Judge rejects Justice Department's request to pause order limiting Biden administration's contact with social media companies
CBSN
Washington — A federal judge on Monday turned down a Justice Department request to temporarily pause an order that blocks top Biden administration officials and several agencies from contacting social media companies, rejecting the government's claims that the injunction was too broad and threatened to chill lawful conduct.
U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty, appointed to the federal bench by former President Donald Trump, reiterated in a 13-page ruling denying the Justice Department's request for a stay that Missouri and Louisiana were likely to succeed on the merits of their case against the Biden administration.
"Although this Preliminary Injunction involves numerous agencies, it is not as broad as it appears," Doughty wrote. "It only prohibits something the Defendants have no legal right to do — contacting social media companies for the purpose of urging, encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any manner, the removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content containing protected free speech posted on social-media platforms."
In her first hours as attorney general, Pam Bondi issued a broad slate of directives that included a Justice Department review of the prosecutions of President Trump, a reorientation of department work to focus on harsher punishments, actions punishing so-called "sanctuary" cities and an end to diversity initiatives at the department.
The quick-fire volley of tariffs between the U.S. and China in recent days has heightened global fears of a new trade war between the world's two largest economies. Yet while experts think the battle is likely to escalate, they also say the early skirmishes offer hope for an agreement on trade and other key issues that could head off a larger conflict.