The Department of Justice announced on May 13 that it has settled a lawsuit alleging the Biden administration pressured Twitter into silencing an American citizen over his COVID vaccine commentary. The case is Berenson v. Biden, No. 25-2709, and the settlement resolves the federal government’s role in the litigation while leaving claims against other defendants very much intact.

Alex Berenson, a former New York Times reporter turned independent journalist, alleged that Biden-era officials worked alongside Pfizer-linked figures to get him deplatformed from Twitter in 2021. The DOJ settlement pays Berenson $150,000 and avoids further litigation in the Second Circuit, where his appeal was pending.

The DOJ press release framed the settlement squarely within President Donald Trump’s executive order titled Restoring Freedom of Speech and Ending Federal Censorship. That order stated the previous administration had trampled free speech rights by pressuring third parties, including social media companies, to “moderate, deplatform, or suppress speech the government did not approve.”

Three senior DOJ officials were quoted in the announcement. The framing was uniform: the federal government has no business leaning on private platforms to silence viewpoints it dislikes.

From the Justice Department:

The Justice Department announced the settlement of litigation alleging that the Biden administration induced Twitter to suppress disfavored speech by an American citizen. The lawsuit alleged that coercing a social media company to suppress speech violated the First Amendment. The department tied the settlement to President Trump’s executive order, Restoring Freedom of Speech and Ending Federal Censorship, which said the previous administration trampled free speech rights by exerting substantial pressure on third parties such as online platforms to moderate, deplatform, or suppress speech the federal government did not approve.

DOJ’s public framing was direct. Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward said the prior administration engaged in viewpoint discrimination by wielding power over social media. Assistant Attorney General Brett Shumate said unlawful government coercion of social media companies has no place under the Constitution. Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon called the settlement a milestone in the free-speech fight and said the proper answer to unwanted speech is more speech.

The settlement does not constitute a court ruling on the merits, and the DOJ announcement does not concede liability. What it does is put the federal government on record acknowledging that these allegations were serious enough to resolve, and that the current administration views the underlying conduct as incompatible with the First Amendment.

The $150,000 figure and the status of remaining claims come from Just the News, which has tracked the case closely:

The federal defendants agreed to pay Alex Berenson $150,000 to settle the federal portion of Berenson v. Biden before the Second Circuit could review his appeal. The settlement resolves the federal defendants’ part of the case but preserves Berenson’s claims against remaining defendants, including Pfizer Chairman and CEO Albert Bourla and Pfizer board member Scott Gottlieb, who also served as President Trump’s first-term FDA commissioner. Berenson described the six-figure payment as useful for continuing the appeal, rather than a life-changing amount of money.

Berenson had alleged that federal officials and Pfizer-linked figures conspired to pressure Twitter into deplatforming him in 2021 over COVID vaccine skepticism. He previously forced Twitter to reinstate his account and obtained internal emails through a separate settlement with the platform. Those internal records, according to the report, became part of the evidence he used in the lawsuit against federal officials, including claims involving Biden White House adviser Andy Slavitt and communications about why Berenson had not yet been removed from Twitter.

That last detail is important. The internal communications Berenson pried out of Twitter during his earlier legal battle reportedly became the evidentiary backbone of his claims against both federal officials and the Pfizer-connected defendants. With the federal portion now resolved, those private-party claims continue.

Berenson has been clear he views the settlement as a waypoint, not a finish line. His claims against Albert Bourla and Scott Gottlieb allegedly center on their roles in pressuring Twitter to remove his account. Those claims have not been settled, dismissed, or adjudicated.

The broader significance here goes well beyond one journalist’s account reinstatement or a six-figure check. The federal government, through its own DOJ, is now publicly resolving a case built on the allegation that the previous administration weaponized its influence over social media to punish speech it disliked. That principle, that the government cannot outsource censorship to private platforms and call it something other than a First Amendment violation, is the real thread running through this settlement.

The federal fight is closed. The First Amendment questions it raised are not.

This is a Guest Post from our friends over at WLTReport. View the original article here.
 

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