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Anastasia Boushee

Supreme Court Justice Concerned First Amendment Can ‘Hamstringing Government’

Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson is being called out on social media for making authoritarian and outright unconstitutional claims during a hearing.

While many of the left-leaning justices have attempted to reinterpret parts of the Constitution and invent rights that do not exist, none of them have gone as far as Jackson did on Monday. The radical far-left justice — who was confirmed to the high court with the help of RINO Sens. Susan Collins (R-ME), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Mitt Romney (R-UT) — expressed her concern that the First Amendment is “hamstringing the government” in its efforts to silence social media posts “in the most important time-periods.”

According to a report from the Washington Examiner, Jackson made the shocking remarks during oral arguments before the Supreme Court about the Murthy v. Missouri case — one of the most important cases in recent history, as it centers around the federal government’s efforts to coerce social media platforms to censor conservatives and discussions about COVID-19.

The Supreme Court agreed to hear the case following a ruling from a U.S. District Court judge, who confirmed that the White House had violated the First Amendment by “coercing” or “significantly encouraging” social media platforms to censor speech.

Responding to an argument from Louisiana Solicitor General Benjamin Aguiñaga, Jackson declared that her “biggest concern is that your view has the First Amendment hamstringing the government in significant ways in the most important time periods.”

“You seem to be suggesting that that duty cannot manifest itself in the government encouraging or even pressuring platforms to take down harmful information,” she continued. “So, can you help me? Because I’m really worried about that because you’ve got the First Amendment operating in an environment of threatening circumstances, from the government’s perspective, and you’re saying that the government can’t interact with the source of those problems.”

Aguiñaga responded by pointing out that the only circumstances in which the government could intervene would be if the speech was not covered by the First Amendment, likely referring to instances of calls to violence.

However, Jackson disagreed with this — declaring that the government should have the right to violate the Constitution and censor so-called “misinformation” because of a “once-in-a-lifetime pandemic” or other national emergencies. She even claimed that the First Amendment, which was very clearly written, was not absolute — arguing that there were cases when the government had “a compelling interest” to restrict Americans’ right to free speech.

“I’m interested in your view that the context doesn’t change the First Amendment principles,” the radical leftist justice said. “I understood our First Amendment jurisprudence to require heightened scrutiny of government restrictions of speech, but not necessarily a total prohibition when you’re talking about a compelling interest of the government to ensure, for example, that the public has accurate information in the context of a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic.”

Daily Wire host Matt Walsh responded to the clip of Jackson’s comments by pointing out that restricting the government “is the entire point of the First Amendment.”

Popular X account End Wokeness noted that Jackson’s comments are “the most horrifying thing I’ve ever heard from a Supreme Court Justice.”

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) slammed Jackson during an interview with Fox News.

“She said you’ve got the First Amendment ‘hamstringing the government.’ Well, that’s what it’s supposed to do, for goodness sake,” Jordan said. “It was literally one of the craziest things I’ve ever seen that you could have a justice on the United States Supreme Court say that in the oral argument. It made no sense to me. That is frightening, because if she really believes that, that is scary where we are heading. Understand what took place here — this was censorship by surrogate. This was big government telling Big Tech to take down speech they disagreed with, and it was the most fundamental kind of speech. It was political speech.”

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