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“(This is) a powerful reminder that the First Amendment cannot be warped to serve the interests of elected officials,” Shalini Goel Agarwal, counsel for Protect Democracy, said in a post on X on Friday. “Censoring business owners from speaking in favor of ideas that politicians don’t like is a move ripped straight from the authoritarian playbook.”
“Today’s decision serves as a powerful reminder that the First Amendment cannot be warped to serve the interests of elected officials,” special counsel Shalini Goel Agarwal of Protect Democracy, which represented businesses that sued Florida, said following the latest decision.
“[This is] a powerful reminder that the First Amendment cannot be warped to serve the interests of elected officials,” read a statement from counsel Shalini Goel Agarwal of Protect Democracy, which represented the plaintiffs in this case.
“We are pleased that the court today saw through the Gateway Pundit’s transparent attempt to abuse the bankruptcy process to avoid accountability and granted our motion to dismiss the bankruptcy case,” said Brittany Williams, a lawyer with the non-profit group Protect Democracy, which represents both women. “We will continue to work to ensure that no abuse of the legal system further delays justice for Ms Freeman and Ms Moss.”
“We are pleased that the court today saw through the Gateway Pundit’s transparent attempt to abuse the bankruptcy process to avoid accountability and granted our motion to dismiss the bankruptcy case,” said Brittany Williams, a lawyer with the non-profit group Protect Democracy, which represents both women. “We will continue to work to ensure that no abuse of the legal system further delays justice for Ms Freeman and Ms Moss.”
Brittany Williams, a lawyer from Protect Democracy representing the Georgia election workers, Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, said the judge “saw through The Gateway Pundit’s transparent attempt to abuse the bankruptcy process to avoid accountability.”
“We will continue to work to ensure that no abuse of the legal system further delays justice for Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss,” Williams said in a statement Thursday.
The mother and daughter were represented pro bono by a prominent law firm and an advocacy group called Protect Democracy, which has pursued Giuliani and others who tried to subvert the 2020 election.
Their case provided a searing glimpse into the harassment election workers suffered while prominent Trump supporters spread lies about the 2020 election.
The plaintiffs include parents, five authors, the publishing company Penguin Random House and the free speech group PEN American Center, Inc. They are represented by the legal advocacy group Protect Democracy Project and the Ballard Spahr LLP firm.
The lawsuit has played out amid controversy in Florida and other states about school officials removing or restricting access to books. As a sign of the controversy, Gov. Ron DeSantis in April signed a bill aimed at limiting book challenges filed by people who don’t have children in public schools, saying some people who filed mass objections to books made a “mockery” of the process.
Disinformation also plays a significant role in election subversion. As defined by Protect Democracy, election subversion is an authoritarian tactic aimed at corrupting elections by preventing the true election winner from taking office, and it has become a key tool for bad actors to attempt to subvert election results.
In this TED Talk, Protect Democracy’s Ian Bassin argues that democracy is about having choices — and authoritarianism is about not having them. Detailing the seven steps of the authoritarian playbook, he invites us all to put aside our differences and rethink our role in the fight for freedom, revealing the hope and power behind every choice we make.
Defeating authoritarianism is going to take all of us. Everyone and every institution has a role to play. Together, we can protect democracy.
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