President-elect Donald Trump‘s former national security adviser Michael Flynn has joined Robert F. Kennedy Jr.‘s legal fight against the Biden administration.
Kennedy, whom Trump has nominated to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, has been locked in a legal battle with President Joe Biden‘s administration, which seeks to remove Kennedy’s statements opposing COVID-19 vaccines from social media.
Flynn, who served as Trump’s first national security adviser, pleaded guilty in 2017 to a charge of lying to the FBI about his contacts with the Russian ambassador before being pardoned by Trump in November 2020. The case against him was subsequently dropped.
On Wednesday, U.S. Circuit Judge Catharina Haynes ruled that Flynn had the right to file an amicus brief on Kennedy’s behalf. An amicus brief is an expert opinion filed in court, typically on behalf of one side in a legal dispute. A judge must first grant approval before an amicus brief can be filed.
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The case, overseen by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, was filed by Kennedy and his Children’s Health Defense against Biden, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, the Department of Health and Human Services, and White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.
Newsweek has contacted Flynn, Kennedy and the White House for comment by email outside normal working hours.
Haynes also ruled that a number of conservative and free speech groups may also file amicus briefs on Kennedy’s behalf. Those groups include the Gun Owners of America, the Gun Owners Foundation, Gun Owners of California, the U.S. Constitutional Rights Legal Defense Fund and the Conservative Legal Defense and Education Fund.
The case is joined to Missouri v. Biden, in which Missouri and other Republican-leaning states are fighting the Biden administration’s efforts to halt COVID-19 misinformation on Facebook and other social media sites.
In June, in the related case Murthy v. Missouri, the Supreme Court ruled that the Republican states did not have legal standing to bring a case against the Biden administration.
A 5th Circuit panel remanded Kennedy’s case to the district court to reconsider the legal implications of the Supreme Court decision.
Earlier this month, the 5th Circuit also ruled that the plaintiffs did not have legal standing to seek a preliminary injunction against the Biden administration.
Kennedy is now appealing that decision. Flynn, along with the various conservative and free speech groups, has been granted the right to submit expert briefs on his behalf.
In February 2021, Instagram announced that it was removing Kennedy from its site because of his unverified claims about COVID-19 vaccines. Its parent company, Facebook, had said days earlier that it was stepping up its campaign against COVID-19 misinformation.
