Kennedy may join Missouri v. Biden suit

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. has been trying to join the Missouri v. Biden censorship lawsuit as an additional plaintiff. Now he may soon have his own case consolidated with the existing case.

Kennedy moves to intervene…

Kennedy first filed a motion to intervene in the Missouri case on November 17, 2022. Joseph R. Mercola, D.O. and Ty and Charlene Bollinger also listed themselves as movants. They sought access to all pre-trial discovery and an order to make that discovery a public record. A month later the “Parties” (meaning presumably Plaintiffs and Defendants) agreed to share discovery with Kennedy, Mercola and the Bollingers. So they withdrew their motion to intervene and filed another motion for access to discovery.

Then on March 24, 2023 Kennedy, his Children’s Health Defense organization, and Connie Sampognaro, a resident of Louisiana, filed their own class-action lawsuit against all the Missouri defendants. (See the docket page and the complaint.) They allege censorship by the government, but argue mainly from the point of view of those seeking uncensored information and not being able to find it. In this regard they cite Meta (Facebook, Instagram), Alphabet (Google, YouTube) and Twitter for the “power” they “wield” “over the content of American discourse.” In short, these are the companies that have cornered the market. Perhaps their discovery access paid off here, for they cited the most common instances of censorship at issue today. To be specific, they cited:

• the Hunter Biden Laptop story,
• the Wuhan Lab Leak theory of origin of SARS-CoV-2, and
• COVID vaccine safety, efficacy, and disputes of same.

The Kennedy lawsuit seeks no damages, but instead seeks a permanent injunction against government pressures against social media platforms.

… and then to consolidate

As the Missouri plantiffs did, Kennedy and his fellow plaintiffs formally moved for a preliminary injunction. The case is before Judge Terry A. Doughty, the same judge hearing the Missouri case. He has stayed the injunction order, and time to answer the complaint, in Kennedy’s case, pending the outcome of an injunction motion in Missouri.

On July 4, of course, Judge Doughty granted the injunction in Missouri, an injunction now on appeal. This started a countdown for status reports in Kennedy’s case. As of yesterday, both sides (plaintiffs and defendants) have filed Status Reports indicating inability to come to an agreement.

However, on April 1, 2023, the Kennedy team moved to consolidate their case with the Missouri case. The government objected, mainly by questioning the standing of Kennedy and his fellow plaintiffs. Judge Doughty’s last act on this came on July 5, giving the government until yesterday to respond. Evidently the government now indicates that, subject to its contention that Kennedy and the others have no standing, they agree to consolidate if the court determines they do have standing.

Kennedy testified today for nearly four hours before the House Weaponization Subcommittee, and mentioned elements of his case.

About the image

“Robert F. Kennedy Jr.” by Gage Skidmore is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 .