A Long-Awaited Free Speech Victory

Summary

Federalist Radio Hour – “A Long-Awaited Free Speech Victory”

Date: March 27, 2026
Host: Matt Kittle
Guest: John Vecchione, Senior Litigation Counsel, New Civil Liberties Alliance (NCLA)
Summary by Key Sections and Timestamps

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Episode Overview

This episode dives into a landmark First Amendment victory against government-led censorship of online speech, particularly during and following the COVID-19 pandemic. Host Matt Kittle interviews John Vecchione of the New Civil Liberties Alliance (NCLA), fresh from securing a consent decree in the Missouri v. Biden (then Murphy v. Missouri) case. The discussion covers the origins, legal battles, and consequences of the government's attempts to pressure social media platforms into silencing viewpoints, focusing mainly on pandemic policy dissenters and conservative voices.

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Major Discussion Points & Insights

1. Background of the Case (01:17–04:41)

• Government Pressure on Social Media:
  • The federal government, especially during the Biden administration but starting under Trump, was found to have pressured social media companies to suppress dissent, mainly viewpoints that disagreed with official COVID-19 narratives and other topics (e.g., 2020 election, Hunter Biden’s laptop).
• Case History:
  • Officially known as Missouri v. Biden, later Murphy v. Missouri at the Supreme Court.
  • Plaintiffs included medical professionals (Aaron Kheriaty, Jill Hines, Jay Bhattacharya, Martin Kulldorff) and organizations like Gateway Pundit and the states of Louisiana and Missouri.

2. Consent Decree Details and Enforcement (04:41–07:07)

• Core Provisions:
  • The decree clarifies that labeling speech as "misinformation," "disinformation," or "malinformation" does not make it constitutionally unprotected (13:06).
  • Government agencies (CDC, Surgeon General, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency - CISA) can no longer engage in indirect pressure or threaten social media companies to suppress protected speech.
• Enforcement:
  • If covered social media accounts suffer takedowns or shadow-banning due to government prompting, plaintiffs can enforce the agreement.
  • The agreement is enforceable for 10 years.

3. Uncovering the Scope of Censorship (07:07–12:10)

• Discovery Process:
  • Investigation revealed the government grossly understated its contact with platforms (government claimed 25 contacts; platforms revealed 125).
  • Censored topics included true statements about COVID-19 vaccine efficacy, mask mandates, constitutionality of pandemic orders, and even coverage of the Hunter Biden laptop story.
• "Malinformation":
  • Authorities admitted to suppressing information that was true but uncomfortable for the government.

4. The Chilling Effect on Speech & Legal Resistance (12:10–17:50)

• Suppression of Legitimate Debate:
  • Vecchione recounts the environment in which those raising concerns about pandemic policies were labeled "threats" to public health and faced professional/social ostracism.
• Legal Hurdles:
  • Early lawsuits were dismissed for lack of standing—courts were skeptical government involvement existed without stronger evidence.
  • Intense resistance from both the government and social media companies during discovery heightened suspicion.

5. Deposing Dr. Anthony Fauci (20:16–23:38)

• Dramatic Deposition:
  • Dr. Fauci presented as powerful and revered, but his memory and truthfulness were called into question under oath.
  • Noted government focus on discrediting dissenting scientists (e.g., Bhattacharya, Kulldorff).
• Lab-Leak Theory:
  • Fauci was notably nervous about questions tying NIH/HHS funding to possible gain-of-function research in Wuhan, although he denied involvement.

6. Social Media Companies' Role (23:53–25:46)

• Initial Resistance, Eventual Compliance:
  • Early on, platforms like Facebook and Twitter resisted government pressure on First Amendment grounds.
  • Sustained federal pressure led to capitulation around July 2022.

7. Ongoing Suppression: NCLA's Own Experience (25:46–27:46)

• Direct Censorship Incident:
  • YouTube removed NCLA's own video discussing litigation about censorship—ironically, for "misinformation," despite the video covering a Supreme Court case.

8. Origins of "Misinformation" Suppression (29:18–31:41)

• Conceptual Migration:
  • National security concepts like "disinformation" from the Cold War era were inappropriately "domesticated" and applied against Americans, underpinning censorship rationales.

9. Supreme Court Decision and Standing Issues (40:43–44:29)

• Standing Obstacles:
  • The Supreme Court recently ruled against the plaintiffs on standing grounds, but the newly secured consent decree operates independently of this and is enforceable for the next decade.
• Judicial Attitudes:
  • Discussion on how standing and harms are interpreted in free speech cases, and the challenge of securing timely judicial relief (cases often move too slowly).

10. Legacy and Future of Free Speech Litigation (35:02–47:13)

• Historic Abuses:
  • Vecchione and Kittle agree suppression of speech during COVID was among the most widespread attacks on the First Amendment in recent American history.
• Accountability and Deterrence:
  • While there likely won’t be civil or criminal penalties for past actors (e.g., Fauci, Collins), the consent decree acts as a public repudiation and deterrent, setting legal precedent for future cases.
• Call to Action:
  • Ongoing vigilance is required; similar abuses must be litigated swiftly and press organizations may have an easier time securing standing in future challenges.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Government Overreach:
  • "This was no social media accident. There was a leviathan doing this." — John Vecchione (07:42)
• On Labeling Speech:
  • "Supplying labels such as misinformation, disinformation or mal information to speech does not render it constitutionally unprotected." — John Vecchione, reading from the consent decree (13:25)
• On the Orchestrated Suppression:
  • "They did not like that masks don't work. ... They didn't like the fact that talk about the Constitution and your rights when they were shutting you all down." — John Vecchione (09:37)
• On Social Media Companies' Initial Reluctance:
  • "The social media companies, first with Trump and then with Biden, were saying, hey, do we really need to do that? ... There are emails ... from Nick Clegg of Facebook ... 'nonetheless, shut it down.'" — John Vecchione (24:18)
• On Accountability:
  • "They won't be held accountable by either civil or, or criminal judgments. I think they'll be accountable in history." — John Vecchione (35:09)
• On the Battle's Legacy:
  • "The fact that ... this consent order signed by a federal judge says here's things the government should not be doing in regards to speech ... that is going to have a powerful [effect]." — John Vecchione (36:55)
• On the Chilling Effect:
  • "For regular Americans, it was maybe the first time in their lives that for taking a normal, true position, they had been kind of hurled into outer darkness." — John Vecchione (19:15)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Intro and Case Background: 01:17–04:41
• Consent Decree Provisions & Monitoring: 04:41–07:07
• Discovery, Fauci Deposition, and Censorship Examples: 07:07–12:10; 20:16–23:38
• Consent Decree’s Language and Impact: 13:06–15:47
• Initial Media & Social Media Response: 17:50–25:46
• Internal Debate within Plaintiffs (Scientists): 17:50–19:35
• YouTube Incident & Direct Suppression: 25:46–27:46
• Blurring National Security & Domestic Free Speech: 29:18–31:41
• Discussion on Social Media’s Business Interests: 32:14–33:38
• Call for Continued Legal Vigilance: 44:29–47:13

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Takeaways

• The NCLA’s legal win provides strong judicial language to guard against government-pressured censorship of protected speech for the next decade.
• The case exposes the depth, coordination, and unaccountable nature of government-corporate suppression during COVID-19, especially targeting dissenting scientists and media.
• Vigilant legal and media efforts will be needed to ensure future abuses are detected and remedied more swiftly, as courts' slow processes allow abuses to become moot.
• The fight represents a critical chapter in the ongoing struggle for civil liberties, with the NCLA’s victory setting influential precedent for future First Amendment advocacy.

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For more context and further developments, visit:
The Federalist
Missouri v. Biden coverage on The Federalist

Transcript

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[Matt Kittle]

And we are back with another edition of the Federalist Radio Hour. I'm Matt Kittle, senior elections correspondent at the Federalist and and your experience Sherpa on today's quest for knowledge. As always, you can email the show at radio the federalist.com follow us on XDRLST. Make sure to subscribe wherever you download your podcast and of course to the premium version of our website as well. Our guest today is John Vecchione, senior litigation counsel for the New Civil Liberties alliance, which just won a huge First Amendment victory over government speech police. John, welcome back. Thank you so much for joining us on the Federalist Radio Hour.

[John Vecchione]

Great to be here.

[Matt Kittle]

You've got great news as we talk. Judge right before we went on the podcast gives you the what what you were ultimately looking for. You had one step left and the judge signed on to this amazing agreement that really does aim to stop what we saw from for too many years during, quite frankly, the Biden administration. It can happen under any administration. But we just saw a complete strong arming of social media by the government to silence the speech of all kinds of folks, particularly conservatives.

[John Vecchione]

Yeah, it's true. Now I will say this. The activities started under Covid, under the first Trump administration, but it wasn't that they were run out of the White House then it doesn't appear. But the allegations start in the Trump administration. Then they ratchet up exponentially in the Biden Administration with what they called a whole of government approach to stamping down views they didn't like. And I'll mention the case, the case name right now is Missouri v. Biden. I think it, that's what we've called it. But Biden for the preliminary injunction was dropped out of the case because you can't and join the president. So it was Murphy v. Missouri. Folks might have heard of it when it was at the Supreme Court. So I just want to say where we are and after, after a lot of jockeying, a lot of legal maneuvers, we've entered a consent decree which makes a lot of great statements about free speech and then allows our clients who are Aaron Cariotti and Jill Heinz, Jay Bhattacharya and Martin Kulldorf, who are now in the administration, started this case but they dropped when they joined the administration this consent decree, if their social media posts are ever taken down or, or shadow banned or whatever by government activity by the surgeon general, the CDC or cisa. So that is and also Louisiana and Missouri and Gateway pundit Jim Hoff can also enforce this agreement.

[Matt Kittle]

Indeed. And as I point out in a piece the Federalist up this week, this deal will I think ultimately help some other cases. I know that your organization has helped in getting the Federalist and, and some other news organizations dealing with this problem as well.

[John Vecchione]

I guess. So I guess what we should say, full disclosure, the Federalist is a client of NCLA having its own speech downgraded and removed from various social media. So that's another case that's going on and I, I really hope for follow on ripples from this in, in your case I, I, I can't say more but that's what I hope.

[Matt Kittle]

Indeed. Well we'll talk a little bit more about that because it's expanded silencing of speech, speech suppression. But I guess I wanted to ask you before we delve too much into this is good news, get me wrong and I don't want to cast a shadow of doubt over this agreement, but here's the thing. It's kind of like the monitoring of the nuclear weapon program in Iran. It feels like that how will we know in the future if these agencies are actually complying? Because you know John, it took the Twitter files, it took Elon Musk in many ways to purchase Twitter and turn it into X to be able to get this information out to the public.

[John Vecchione]

It's true. So before that we brought the cases before that from just things the administration was saying but then all that cascaded down and Then the congressional inquiries found even more material. Right. And that was, and my colleague Jenny Yunus left NCLA for a while. She's no longer with us in any event, she's gone on to another group. But she left and she helped with the congressional investigation for many months. So there was, it took, I mean, you had to boil the oceans to get this information because in this case, both the government was resisting and the social media organizations, which we didn't see, were resisting discovery. So you're absolutely right about that. And I think what we're going to do in this case is under the agreement, we give our, everybody gives their social media accounts that they have to, we reveal it. And those are the social media accounts that are going to monitor this. But if we're downgraded or moved, otherwise we'll test, hey, look, we think we're downgraded because these messages are coming out of the government. And before we move, they have to say, you know, what they're doing is the way I would put it. You know, I suppose they'll just say the social media is downgrading us, but we can check with our own social media companies.

[Matt Kittle]

Yeah, yeah. Well, you said this about this case. You said this case began with a suspicion that blossomed into fact that led to congressional hearings and an executive order that government censorship of American social media posts should end. You noted as well that this took some doing to get there. When did the case really officially begin? Obviously it started in Missouri. But what, what was the, the catalyst once again for this case?

[John Vecchione]

So we, we first, I will say this. So Janine Yunus was a lawyer here and she's, she was on Twitter all the time and she noticed that all of her anti lockdown posts were disappearing and she was in a community that, that had, that and, and saw that was happening. One guy was Jay Bhattacharya, now the head of, over at hhs and, and Martin Kulldorf and Aaron Cariotti and they were all, they were like, why is this all happening at the same time? But before that happened, we, we had Mark Changizi and some other folks. We, Janine and I brought a case in Ohio where we alleged this, that this was the government, not social media. And the judge says, well you're, you don't, you don't really know that. And they have their own curating policies. So I'm going to dismiss this for lack of standing. So that case got knocked out. But then this fellow named John Sauer read our complaint and he was at the Missouri AG's office. And he called us up and I forget if he put a lot of our stuff in his complaint or I forget the exact timing. I'm going to have to check on that. But he called us up and said, do you have any other clients other than these? And we did. The folks I just met mentioned, plus Jill Heinz. So we joined Missouri and Louisiana's case about four years ago and maybe five. And the fact is we said, look, this is not happening. The way I sometimes put it is, you know, Hooper and Jaws says this was no boating accident. Well, this was no social media accident. There was a leviathan doing this and that was our allegations. And the reason it was so hard is as that first case I just said that was dismissed is a lot of courts were just saying, well, how do you know? Well, when you file a complaint, you make an allegation, then you get discovery. And in this case, Judge Doughty said, well, look, for preliminary injunction, I'm going to give them discovery. It was limited discovery, but he gave us eight depositions, including Dr. Fauci. And he gave us we could send subpoenas to social media and we could ask the government in interrogatories. And one of the things that happened in this case that I think really showed that the government was hiding the ball. When we asked the government who had contacted the social media outfits, Twitter, Facebook, all of them, Instagram, they gave us a list of like, let's say 20, 25 names. But when we subpoenaed the. The social media companies, they gave us A list of 125 names from the government that had contacted them. So it was obvious that what was happening here was they were getting a lot more government pushback and interference than the government was even admitting to. And that blew open emails of the government had told them what they didn't like. What didn't they like? Well, a lot of true things. They didn't like that the COVID vaccines did not stop transmission. They didn't like that the COVID vaccines were, were most efficacious in people over 55, 60, and they were not as efficacious as you got younger down the line, particularly teenagers. They did not like that masks don't work. They did not like that once a viral respiratory disease was out there, you couldn't stop it by this social distancing thing. And they didn't like the fact that talk about the Constitution and your rights when they were shutting you all down. So. And then for Hoft and, and the states, they also note they had A lot of speech on the election of 2020 having. Having, you know, voting irregularities and then also Hunter Biden's laptop. They had that was. That was. They said it was Russian disinformation. So you got to take off that this was all Hunter Biden. Now almost all that stuff. I'll put the voting stuff aside for a second. But all the other things are everyone 90% believes all those statements are true and all those statements were removed from the public discourse by the government when it could true things. So, you know, that's outrageous.

[Matt Kittle]

True things, John. Identified by the government as disinformation, misinformation and this doozy of a Big Brother concept, mal information. And of course mal information was described by the people who used it as stuff that's true but makes the government uncomfortable.

[John Vecchione]

They didn't hide that.

[Matt Kittle]

Yeah, just amazing to me. But you know, I really do think Orwell got it right. He was just a few years too soon on it all. But this really did feel Orwellian to those of us who got our speech locked out as we were locked down by the government.

[John Vecchione]

And now not only that, I will say this. Every lawyer who got involved in this are the type of lawyers who don't trust the government. Right. We sue the government all the time. I think. I am not, I'm not telling any secrets when I tell you that every lawyer who worked on this from NCLA to Jim Hoff's lawyer, Jonathan Burns to the Missouri and Louisiana AGs and SGs, we were shocked by how massive this was. That the fact that the government had portals, electronic portals to the social media to tell them the messages they wanted downgraded and they didn't like that were special functions that the government could send them was. Was that flabbergasted us. So as we got into it it got worse and worse. But I do, I don't want to let this go by without reading the two paragraphs that take care of the very problem you just mentioned that I think are going to be repeated in free speech stuff if this ever happens again. Paragraph 21, the parties, that means both sides. That means the agencies and the government and us agree that government, politicians, media, academics or anyone else supplying labels such as misinformation, disinformation or mal information to speech does not render it constitutionally unprotected. So can that is part of this agreement. So that we're not going to, I don't think credibly be able to hear from any future administration that any. Anything different. And then paragraph 22 for these reasons, the government cannot take actions, formal or informal, directly or indirectly, except as authorized by law, to threaten social media companies with some form of punishment. And then it lists all the type of sanctions they can threaten unless they remove, delete, suppress or reduce, including through altering their algorithms, posted social media content containing protected free speech. I think those two paragraphs are just home runs. You know, there are some things in here we can discuss that are not home. I say it could have been a grand slam if we'd won at the Supreme Court. But it's a home run overall. That's the way I put it.

[Matt Kittle]

Because it's a home run, John. I think because you have a judge signing on to this. No question, you had an executive order and it was a good executive order by President Donald Trump. But as you know, executive orders are very much subject to change, particularly in modern day politics. What we saw when Biden got into office, he undid everything that Trump put into executive order and then he did the same to Biden when he got into office. So that could have just disappeared. This now has, to use the phrase that you guys struggled with, this has a lot more standing now, doesn't it?

[John Vecchione]

It does. And it has teeth in it. A little bit of teeth. I mean, if we do suspect, like I said, we have to go to the government and say, look, we think you're doing this and they have to be given an opportunity to cure or show that they're not doing that. But I do think that the fact that that just that this exists, that the government has agreed to this, no one else can sue under it. See, early on in litigation, Judge Doughty, when he issued his preliminary injunction stopping the government from doing this at the beginning, you know, after our discovery that I described, he also found that there was no class action. So he had knocked out the class action. Unless we wanted to revisit that, we weren't going to be able to do this for the whole country because that's what class actions are about.

[Matt Kittle]

Right? Right.

[Howie Mandel]

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[Matt Kittle]

Well, this was no easy feat. Again, you talk about the. The years that were involved. When you started this whole process, when you began this lawsuit, you were laughed at, you were shamed. You were accused of not following the science. You were accused of threatening the lives of Americans through the spread of COVID You would fight for people who said horribly ridiculous things like standing six foot away from someone wouldn't stop the spread of a virus. I mean, it all sounds silly right now, but it was serious business. What was it like in the early days of this lawsuit for you and for your clients?

[John Vecchione]

Well, I have always said I'm a layperson. I'm not a scientist. And I always said that I didn't blame the government for sort of panicking and doing something for 60 to 90 days, but a lot of my clients said, who were scientists, said, no, we all knew from the beginning. We all knew this stuff from the beginning. I don't. Vecchioni, you're being too lenient with these people. But you know how the government. They're not. They're not. They're not scientists. They're not.

[Matt Kittle]

They're not the brightest bulbs.

[John Vecchione]

Maybe I'm some sort of squish, but I'm usually willing to give them 60 or 90 days before I. Before I say it's off, off, off base. But here, it had been a long time. We were trying to stop it in retrospect, but people were so committed, so committed to their positions that they wouldn't give an inch. And then they started covering it, you know, not wanting to hand over anything in discovery. And that always tells you what, you know, the name of the game is. Or I say, usually tells you sometimes there's attorney client privilege. But that wasn't. That wasn't what they were alleging here. So, yes, it was terrible, and it was terrible for my clients. It was absolutely terrible to be called all these names, particularly, I mean, Jay and Martin. They. They were some of the most respected men in their field. And Fauci and his people decided that they were gonna make their names mud. And so, you know, what do I care? I'm. I'm a lawyer. People. People call you names all the time. Who cares? But I do think that for regular Americans, it was maybe the first time in their lives that for taking a normal, true position, they had been kind of hurled into outer darkness.

[Matt Kittle]

Yeah. Just one of the darkest times in American history, certainly for free speech, certainly for government abuses against the First Amendment and the oath that they swear in Taking their position, positions in office. Frightening time for a lot of people. Our guest today is John Vecchione, senior litigation counsel for the New Civil Liberties alliance, just fresh off of a huge win, huge First Amendment victory over government speech police. Let me ask you this. What was it like deposing Anthony Fauci?

[John Vecchione]

All right, so I tell this story a little bit. So it was over at HHS. And as we're going through the screeners at HHS, that's in Maryland, just across the border in D.C. it's a big, big thing. And as we're going in to give you some idea of how powerful he was at that time, he was on a cover of the magazines, he was in every TV show, all these. They were all having him on. Oh, Dr. Fauci tells us that. And the other thing, as we go hhs, the lady at the desk says, where are you going? I said, oh, we're going to see Dr. Fauci. She says, he's such a wonderful man. And, and I, I had to restrain my colleague who doesn't think he's such a wonderful man. But, but that was. I mean, it was just like a hushed, this Fauci. So we went up there, and now Governor Landry, he was the head of the AG, was there, and he had with him RFK Jr's book, the Real Dr. Fauci, that he had up standing in front of him during the whole deposition that took, which. Which it didn't seem to bother Fauci, but I did think it was. It was quite spectacle. Also, the AG in Missouri was there. It was, you know, all the, all the attorneys were there, and John Sauer had all the documents, and he went through with Fauci. And we've later found that we don't think he was very truthful. And his memory certainly was not as good. He has a great memory. And I will say this for Dr. Fauci. He was in his 90s when we deposed him, and he went the whole eight hours, not flagging, not tiring, not anything. So the guy is in tremendous health. Whatever else I may say about him. But I do say this, he was in defense mode. And the real thing here was there was email exchanges between him and a subordinate about stopping Jay Bhattacharya and Martin Kulldorf and the Brownstones statement, which was the normal statement of how you deal with pandemics that are respiratory. And they really wanted to shut him down and push back on that, and it is not. And he says, I never sent any emails to social media he says he didn't use them. I suspect now that he has private emails that he has his secretary use, but he didn't say that. But I will say this. It was a very dramatic time. And the whole question of whether the virus was created in a Chinese lab with funds from hhs, he was very, very nervous about. I will say that that was nervous. I do think, I do think that there are two things going on there. I just want to be fair about this. I think funds went to hhs, but the timing to create this virus may not be there. So I think he was trying to AVO and that, yeah, we give all this stuff to their virus experiments, but we didn't do this one. But that's a harder sell than, oh, no, we didn't do any of that. So it was more like, we didn't do any of that. And the virus couldn't have been formed in a lab type stuff, which I don't think is true, and I don't think he believes that.

[Matt Kittle]

Well, I mean, again, that was the COVID for so long. And then even the Biden administration, government agencies had to say, you know, no, not so much, Dr. Fauci, and don't forget.

[John Vecchione]

So we're, we're pressing him, we're pressing them for their documents. But social media is also not on our side. They are resisting, resisting, resisting. So that everything was a fight. And since we hadn't sued them, the third parties have more protection against handing over information. So it was very hard and time consuming to try to get things out of social media companies to contradict what the government was saying. And they, they didn't want to. Now, after the administration change, suddenly Zuckerberg and everyone's saying, oh, yeah, we were terribly pressured, we shouldn't have done that. Right? But I do want to tell you one thing about social media that I think you'll be shocked by, because I was shocked by. Because I have certain prejudices about social media. I thought that the Biden administration and social media would be cheek by jowl and hand in glove on this stuff, and it would be pushing on an open door to censor Americans for stuff the Democratic administration didn't want. That was not true. At the very beginning of this, the social media companies, first with Trump and then with Biden, were saying, hey, do we really need to do that? Maybe we shouldn't be doing this. There are emails, including from Nick Clegg of Facebook. Now, he's a British politician who was very big in UK politics and he went to work for Facebook and he's getting these calls from the White House saying, shut this down, shut that down. And he. And he writes an email and he says, we think there are First Amendment problems with telling Americans not to say this, that, or the other thing, or downgrading their social media. And the White House is emailing back, you know, nonetheless, shut it down. So it wasn't the case that the social media, which I would think would just go, yeah, that was not the case. Then there was so much pressure put on them that I think it's like, July 2022, something like that. They all broke down and did what the White House wanted.

[Matt Kittle]

After that, were you guys being suppressed, trying to get the word out there on social media while you were going through the deposition?

[John Vecchione]

Oh, this is good. This is good. You remind me. So many stories. So we had John Sauer over to our offices at the New Civil Liberties alliance, and we had some of our clients, and we had a discussion of what we had found in the litigation and what we were trying to. I think it was in front of the Fifth Circuit. Dowdy had ruled on his preliminary injunction. We're going up. And so we're talking about, like I just said, about the Chinese lab theory and things like that. That's what we were discussing because they were part of the case. We weren't pushing one or the other. We were just describing what was downgraded. YouTube took NCLA's YouTube video discussing the case off of YouTube and gave us a warning, saying we were doing misinformation and we could not have that YouTube video discussing the case that was going to the Supreme Court. So think about that. A matter of public concern about a case that's filed in federal court that is being followed by so many news organizations around the country. And YouTube panics and takes us off. I think we had to spend something like two or three days pointing out all this nonsense and getting it put back on, but I think it was still downgraded by the algorithm. Can you imagine? 12.7% of US credit card balances are how late? The Watchdog on Wall street podcast with Chris Markowski. Every day, Chris helps unpack the connection between politics and the economy and how it affects your wallet. Americans credit card balances are experiencing late fees to the highest level since 2011. More and more people are falling behind as people are over 90 days late. Not a good. Whether it's happening in D.C. or down on Wall street, it's affecting you financially. Be informed. Check out the Watchdog on Wall street podcast with Chris Markowski. On Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcast.

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[Matt Kittle]

That is an absolute assault on the First Amendment. And I, I am particularly disgusted by the fact that the answer from the White House, the answer from, well, I shouldn't say the White House at that time, but the answer from these agencies and these scientists was we don't care if it's a violation of the First Amendment. Were they. You mentioned the idea of panic and I guess I get that you're dealing with a pandemic. You're dealing with something that you hadn't really experienced to this extent for what, a hundred years, trying times in the first 30, 60 days, all of that said, did they use the COVID of COVID for so much, even long after they knew that? What did the emails, what did the documents say about that?

[John Vecchione]

Well, what they say is this idea of the mal information and misinformation. I'll give you an example. There was, there was a meme or a rumor or something that the vaccines put microchips in your bloodstream and changed your brain to do what the ruling faction wanted you to do. Now, Matt, I don't think that's true. Okay, wait a minute.

[Matt Kittle]

Hold on, John, I'm getting a message from the microchip.

[John Vecchione]

I don't think that's true. But you know what? That's free speech. You're allowed to say that.

[Matt Kittle]

You bet. Listen, there's so many idiotic things in social media. If we had to block every stupid, weird conspir out there, nobody would get anything done.

[John Vecchione]

But once they had gotten on to this mal information, misinformation, and I think also the Russia laptop thing really played into this. Really played into this. The bureaucrats and the people involved really did believe that if something was malinformation, misinformation, disinformation, they were allowed to suppress it. Right? They didn't think that was a free speech problem at, at all.

[Matt Kittle]

Where did they get this idea, though?

[John Vecchione]

I. Look, I think part of it was from foreign policy. I think it was the national security crowd does have Russian disinformation, which they try to keep out of the country. All right, out from outside the country, but once it's inside the country, they shouldn't have anything to say about it, to tell you the truth. I mean, that's just a matter of once it's inside the country being said by Americans, that's the end of the day. Now, that is, those are terms that have come from the national security primarily from the Cold War, from agitprop and fighting the communist behemoth. They would say, look, this is disinformation. This is a false, all that stuff, false flag. All the stuff you hear on the Internet now all comes from national security stuff. And it leaked into domestic discussion and discussion and belief by the agencies, I believe. And they didn't say this, but just following it and have been an old co warrior myself, I think I do know how, how this idea traveled and I think they just domesticated something that was supposed to be used against foreigners and not Americans.

[Matt Kittle]

Now, you said this before and you're absolutely right. I do find it hard to believe that the social media giants out there, big tech giants, didn't at some level say, oh yeah, this is in the best interest of our interest and this and that. No, no, I, I, I certainly understand that. I guess I'm just, what I'm saying is I am surprised that there was any resistance. From what I've read of the Twitter files, for instance.

[John Vecchione]

That's true, but that's most, A lot of the Twitter stuff came after what I call the collapse, the collapse of resistance. And there was a period where they all just collapsed. They'd had it. But the initial pushback, I think was for two things. There was still a hangover of the information should be free Internet. Some of your listeners may remember before 2016, 2015, the whole Internet was supposed to make all information free and everybody was going to have open access to everything. And that was kind of the promise of it. I think there was still some of that. And I think the other thing is, which the Supreme Court did not understand, which is all these organizations make their money on eyeballs. When they take eyeballs away from their product, they are throwing dollars out the window. They have a financial interest in people thinking that they're going to see what's actually on there and that they're going to be able to speak freely. That is actually a selling point. So they're not going to go do this. This is why I Always bring up Jill Heinz. She had outward facing posts, but she also had an internal discussion. And that internal discussion could not under any circumstances, could not under any circumstances be be seen by anyone else. So no one had an interest in quashing it except the government.

[Matt Kittle]

Yeah, you know, it's interesting. They certainly, at least from what I've seen, being in the media business for longer than I'd like to, to acknowledge, you know, the, the government had, particularly in the Biden era, they had all the assistance they could possibly ever want and more from the corporate media, what I like to call the accomplice media. They were more than glad. And I just, I remember the, the different, you know, news outlets and the, the morning talk shows, the View and all of those sorts of things. And we heard over and over again, for instance, about COVID how, you know, terrible it was that you had people going on social media. They were defending these policies even when they knew that these companies driven by the federal government were just dismantling First Amendment and free speech. What I'm really interested to know, and this is the question I've asked so many times in so many different areas over the last several years, do you believe that Dr. Fauci and Collins and the rest of the hundred plus names that you got out of this investigation, will they ever be held accountable?

[John Vecchione]

Not, they won't be held accountable by either civil or, or criminal judgments. I think they'll be accountable in history. I think some of them already have. I mean, you look at the adulation that Fauci had at the time and that has dropped off. I think that they're not really held in as high regard, but in public esteem. But I think one thing this consent decree does is it is a public rejection of all the premises of the censorship that were promulgated by those individuals. And so I think that's very important, all that, everything that they underlawed. Because I'll tell you this, I don't know about Fauci, but it was definitely true of the woman who's the SISA people and the woman who was going to be put, I'm forgetting her name right now, the Mary Poppins singer. She loved being in charge of all the Americans and what they could do and what they could not do. There was for a lot of these people, the idea that they could control other people's lives through this was, I think, a frisson of power that just thrilled them. And so they don't have that anymore and I don't think they'll have it again. And I certainly hope they won't. So I do think that the fact that, that Elon bought Twitter and that I think Zuckerberg feels chastised now, he's not going to jump on any bandwagons anytime soon. It strikes me that the government does. He's going to go and say, look, this is what's happening, and see where people land or fight. So I do think that there have been lessons learned. The question is, how long do those lessons last? Because, because, you know, everyone forgets everything after 10 years. And it's probably shorter now than 10 years. But I do think that for right now, there's enough people with memories of this that they won't so quickly jump on it. And as I said, this consent order signed by a federal judge says here's things the government should not be doing in regards to speech. And that is going to have a powerful. We get to enforce it for 10 years. Right. And then it'll expire. Or if they've broken a bunch of times, I guess we'll try to have it renewed. But. But the fact is that by its terms, it ends in 10 years. But that's a couple of administrations right there. So I think that at least we'll wave it around in whatever circumstances we can. But I also think that other First Amendment advocates should be citing it, say, look, they agreed to this. What has changed? What has changed? And nothing will have changed as to the principles of the First Amendment.

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[Matt Kittle]

Yeah, and they should keep fighting for it and keep fighting for it. I think it should be in perpetuity. But you know, that's, that's not what it is right now. But I, I'm hoping that you have people well in advance in this country who are fighting for the continuation of this thing. It should just be clear you shouldn't have to have a court order, a consent decree, a negotiated agreement that says the government will not break the First Amendment to the Constitution. And I know the government certainly has on many, many different occasions. But this was such a. Just a massive abuse of power. It's amazing. One guy who is definitely celebrating this victory today is Senator Eric Schmidt, as you know.

[John Vecchione]

Yes, he deserves to.

[Matt Kittle]

Oh yeah. He was Missouri's Attorney General at the time and he originally sued the Biden administration for what he called brazenly colluding with Big Tech to silence Missourians. This is what he had to say in a statement yesterday. This is a massive win for the First Amendment and for every American who believes in free speech. He said that the government, particularly Biden's tenure in government, his administration brought the most aggressively liberal and anti liberty excesses of government that America has ever seen. Now, you've been involved in a lot of cases that, that showcase the excesses of government anti liberty issues. Would you agree with Senator Schmidt on

[John Vecchione]

that in the post Civil War area? I would agree. So I have a longer historical memory. I don't know if the Alien Sedition Acts, as far as percentage of the population and number of people. It has to be the biggest. It has to be. I just hesitate on some of these historical things. But okay, 150 years, the senator and I agree this has really been huge. And the number of people it affects, it is just. I don't think there's anything that compares with it.

[Matt Kittle]

What I'm curious about is something you talked about before. When you originally started on this legal path, you took it to Ohio, that court there said, sorry, you don't have standing, which I found amazing at that point. And then you get it to the Supreme Court after you have this, this injunction from a lower court, the Biden administration challenges that it goes to the Supreme Court. And the majority rul, which was written by Justice Amy Coney Barrett again said, yeah, this could be a problem, but A, you don't have standing. B, how do you know what the social media operators were thinking when that verdict, when that ruling came in, what was your thought? Because clearly it wasn't to give up. At that point you kept fighting.

[John Vecchione]

Right. And I was so I had two thoughts. The first thought was, do they know how these social media companies make their money? That was the first thing. But also I felt that we would have to go back and find the standing and particularly we would have to get more detailed discovery. And I will say this, the press and everyone said, and I also pointed out immediately that the dissent said there was standing and also then also said that this was a huge first amendment violation.

[Matt Kittle]

Exactly.

[John Vecchione]

So every judge in the fifth Circuit, Judge Doughty District Court, every judge to Reach this. The question on the Supreme Court said that this was a violation of the First Amendment. And I'll just tell you something that happened in our argument. Ben Agwanaga is the. Was the new Solicitor General. When Liz Morrell got bumped up to AG and Landry got bumped up to governor, he became SG and he argued this case in the Supreme Court. And while this argument was going on in front of them, Kavanaugh and Kagan were both going back and forth with how many times they called newspapers when they were in the administration. One for the second Bush and one for Clinton or Obama? Clinton, I think. So, in any event. So all of a sudden, Roberts jumped in. He says, I want to be very clear. When I was in government, I never censored anybody.

[Matt Kittle]

Yeah, put that on the record.

[John Vecchione]

Put it on the record, exactly. I do think that the standing is important. And the thing is with Barrett is she does this to everyone. You know, that meme that they have where she's holding up the pad, showing she has no notes during her. And so people will write things in there. What I always put with Barrett is no injunction. So this is not ideological with her. She seems to be very rigorous on every point. And I would say in this standing thing, I think she really got it wrong, obviously. But I don't think it's. I don't think it's like everyone's priors in that case are discernible from other things they've done. So I don't want anyone to think that the people in the majority in Murthy v. Missouri were, you know, making it up to defend the government. I don't think that, but I think that it was very naive, the underlying assumptions of how things work.

[Matt Kittle]

Yeah. Well, you've been very generous with your time. I appreciate it. I just wanted to. For closing thoughts, what is next in the. The battle for liberty, including something we mentioned before? This battle for speech, for the First Amendment, is far from over again, Counsel.

[John Vecchione]

Well, I'll tell you this. The reason this was so insidious was because it was a bank shot. Private parties can not say or say whatever they want. Right. So you can't sue private parties for saying or not saying things for very good reasons. That's part of freedom of speech, but the government is not allowed to censor it. But what happens when a huge administrative state that reaches its fingers into every part of American life starts pressuring people to say or not say things? And the standing issue is going to come up again? It'll come up in the Federalist case. Although I will say this, the newspapers, I think, and your newspaper, I know you're not the mainstream media, but you're a newspaper as far as the First Amendment's concerned. I think you guys will have a better chance of getting standing in the future. That's kind of how I look at this. I think that the press has always been given a little more latitude on standing issues and a lot of issues. So maybe that's the approach we take next time. But I also think that we have to figure out a way to do it faster, because in this case, the EO came out right, said we're not going to do this anymore. We have arguments against that because as you pointed out, EOs come and go. They're not a permanent solution. And the person who stopped doing it for this period could start doing it again. And you want an order that stops it, you know, permanently, like our order. So I do think that we have to address this problem of the courts taking so long that circumstances change, and then the government either is going to argue mootness or it's going to argue mootness from what it does. Or look, who in this country is right now defending the Hunter Biden laptop as Russian disinformation, Right? The issue has kind of gone away. So you want to avoid that. So you want to get these things into court faster and you want to somehow move the ball quicker so that it doesn't take this long.

[Matt Kittle]

I know the one guy, I just thought of him, Adam Schiff, I think he's the last, the last holdout on that, on that front. Well, you know, this really did this. The battles that you engaged in, this whole fight over this critical First Amendment issue really did expose the administrative state. If anything, that's, that's one of the big takeaways, is that we have in this government too much government, too much bureaucracy, and it controls things in a way that is detrimental, deleterious to the U.S. constitution and civil liberties. Thanks to my guest today, John Becchione.

[John Vecchione]

Thank you for having me.

[Matt Kittle]

You bet. Senior litigation counsel for the New Civil Liberties alliance, which just won a huge First Amendment victory over government speech police. You've been listening to another edition of the Federalist Radio Hour. I'm Matt Kittle, senior elections correspondent at the Federalist. We'll be back soon with more. Until then, stay lovers of freedom and anxious for the fr.

[John Vecchione]

I heard the faint voice of reason.

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the Bleacher Report app is your destination for sports. Right now. The NBA is heating up, March Madness is here, and MLB is almost back. Every day there's a new headline, a new highlight, a new moment you've got to see for yourself. That's why I stay locked in with the Bleacher Report app. For me, it's about staying connected to my sports. I can follow the teams I care about, get real time, scores, breaking news and highlights all in one place. Download the Bleacher Report app today so you never miss a moment.