Team Biden Has Answered — As To Why Judge Doughty’s July 4 “Injunction” Is… A Mess.

This fine 65 page brief was just filed tonight, in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, and it will ultimately be the argument that wins the day — either here, or in the Supremes.

It masterfully dissects most of the manifold errors Monroe, Louisiana’s Doughty made. [And that’s why it takes 65 pages. Heh!] Here’s a bit:

…The district court’s 155-page opinion contained not a word of justification for the breathtaking scope of relief. Even in response to the government’s motion for a stay pending appeal, the district court’s only comment on the injunction’s scope was to suggest that including entire agencies was appropriate, even if some subcomponents had nothing to do with the challenged conduct, because agencies could otherwise “simply instruct a sub-agency to perform the prohibited acts and avoid the consequences of an injunction.” ROA.26658. It is not possible for this Court to defer to the district court’s exercise of its equitable discretion absent an explanation of the court’s reasoning. See, e.g., Geier v. Sundquist, 372 F.3d 784, 792 (6th Cir. 2004) (“Absent some indication of how the district court’s discretion was exercised, we have no way of knowing whether that discretion was abused.”). In any event, there is nothing the district court could have said to justify an injunction so manifestly disconnected from any harm (much less any forward-looking harm) to plaintiffs.

At a minimum, therefore, this Court should vacate the injunction to the extent it restricts government communications not specifically targeted to particular content posted by plaintiffs themselves. Such an injunction—which would leave the government free to communicate with platforms about specific posts by others or about any general category of content — would avoid burdening a vast universe of government actions lacking any connection to plaintiffs in particular….

[O]ne of the central constitutional duties and prerogatives of the President and his senior officials is to speak about harms in the world and ways of addressing those harms, and Executive Branch officials must have latitude to do so forcefully at times. But the injunction subjects many such communications to a risk of contempt. Consider, for example, a hypothetical statement from the White House podium that the President denounces misinformation about a recent natural disaster circulating online and urges platforms not to disseminate those falsehoods. In opposing a stay pending appeal, plaintiffs were admirably forthright in explaining that they would regard such a statement as violating the injunction. Opp. 24. But the prospect of contempt for such a statement flies in the face of a long history of presidential attempts to persuade members of the American public, including American companies, to act in the national interest. See supra p. 20. Even the potential for the injunction to be construed as limiting the communication of the President’s views regarding issues of public consequence — and for a federal district court to superintend those communications — raises grave separation-of-powers concerns….

What a wack-job of a 105 page opinion that Doughty burped out, on the Fourth holiday, no less — this year. It will be stricken — and dropped into the ash-bin of US History.

Out.