One of the most important First Amendment suits in U.S. history will be heard by the Supreme Court in March, according to Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey.
Mr. Bailey’s office is currently preparing its briefing for the Supreme Court and expects to turn it in within weeks.
Missouri v. Biden
The free speech suit filed by the Show-Me State’s attorney general’s office against President Joe Biden alleges that the U.S. federal government conspired with, or forced, leading tech firms like Alphabet Inc.’s Google, Meta Platforms Inc.’s Facebook and X Corp.’s social media platform X formerly known as Twitter, to suppress speech that was politically disagreeable to the candidacy of then Vice President Joe Biden in 2020 by labeling it as either “disinformation,” “misinformation,” or “malinformation.”The suit alleges the Biden administration worked to suppress negative news about President Biden and his son Hunter Biden, content about the veracity of the COVID-19 lab leak theory as well as the effectiveness of vaccines and commentary questioning the integrity of the 2020 election and mail-in voting among others.
The case, initially filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana, received a preliminary injunction order in July 2023. It was appealed and ultimately upheld by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in September 2023. In October 2023, that injunction was stayed by the Supreme Court when it agreed to hear the Biden administration’s appeal.
The objective of the forthcoming proceedings, Mr. Bailey said, is to secure a nationwide injunction that would bar the federal government from telling technology companies what is and what isn’t acceptable speech. The case, he said, is still in its preliminary phases, and it will expand if the Supreme Court affirms the lower courts’ decisions.
“We obtained preliminary discovery and got a preliminary injunction, but we haven’t gotten to the meat and potatoes yet,” Mr. Bailey said. “There’s a vast censorship enterprise out there that we’ve got to unroot and dismantle.
“After we obtain the nationwide injunction at the Supreme Court, we intend to do exactly that.”
Moreover, Mr. Bailey said the Missouri v. Biden case will alter the political landscape of the 2024 election if the U.S. government is legally barred from employing what he called a “vast censorship enterprise.”
Prosecuting Kim Gardner
In May 2023, Mr. Bailey’s office—following public outcry in St. Louis—pressured former St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner to leave office in lieu of facing a Missouri suit questioning her authority.“I think we’re the first state attorney [general’s office] to successfully prosecute a case to remove a [George] Soros-backed prosecutor,” Mr. Bailey said.
“That was absolutely necessary to restore the rule of law and find justice for victims in St. Louis and across the region.”
To this day, Mr. Bailey said Ms. Gardner’s whereabouts remain unknown. However, the attorney general’s office believes Ms. Gardner is still subject to both civil and criminal charges for her actions as the Circuit Attorney from 2017 through 2023.
Ms. Gardner frustrated efforts to prosecute her when she resigned her office before a scheduled deposition in her quo warranto challenge. Still, Missouri is continuing to collect public records to complete a case against her.
“The public needs to know what went wrong here,” Mr. Bailey said.
Missouri Issues
In 2023, Mr. Bailey said he was proud of his office’s work on transgender issues. His office was involved in a number of cases he described as “taking on the transgender child sterilization industry.”It also launched an investigation into the practices of the Washington University Transgender Center at St. Louis Children’s Hospital. That investigation ultimately led to a statewide ban on gender reassignment surgeries for minors in the state.
In 2024, Mr. Bailey said the office will focus on two issues in Missouri. First, it will back local prosecutors and law enforcement agencies to help them bring justice to violent offenders and their victims. Second, it will investigate fraud in an effort to save taxpayer dollars.
In 2023, the Missouri Attorney General’s office’s Medicare Fraud Control Unit recovered $10 million in settlements and judgments, and its Consumer Protection Division obtained more than $32 million.
“That’s putting dollars back into the pockets of hardworking Missouri families that were ripped off by deceptive business practices,” Mr. Bailey said.
