was allowed to file a separate opposition in Virginia because she lives in the state and would be deposed there.

Davis, though, said it makes no sense for him to wade into the questions of whether Psaki’s testimony is relevant when the judge in Louisiana is more familiar with the case.

He also said Psaki failed to show how sitting for a deposition in her home state would be an undue burden. In fact, he said that if Psaki has little information to contribute, as she alleges, it shouldn’t be much of a burden at all.

“How much time does it take to prepare a witness for deposition when she doesn’t really have anything to say?” Davis said.

A government lawyer asked Davis to stay his order until an appeal to a different judge in Alexandria is resolved, but Davis rejected the request.

Psaki did not attend the hearing.

“Ms. Psaki’s lawyers tried to argue that she is above the law and that her time is too precious to bother with such frivolities as a deposition in a First Amendment case. They persisted with this contention, although the judge presiding over the case in the Western District of Louisiana found that exceptional circumstances existed—specifically, Ms. Psaki’s unique knowledge of the unlawful censorship enterprise conducted by the federal government—and that those circumstances warranted deposition of a (former) high-ranking government official,” Jenin Younes, a lawyer for the New Civil Liberties Alliance, which is representing some of the plaintiffs, said in a statement.

“We are pleased that Judge Davis recognized all of these facts, and rightly transferred the motion to quash back to the Western District of Louisiana where it should have been all along,” Younes added.

Doughty was notified by the government of Davis’s ruling. U.S. lawyers asked the judge to quickly decide on the motion to quash because Psaki is scheduled to be deposed soon.

If Doughty rejects the motion, then he should enter a stay of the deposition until any appeals are resolved, the lawyers added.

The deposition is one of eight scheduled in the case, which was brought by the attorneys general of Louisiana and Missouri. The Republican officials, Jeff Landry and Eric Schmitt, said the government improperly pressured large technology companies like Twitter into censoring users, violating the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment.

Dozens of government officials are involved in the efforts, according to documents produced in discovery. Psaki’s emails have not yet been revealed publicly, but she said during various briefings that the government was taking actions such as flagging certain posts for companies.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.