Journalist files lawsuit against White House, Pfizer over COVID-19 censorship
Alex Berenson says members of the White House and Pfizer executives colluded to silence his COVID vaccine skepticism.
Journalist Alex Berenson believes his First Amendment rights were violated when he was banned from Twitter for expressing concerns about the COVID vaccine, and a lawsuit against President Biden, White House officials and Pfizer honchos who allegedly pushed for his removal could expose their internal communications about the polarizing jab.
"People may remember that in 2021, the White House was very, very vocal publicly about, you know, quote unquote, disinformation. Anybody who raised questions about the vaccines, they were trying to get social media companies to take action broadly against them," Berenson told Fox News Digital.
"What I didn't know until last year [was] that they had specifically targeted me," he continued. "So, this lawsuit basically aims to hold these people accountable for what they did for violating my First Amendment rights."
The suit named Biden, White House advisers Andrew Slavitt and Robert Flaherty, Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy, Pfizer board member and ex-Trump FDA commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb and Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla as defendants.
Alex Berenson filed a lawsuit last week against President Biden, White House officials and Pfizer honchos accusing them of violating First Amendment rights by pushing for his removal from Twitter after he raised concerns about the jab. (Paul Hennessy/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
In 2021 at the height of the vaccine debate, Berenson was kicked off Twitter with the social media juggernaut chalking it up as punishment for "repeated violations of our COVID-19 misinformation rules."
"It doesn’t stop infection. Or transmission. Don’t think of it as a vaccine," Berenson told his Twitter followers in a message that got him removed from the platform. "Think of it - at best - as a therapeutic with a limited window of efficacy and terrible side effect profile that must be dosed IN ADVANCE OF ILLNESS. And we want to mandate it? Insanity."
Twitter restored his account in July 2022 after took legal action. The company settled and even admitted Berenson’s "tweets should not have led to suspension."
"As part of that settlement or during the lawsuit, I was able to get some information showing that a guy named Andy Slavitt and possibly other people in the White House had been participants in a meeting to try to get me off Twitter," Berenson said, noting that he found additional evidence during the discovery process.
"A guy named Scott Gottlieb, who was and is a board member at Pfizer, had also, you know, approached Twitter about banning me and Gottlieb and Slavitt know each other," he said.
Berenson is aware Twitter is a private company but feels it was pressured to act on behalf of the government to silence his vaccine messages that went against the mainstream narrative. He named Pfizer officials as defendants alongside government officials with an eye on the discovery process.
"I really do want to know what was happening with Pfizer and the federal government," he said. "What were they talking about, about the vaccine in the summer of 2021 as I was writing this stuff about how the vaccines were failing?"
Berenson believes his lawsuit night be the only opportunity for Americans to learn the truth about internal communications between vaccine makers and government officials. Did Pfizer executives express concern about the effectiveness of the jab? Did the White House look the other way? These questions can potentially be answered if Berenson’s suit reaches the discovery phase.
"I think that's really important," he said.
Because of this, Berenson assumes the White House and Pfizer will first try to get the suit dismissed.
"They don't want me to be able to do the same kind of discovery that I did with Twitter," he said. "I have to believe that they're not going to want that information to be public."
Journalist Alex Berenson has been publicly skeptical of the COVID vaccine. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)
Berenson is asking the court to "declare that the government Defendants’ viewpoint-based targeting of Mr. Berenson’s speech and journalism violated the First Amendment," "enjoin Defendants and other persons acting in coordination or concert with them from further violating Mr. Berenson’s First Amendment rights to free speech" and award him general, special and punitive damages, along with attorney’s fees and any other relief deemed necessary.
"The First Amendment prohibits governmental conspiracies like this. COVID-19 did not suspend the Constitution or the rights it enumerates for Americans," the 70-page suit stated.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Berenson, a former New York Times reporter, said he has raised almost $50,000 since he first announced the lawsuit.
"I appreciate your generosity more than you know. But - speaking of imagining - I cannot begin to imagine how much this lawsuit may cost. Pfizer and the government will have essentially unlimited defense budgets," he wrote on Substack, adding that he is accepting donations to his legal fund, and anything extra will be donated to a worthy cause.
Berenson doesn’t plan to ever match Pfizer and the government dollar for dollar, but he hopes to build enough of a war chest to combat pre-discovery motions to dismiss.
"This is about my rights, you know, as a journalist and as an American, not to be banned from Twitter because of government pressure. I think that's something we should all agree is kind of important," Berenson said.
Fox News’ Joseph A. Wulfsohn contributed to this report.