Joy Pullmann writes for the Federalist about intriguing new information in court documents filed just before Christmas.

Government pressure on national communications monopolies to mute Americans’ critiques of government began in Barack Obama’s presidency and continues today, say court documents filed Dec. 23.

Federal documents uncovered by separate litigation on Dec. 19 also show censorship of public discussion about prudent Covid policies began at least by February 18, 2020, a month before unprecedented citizen lockdowns. That contradicts Department of Homeland Security claims its censorship efforts began months later.

These documents also highlight that government employees deliberately violated transparency laws such as the Freedom of Information Act to hide their use of public offices. The Dec. 23 filing from Missouri v. Biden plaintiffs cites a May New York Times article showing “some Defendants, particularly at NIH and NIAID, have intentionally misspelled words in order to avoid production pursuant to FOIA requests; deleted emails; and used private emails.” Given this, the plaintiffs asked the federal district court to expand discovery to include intentionally misspelled keywords.

The filing also says President Biden senior advisor Andy Slavitt, a former Obama official, “continued using his White House email address even after he left government employment, presumably in an attempt to wield the authority of an office that he no longer held.” Slavitt personally “bullied” Twitter into deplatforming journalist Alex Berenson over his skepticism of mRNA injections, the filing notes.

The Missouri plaintiffs are petitioning for greater discovery and depositions in a case the U.S. Supreme Court returned to the district level after declining a preliminary injunction against vast censorship efforts that use taxpayer-funded cutout organizations to mask federal demands. “[T]his case is exceptional,” the plaintiffs argue. “Never before in this country’s history has a government censorship regime coordinated at the highest levels been exposed through litigation.”