Judging Freedom - Twitter, FBI and the Deep State

Episode Date: January 6, 2023

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The Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Freedom of Speech. Well, there's a head scratcher. You know, when I was in law school, you would never even put those two, the FBI and the First Amendment, you'd never even put them in the same paragraph, much less the same sentence. But the modern FBI, I have argued in my essays and op-eds and speeches, has become not a crime-fighting entity, but a crime-predicting entity by becoming a domestic surveillance entity, and it's actually gotten worse than that. As a result of Elon Musk's acquisition of Twitter and Musk's designation of Matt Bayh, a journalist that we all know as the recipient of what Musk acquired when he learned Twitter, we now know that the FBI, the NSA, that's the National Security Administration, which is in the Defense Department, that's 60,000 domestic spies. The CIA, we all know what that is. That's 27,000

foreign spies, though they break their charter by spying in the United States. We all know that. The DHS, that's the Department of Homeland Security, that's 240,000 domestic cops and their support personnel all have pushed, cajoled, coerced, bribed, requested, whatever verb you want to use, social media to do its bidding. What is its bidding? Suppress the speech that these rogue deep state elements hate and fear and promote the speech that these rogue deep state elements like and appreciate. My friend and former colleague at Fox News, Tucker Carlson, recently devoted a good portion of a show to all of this, and he interviewed Matt Taibbi. Matt's a great guy. He's a liberal Democrat. He's even progressive. He's even way to the left. And, you know, there's that area where libertarians and progressives agree. I'm holding my fingers up.

So those areas where my fingers from my right hand and left hand are touching are a way of showing the areas we agree on. Generally, civil liberties, the voluntary use of controlled dangerous substances, privacy, war and peace. This is very profound. This has to do with the government affecting free speech. Now, you may say, well, Judge, social media is private. Correct. Social media is a bulletin board. It is. Social media can decide what to post on its bulletin board or what to take down. It can. But when social media does the government's bidding, either in return for a favor from the government or because the government has pushed it into doing so, then social media becomes governed by the same First Amendment that governs the government.

So the FBI can't go around on its own suppressing speech because of its content. You know, if I want to give a speech saying vote for Trump at three in the morning in a residential neighborhood, they can stop me because of time, place, and manner. I'm waking people up. If I want to give it a three in the afternoon, or if I want to give it a three in the morning at 6th Avenue and 47th Street, where Fox is located, they can't stop me. But neither time can they stop me because of its content. Why? Because the First Amendment prohibits the government from interfering with speech because of its content. That includes the FBI, the NSA, the DEA, I forgot them earlier, that's the Drug Enforcement Administration, the CIA.

But when they use private enterprise, when they use social media to do what they can't do, then the same First Amendment that governs them can be used by courts to govern and restrain social media. It may very well have shot itself in the foot and have lost its ability to decide what goes up on the bulletin board because it suppressed speech on the basis of its content. Okay, the Taibbi Carlson interview is a long one. We have picked what we believe is the best single segment. Here's Matt addressing the dangers of what the government has been doing. You know, for me personally, I gave to the ACLU for years. I'm one of those sort of died-in-the-wool liberals and grew up that way. I'm deeply disappointed. I think

a lot of people who are sort of politically on that side of the aisle are missing the boat on this. They don't understand the gravity of the situation. They're thinking about this in partisan terms. It's not a partisan story. This is a story about the architecture of the intelligence community and law enforcement getting its hands on speech and on the ability of people to communicate with one another through platforms like Twitter

and Facebook. And they're doing this in a very profound way, much more serious than I thought at the beginning of this story. Now, Chris, I haven't seen the documents. None of us has. I suppose they exist somewhere. Elon Musk, who's a conservative-slash-libertarian Republican, chose this liberal slash progressive, Matt Taibbi, to be the voice of all the documents. So he gave all these documents to Matt periodically in tranches, you know, a few thousand one day, a few thousand the next day. And Matt has been the explainer of all of it. In my opinion, he's telling the truth. And in my opinion, he's done a fabulous job. And in my opinion, we all need to know about this. Here's the head scratcher. This didn't happen under Joe Biden.

And it didn't happen under Barack Obama. It happened under Donald Trump. I can't imagine, you all know that I have known President Trump as a personal friend for 35 years, was interviewed by him twice for the Supreme Court of the United States, probably would have been nominated by him except the people around him persuaded him to go elsewhere. In one case, he did the right thing, in my opinion. In another, he did. I'm not going to get into names. Point is, I know him. I know the way he thinks. It is inconceivable to me that he was aware that this was going on, but he should have been aware. Certainly, Chris Wray, who he appointed to run the FBI, must have known what was going on. And if Director Wray did not know, he should be fired for not knowing. Attorney General Jeff Sessions ought to have known.

Attorney General Bill Barr ought to have known. General Nakasone, who is the head of the NSA, he ought to have known. I don't remember. Nice looking guy with slick back black hair, usually had a day or two growth beard, who was the acting director, acting secretary of DHS during the last two years of Trump's presidency. He ought to have known. General Kelly, who was the Trump chief of staff and before that was the secretary of DHS, he ought to have known. The young woman, I forget her name, Kirsten, forgetting the last name, forgive me, who succeeded General Kelly running DHS,

she ought to have known. If the people Donald Trump appointed to run these aspects of the government did not know what those people were doing with the power we have given them and the money they have taken from us, then they should have been fired. I'm going to be a little critical of Trump. This is what happens when you have a president who is more interested in the size of his audiences when he speaks and his approval ratings than he is in the instrument of government. Because when the instruments of government are taken away from him and being used by rogues in the government to harm human liberty in a way that this president, had he known about it, would never, ever have approved, we have an ineffectual president with ineffectual appointees.

It's not too late to do something about this. Whatever the outcome of the vote for a Speaker of the House, and I have been cheering on the rebels, I would not vote under any circumstances for Kevin McCarthy. Whatever the outcome, the Republicans will control the House. Jim Jordan, who is fearless, will become the chair of the House Judiciary Committee, and I have encouraged him in private and will do so now publicly. Please investigate all of this. Put Chris Wray under oath and find out what he knew and when he knew it. Put whoever was running DHS under oath. Put whoever was ever running DEA under oath. Put who was ever running NSA under oath that the government of the United States of America

would coerce or bribe private enterprise into suppressing free speech because of its content is one of the more reprehensible episodes in the history of the country. That it happened behind our backs makes it more reprehensible. That we know about it now means we must do something about it or we're complicit in it. Judge Napolitano for judging freedom.