The Highwire with Del Bigtree - U.S. COURTS RESTORING CIVIL RIGHTS LOST DURING COVID

Episode Date: July 20, 2023

A new ruling in perhaps the most important court case on free speech in America has seen the judge forbid the Biden Administration from colluding with Big Tech to censor Americans. Join Del, Aaron Siri and Jefferey Jaxen in this roundtable discussion where they discuss the recent ruling in the Missouri vs Biden case and other important recent rulings and their implications.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-highwire-with-del-bigtree--3620606/support.

Something just happened in the realm of freedom of speech that has resonated throughout this country, like a bell. So the Biden administration has just received a preliminary injunction from a judge to stop basically contacting social media companies. This is out of Reuters here. And this happened on July 4th. Here is the headline. The U.S. judge restricts Biden officials from contact with social media firms, preliminary injunction. Forbid the Biden administration as agencies from essentially colluding with big tech. Missouri versus Biden, the ruling. This was the attorneys generals in Missouri and Louisiana. And what they did was they also were joined by people like Martin Koldorf, J. Badacharya.

These are the signatories of the Great Barrington Declaration. And they pushed forward this lawsuit and it has received a, you know, for- Unjunction. This is such an important story for what we do here because, as you know, we lost our Facebook channel because of this. We lost our YouTube channel, which is how we started doing this. That was our broadcast. space. Luckily, we saw the writing on the wall. We had been transferring people over to the highwire.com. And as it turns out, people were capable of typing in the highwire.com and we went from hundreds of thousands to millions of people checking in. But, you know,

we have had our own lawyer, which does so much the work we do, Aaron, Siri, fighting that case for us. Actually, wait, we have Aaron here today. What are we doing here? Why don't have this conversation? Let's get Aaron here to have the conversation. If you don't know who Aaron Siri is, then this is the master of our legal team. Joining us now is Aaron Siri. Aaron Siri has led several high-profile lawsuits against vaccine manufacturers and federal health agencies. Aaron, you have been fighting for information from the FDA.

He's the guy that has been asking Pfizer to release the COVID-19 vaccine data. The judge say correctly ruled that the San Diego School District does not have the authority to require COVID-19 vaccine of its students. We sent this letter to the FDA, CDC, and NIH. Detail and catastrophic injuries from COVID-19 vaccines. This summer, we formally petition the CDC demanding that they support their position, that those that have natural immunity

cannot afford the same liberties that the CDC says that those who have vaccine immunities can have. We do intend to follow a lawsuit on behalf of our client, the Informant Action Network. Did the clinical trial rule out that the vaccine, causes autism. No. If you don't know whether D-TAP or T-DAP cause autism, shouldn't you wait until you have

the signs to support that vaccines do not cause autism? No, I do not wait. There's been no check on vaccines. There's no money interest, if you will, pushing back on pharmaceutical companies. Why did it take numerous legal demands, multiple appeals, two lawsuits in fact, before the CDC finally handed over the V-safe data. When we finally had that data, you got a sense of why they didn't want the public to have it because it showed a little bit over 10 million reported eating medical care after a COVID-19 vaccine. That's how many individuals in the first week or so after vaccination.

Yeah. Being a doctor, emergency room, or hospitalization. It should not be that any physician should have to quote unquote risk it all just to advocate for their patients. Think about this business model. You have to have to be that. have a vaccine, you can't be sued for harms, you have a guaranteed market because kids are required to get it for school, and your health agency is promoted for you. If you want to secure civil and individual rights, you need to act yourselves, because if you don't do it, who will. All right, well, Aaron, this is actually, Jeffrey, I don't think we've ever all sort of sat on a stage together. So this is an amazing historic moment here.

I've got the power of our legal department before I can and the machine. of our investigative team all together. So it's quite a moment. And I think it's perfect for this moment because really this lawsuit that was filed by Missouri and these AGs to get the government out of control of social media, we actually brought a case similar to this, right?

Our argument was, you know, because I think one of the things we have to think about that, Facebook or Twitter, these are private companies. We talked about, They have a right to free speech. We shouldn't be telling them what they have to air or that they have to play our show. That would go against everything we believe in freedom.

But our argument at the time was that it's not them making a choice. It's the government that is forcing their will upon these free agencies, if you will. They should be allowed to make a choice and they're being pressured by the government. Our case really didn't make it through because they're like you can't prove that the government's behind this, right? We'd have evidence that they were really coming after me in the high wire. Yeah, there are numerous lawsuits filed across the country by many organizations for the censorship that Facebook and other private social media companies, you know, did kicking them a platform, putting labels on things that they said.

And what the courts roundly held was it's not good enough to show that the government kind of encouraged or pushed these companies. companies to censor generally in that category. You have to show, the judge has said pretty much uniformly, that there is evidence that the government specifically asked the social media company to censor you plaintiff, you, the person or entity bringing that case. That obviously is quite difficult to be able to prove when you first bring a case. You don't have that proof.

Right. So in our situation with the Highwire, for example, we didn't have direct email saying where, you know, President Biden was saying, hey, that guy, Big Tree, get him out. Right. Right. We don't have that. We didn't have that. We didn't have at the time. I remember one of the big things was Adam Schiff wrote a letter to Amazon saying take down books and movies that have to do with vaccine risks or harms.

Vax, the film I made, got taken down. So we saw this direct reaction, right? We saw, you know, statements to different social media, but we couldn't, they weren't saying our name, right? And so that was such a big part of it. So then why, what is it about this case? Is it because it's not a civil, private case that is being brought by Attorney General's, that has put it in this position where now we are, or is it the Twitter files that came out? I mean, is that what's playing in here, Tim?

I'd say the major difference between all those other lawsuits, which were all brought on behalf of, of singular individuals or entities, private entities. And the currency that you guys were talking about a few minutes ago, Missouri v. Biden, is that in Missouri v. Biden, there were two states, Missouri and Louisiana, that are actually plaintiffs. The state themselves are plaintiffs. So every citizen of the state is a plaintiff. And the AGs are representing.

So that takes it into a whole different space. They were able to bring the case not only from that footing, but also using a different set of laws than private litigants would be able to essentially rely upon when they bring that kind of case against the social media companies. And I think it's worth stressing again. They're private companies. Just like we all want freedom.

Yeah. They're private companies. They're entitled to freedom. And two, they should have the freedom to make decisions what is on their platform, what they don't want on their platform. But left to their own devices, social media companies are there to get more eyeballs, more viewers make money. They're not kicking anybody off, left to their own devices.

They want to make money. It goes against the very model that they exist. A market force. Right. Any sort of entrepreneurship whatsoever. As you said, but for, as we call it the cats, you know, Paul, the government intervening with these companies, they wouldn't have engaged in the censorship. And it took this suit, thankfully, and a big congratulations to the Attorney General's of Missouri

in Louisiana for bringing the suit and to the judge who wrote an incredible 155-page decision. What were some of the statements that judge made? Yeah, when you think, for the public out there watching, we think, okay, the judge issues a preliminary injunction. Well, it's maybe just this black and white, you know, judge speak. You stop doing this, and therefore, I have, it is told a hammer goes down. No, no, no. Now, this judge, let's look at some of the actual words.

He says over 150 page decision. He says this. Although this case is still relatively young, and at this stage, the court is only examining it in the terms of plaintiff's likelihood of success on the merits, the evidence produced thus far depicts an almost dystopian scenario. During the COVID-19 pandemic and a period perhaps best characterized by widespread doubt and uncertainty, the United States government seems to have assumed the role similar to an Orwellian ministry of truth. And it goes on to see...

Wow, from a judge saying that. That's outrageous. It's from a judge saying that. Wow. And I say some truth. Yeah. Yeah. Finally.

Yeah. Finally, it's being stated. And he goes further to point out the direct to the CDC here. And this is kind of our in our wheelhouse. It says this about the CDC. The CDC became the determiner of truth for social media platforms, deciding whether COVID-19 statements made on social media were true or false. And the CDC was aware it had become the determiner of truth for social media platforms.

If the CDC said in a statement, the social media was false, it was suppressed in spite of alternative views. And then, Aaron, to your point to the White House, where they were compelling these companies to do this. The judge says in here, the judge says this. The White House defendants made it very clear to social media companies what they wanted to suppress and what they want in amplified, faced with unrelenting pressure from the most powerful office in the world, the social media companies apparently complied. And remember this headline in 2021. So you're having the White House saying, hey, by the way, most powerful,

in the office here calling, we need you to take out this bulk spreadsheet of people, take them off Twitter, take them off Facebook. And then Biden goes out and, you know, almost recklessly says this. Biden says platforms like Facebook are killing people with COVID misinformation. Remember that headline. So amazing. Picture out. And remember, we had the emails afterwards. They basically Facebook said, whoa, what was that? Like, could you please have this guy back off, essentially? It's really amazing. Those are, I mean, those are, I mean, those are, statements that are so defamatory, if made by anybody else, you know, if you said that companies killing people, what are the protections around a president? When I think about all the

things that he sort of said, accusations that are being made, can you sue a president for defamation? They have a very high degree of immunity from all kinds of suit while they're sitting in the office. And there's all kinds of protected speech, including members of Congress, judges and so forth. So typically no. It's really incredible when we think, I mean, I, and we've been saying it from the beginning, the First Amendment, you know, your right to free speech

is like the most important part of what it means to be an American. I would say it's the one, if there was the one thing you traveled around the world and spoke to other people in other nations, it's the thing they envy the most, the ability to just publicly state and say what you believe to give, your perspective on something, and to have that, to have an administration that sought to end

that practice, to end literally the pillar of liberty and freedom in America. It's sadly the go-to, when you look at the long arch of history of authoritarian, thugs, bullies, dictators, when they can't convince you on the merits, this is the type of conduct they engage in. Censorship, bullying, coercion, mandates. and so forth. And that's, unfortunately, what we saw our government starting to do. And thankfully, we have a federal judge, and to the credit of the three branches of government that were set up in this country, you have a federal judge who can tell the entire executive

government, branch of the government, stop. You can no longer engage in this type of conduct. And there were reports, I think you said it earlier, meetings now between federal government officials and social media companies are now being canceled that were scheduled to be going on. But they're appealing, aren't they? I mean, like, unbelievable is not bad enough. Like you lost, you've been told by a judge it's unconstitutional. They're like, we have to have this power. You can't take this away from us. Immediately, the Biden administration appealed. Biden administration asked appeals court to block order limiting its contacts with social media. Judge then rejected that, the Justice Department's request to pause that. And what did that do? The State Department immediately

had to start canceling its weekly meetings. We have censorship that needs to happen today. We need to stay on this. You cannot interfere with our censorship right now with a very important mission going on here. Yeah. Yeah. Outrageous. It's outrageous. And when we look at it, Aaron, we, you know, when we look at COVID, so many of the things we were forced to do. And we, look, we were screaming from the mountain top here on the high wire, don't comply. You know, don't go with an illegal law. We're breaking our own constitution. We're breaking our own laws by going along with this.

So many of the things have come crashing down in courtrooms, whether it was masking on airplanes or, you know, some of the cases that we've been involved in, many of the vaccine mandates. I think except for what was it, health care workers, those vaccine mandates were ruled unconstitutional. I mean, there's a real trail of destruction to authoritarianism by our court system.

Court systems are actually coming around on this. Pretty strong. They've, they're having a number of good decisions, and, you know, I think that there's more that could have been done. I will say that, and there's a recent Supreme Court decision. Judge Gorsuch, the U.S. Supreme Court actually wrote a decision where he rails against judges across the country of federal and state courts for not doing enough, for not.

protecting the rights of individuals when they were being locked in their homes, forced to take products, wear products, do things they didn't want to do. And I hope Judge Gorsuch's decision stands as a reminder to judges the next time this happens to act more quickly, swiftly, and decisively to stop executive overreach at every level, federal, state, local. Wow, what was it exactly you said? I mean, was the... Yeah, he said this was the largest intrusion on civil liberties in peacetime America perhaps ever. Wow. That was his that was his statement and it was one of the most, you know, Aaron had sent it to me. He's like, you got to look at this thing. It was one of the

most important pieces I've ever read from a judge. And you know, when we look back at the the, we're called the Biden administration's COVID response, how, how was it constitutional? How unconstitutional was it? Well, after the fact, the judges and the courts really started to show you by their decisions and even we're going to go through some headlines here as you said, This may not even have been enough because they could have done more. So we have here, this is the Head Start program. Remember that was the program for disadvantaged kids? This is Judge Block's COVID vaccine mandate for Head Start program.

Then we have the Navy, Judge Blocks Navy from enforcing COVID vaccine mandate against sailors with religious exemptions. Air Force, Cincinnati Federal Judge Block's Air Force Air National Guard globally discharging for religious vaccine refusers. Then San Diego, this was an ICAN funded lawsuit, strikes down COVID-19 vaccine mandate, San Diego schools. We have judge orders, NYPD, union members fired over VACS mandate reinstated. Another one, CDC mask mandate for planes, trains no longer in effect after judge rules it unlawful. This is another ICANN decision here in case you missed it. ICan funded suit against OSHA vaccine mandate prevails and on and on it goes. And on and on and, you know, just first of all, Aaron, the work that you've been doing

for us. I feel like when you're sitting here, we've taken you out, like you're like Rapunzel in the tower. I've got you up there working. So hard. So many cases, you guys are cranking out to great effect. And we're right after Freedom Fest, we're going to go to Mississippi and celebrate the return of the religious exemption to Mississippi, which has been gone since 1979 because of the work that you did for us. I mean, these are really, really incredible moments. Is there hope here? Is there a hope that, you know, that the courts are going to get this country back on track, or are we, is it just a coin toss right now? And what is your sense? You're out there in these courtrooms in America. Can we rely on the courts to pull us through?

I'm incredibly hopeful. Yeah. I'm incredibly hopeful. Look, not only do we have judges in many parts of this country who are very awake to the dangers of what's been occurring in terms of censorship, infringement on civil individual rights. You also have what effectively is the executive branch of various state governments recognizing that. When you think about this case, this was a case brought by two states against the federal government before a federal judge. I mean, this is government fighting government, basically, to get back our rights.

That is a very hopeful moment. That is a very hopeful. And that is, that is, and we're seeing more and more of that. You know, one of the cases you just showed, for example, was the masks and on airplanes, right? Yeah. And there was a, you know, we brought two lawsuits, one on behalf of somebody named Del Big Trades. That's right. I was really getting pissed off having to wear the thing on the airplane.

So we brought that suit. Our firm brought that on behalf of you against the CDC. And then we also brought another suit separately in a different district against 17 members of Congress, Rand Paul and a whole bunch of others. And that's 17 members of Congress who are willing to put their names as plaintiffs on a federal lawsuit against the Center for Disease Control. Wow. That's not common. No.

That doesn't happen often. That's, again, government's stepping up to push back against government. And when you have people in the government who know are seeing the problem, who are recognizing the problem, that's a hopeful sign that things are moving and willing to speak public about it and say the truth like you read Jeffrey from that decision. Right, right. Right. But just as we sort of wrap this all up, though, I still think, you know, we can try to elect better, you know, people that are speaking truth to power. We can get into the courtrooms.

But really the power of the people, which is what we start this whole conversation about, right? I think when I think about the mask mandate on planes, one of the, in some ways, one of the most conflicted feelings I've ever had is that day they finally lifted it and said the judge has just ruled you don't have to wear your mask. And there's videos on social media of all these airplanes where the flight attendant says, you know, as of today, it's just been ruled you don't have to wear your masks. And like, 95% of the people like, woo, they throw their masks in the air and everybody was celebrating. There's usually like four or five of the people that kept their masks on. on the plane. And I just remember looking at that. First, I was excited because I wasn't going to have to wear one.

But I just thought about all those people that tore it off and threw it in the air in that moment and realized all those people were doing it just to comply. You know, and I actually respect the four or five people that I would see in the picture still wearing it because they actually believed there was a virus they were hiding from and they thought that this thing did something. when 95% of America was just like, I always knew this was, you know, I just was going along. That's the problem in this country right now. The problem in America is we are not standing in our rights.

We are not standing up as the people and saying, I'm not going to take that. I am going to refuse. I am going to, you know, rebel against illegal laws and the destruction of my constitutional rights, which, by the way, are not, these are not, you know, our Constitution, our Bill of Rights, are not telling, you know, telling, you know, the government what they can do to us is what they can't do is. It's we are protected. We have rights by God. Those laws are holding back the government, not holding us back. I just really feel like we can't just trust courtrooms.

And I think that conferences like this that we're at right now at Freedom Fest, I hope the message is each individual has power when they stand up and stand for what's right in their own freedom, more than any courtroom or any president or any election. possibly have. It's got to start with one person at least. Yeah. Standing together. You know, well, look, it's an honor

of getting to work with both of you. For everyone out there that is watching this show right now, I just want to say that you make all of this possible. You've made it possible for us to bring these lawsuits that have brought freedom back and help freedom reign here once

again in America. This is a unique experiment that I have been describing to friends, Not only are we bringing the news, unlike any other news channel that I know of, you are supporting us and you're watching this show, and we are taking half of that to go and fight in the courtrooms across America to make sure that the news we're reporting on doesn't end up just plaguing us the rest of our lives. We're out to try and change it. And that is, I think, what the high wire informed consent action network, our nonprofit, this is an experiment that is really working. And just for those of you that are really working, watching this for the first time when we started going to the courtrooms to fight for transparency on vaccines to get around the protections of liability that have been given by our government to these manufacturers so they can't be sued therefore have no concern whether their product hurts us or not the government i think always thought they were going to get away with it because who could

afford to bring lawsuits if there was no money to be made from those lawsuits well these cases are just about transparency there's no money to be one and the only reason we're able to stand there and wait out the government when they try to make it as expensive as possible and keep appealing and keep pushing back and keep, you know, trying to wait us out, we're able to keep you standing there because of all of you beat beautiful people out there that fund the work that we're doing and allow us to stay in these cases until we win. And, man, have you won a lot of cases? You want to see this work continue?

Just donate now. You can go to the top of the screen where you're watching. Watch this to thehighwai.com, hit donate. And what we'd like for you to do is become a recurring donor. We're looking at, if you could, you know, go with $23 a month for $2023, but a dollar every month, you know, or a cup of coffee. How about $5 or $6 a month? Skip a Starbucks, what you're calling a coffee,

and I would call a milkshake might actually do you better to lay off of it this morning and instead support the work that is fighting to bring back our freedoms, our democracy. our republic. It's such an honor to be sitting with both of you. Wouldn't be here without you. So thank you so much. Aaron. Thank you. Jeffrey. Really incredible.