US State Department settles lawsuit claiming Biden-era suppression of conservative news

By Nate Raymond

April 1 (Reuters) - The Trump administration has agreed to stop the U.S. State Department from supporting technology that suppresses or fact-checks Americans' speech, settling a lawsuit by conservatives who said the department funded tools that censored right-leaning media outlets in the Biden era.

The proposed settlement was filed in federal court in Tyler, Texas, on Wednesday and would resolve a lawsuit brought in 2023 by Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and the conservative media outlets The Daily Wire and The Federalist.

"The prohibitions, reporting, and training required by the consent decree will protect free speech for well more than the decade that the decree is in force," Zhonette Brown, a lawyer for the plaintiffs at the New Civil Liberties Alliance, said in a statement.

The U.S. Department of Justice did not respond to a request for comment.

The deal was announced a week after the administration agreed to a settlement in a separate lawsuit that would bar three other agencies including the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from pressuring social media companies to remove ​or suppress speech.

Both cases stemmed from claims by President Donald Trump and other Republicans that the government under Democratic former President Joe Biden encouraged the suppression of speech by conservatives on social media platforms such as Twitter, now known as X.

Those claims often stemmed from efforts by the Democratic president's administration to combat what it said were false claims and misinformation about vaccines during the COVID-19 pandemic and elections.

Wednesday's settlement resolves claims that the State Department violated the free speech protections of the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment by funding and promoting tools used by social media companies to "deplatform" and render unprofitable "disfavored" news outlets.

The plaintiffs said it did so through two organizations that received grants or contracts from the department's Global Engagement Center, which had been authorized to counter foreign "propaganda and disinformation."

The Daily Wire and The Federalist contended that led to the suppression of articles they published concerning the COVID-19 pandemic, the safety of vaccines, transgender people, voter fraud and election integrity.

The Biden administration had fought the lawsuit, calling the plaintiffs' claims "hyperbolic." But the U.S. Department of Justice shifted its defense under Trump.

In seeking to settle the case, the parties noted Trump in January 2025 after returning to the White House, signed an executive order that called for addressing the "misconduct" of the Biden administration, which it claimed had for four years "trampled free speech rights by censoring Americans’ speech on online platforms."

Secretary of State Marco Rubio in April 2025 announced plans to abolish the Global Engagement Center.

Under Wednesday's proposed consent decree, the State Department will not be allowed to use, finance or promote technology that would be used to suppress, censor, demonetize or fact-check free speech of Americans or domestic media outlets.

The department would also be barred through 2036 from working with foreign governments or non-governmental entities for those purposes. The agreement requires a judge's approval.

The case is The Daily Wire, LLC, v. United States Department of State, et al., U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, No. 6:23-cv-00609.

For Texas: David Bryant of the Office of the Texas Attorney General

For the Daily Wire and The Federalist: Margot Cleveland of the New Civil Liberties Alliance

For the U.S.: Steven Chasin of the U.S. Department of Justice

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