The Trump “Litmus Test”
How far will President Trump go when it comes to protecting the free speech right of all Americans, and holding to account those officials who have violated them?
On the evening of January 20, 2025, the newly sworn in President of the United States, Donald J. Trump, made his way into the Oval Office of the White House, where he took a seat at the desk recently vacated by his predecessor, Joe Biden. There, Trump proceeded to sign a series of executive orders designed to undo the policies of the Biden administration and set the United States on a new course designed to “Make America Great Again.”
Like millions of Americans, I watched as the president worked his way through the stack of documents, announcing each one before signing off. Of all the executive orders Trump signed off on that night, two resonated with me personally—those dealing with “Restoring Freedom of Speech and Ending Federal Censorship” and “Ending the Weaponization of the Federal Government.”
You see, for the past four years, under the leadership of former President Joe Biden, I have seen my freedom of speech infringed upon by a weaponized federal government. While a candidate for president, Trump had spoken out frequently in defense of free speech. Moreover, having himself been under the crosshairs of federal agents operating at the behest of a politicized judicial branch, Trump had firsthand experience of what it was like to have the government target you simply because it did not agree with your position on certain issues.
The texts of the two executive orders were, at first blush, encouraging. In his order restoring free speech and ending federal censorship, Trump declared, “The First Amendment to the United States Constitution, an amendment essential to the success of our Republic, enshrines the right of the American people to speak freely in the public square without Government interference. Over the last 4 years,” he noted,
the previous administration trampled free speech rights by censoring Americans’ speech on online platforms, often by exerting substantial coercive pressure on third parties, such as social media companies, to moderate, deplatform, or otherwise suppress speech that the Federal Government did not approve. Under the guise of combatting “misinformation,” “disinformation,” and “malinformation,” the Federal Government infringed on the constitutionally protected speech rights of American citizens across the United States in a manner that advanced the Government’s preferred narrative about significant matters of public debate. Government censorship of speech is intolerable in a free society.
Trump then declared that it was the “policy of the United States to secure the right of the American people to engage in constitutionally protected speech; ensure that no Federal Government officer, employee, or agent engages in or facilitates any conduct that would unconstitutionally abridge the free speech of any American citizen; ensure that no taxpayer resources are used to engage in or facilitate any conduct that would unconstitutionally abridge the free speech of any American citizen; and identify and take appropriate action to correct past misconduct by the Federal Government related to censorship of protected speech.
Trump further declared that “No Federal department, agency, entity, officer, employee, or agent may act or use any Federal resources in a manner contrary to…this order.”
To enforce this order, Trump authorized the Attorney General, in consultation with the heads of executive departments and agencies, to “investigate the activities of the Federal Government over the last 4 years that are inconsistent with the purposes and policies of this order and prepare a report to be submitted to the President, through the Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy, with recommendations for appropriate remedial actions to be taken based on the findings of the report.”
The next order signed, which addressed the weaponization of the Federal Government, started out in a powerful fashion. “The American people,” Trump declared, “have witnessed the previous administration engage in a systematic campaign against its perceived political opponents, weaponizing the legal force of numerous Federal law enforcement agencies and the Intelligence Community against those perceived political opponents in the form of investigations, prosecutions, civil enforcement actions, and other related actions. These actions,” Trump noted,
appear oriented more toward inflicting political pain than toward pursuing actual justice or legitimate governmental objectives. Many of these activities appear to be inconsistent with the Constitution and/or the laws of the United States, including those activities directed at parents protesting at school board meetings, Americans who spoke out against the previous administration’s actions, and other Americans who were simply exercising constitutionally protected rights.
The prior administration and allies throughout the country engaged in an unprecedented, third-world weaponization of prosecutorial power to upend the democratic process. It targeted individuals who voiced opposition to the prior administration’s policies with numerous Federal investigations and politically motivated funding revocations, which cost Americans access to needed services.
Through this order, Trump sought to create “a process to ensure accountability for the previous administration’s weaponization of the Federal Government against the American people.”
According to the president, it is “the policy of the United States to identify and take appropriate action to correct past misconduct by the Federal Government related to the weaponization of law enforcement and the weaponization of the Intelligence Community.”
As such, the president ordered the Attorney General, in consultation with the heads of all departments and agencies of the United States, to “take appropriate action to review the activities of all departments and agencies exercising civil or criminal enforcement authority of the United States, including, but not limited to, the Department of Justice, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and the Federal Trade Commission, over the last 4 years and identify any instances where a department’s or agency’s conduct appears to have been contrary to the purposes and policies of this order, and prepare a report to be submitted to the President, through the Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy and the Counsel to the President, with recommendations for appropriate remedial actions to be taken to fulfill the purposes and policies of this order.”
Likewise, the Director of National Intelligence, in consultation with the heads of the appropriate departments and agencies within the Intelligence Community, was ordered to “take all appropriate action to review the activities of the Intelligence Community over the last 4 years and identify any instances where the Intelligence Community’s conduct appears to have been contrary to the purposes and policies of this order, and prepare a report to be submitted to the President, through the Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy and the National Security Advisor, with recommendations for appropriate remedial actions to be taken to fulfill the purposes and policies of this order.”
The question that emerges from the signing of these two orders is whether Trump will follow up on the content of these documents.
In my case, I would like answers to the following questions:
To what extent, if any, did the Biden administration put pressure on social media platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter/X, YouTube and others, to suppress my free speech rights?
Did the Biden administration communicate with any social media companies “to moderate, deplatform, or otherwise suppress speech that the Federal Government did not approve” which I was engaged in?
I am particularly interested in interaction between the Biden administration and Twitter/X regarding my stance on the Bucha massacre. Which resulted in my suspension from that platform not once, but twice.
I am also interested in any communication between the Biden administration and YouTube regarding the airing of a two-part documentary, “Agent Zelensky,” which was very critical of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. After being well- received, both in terms of critical acclaim and number of views, YouTube deplatformed the documentary, demonetized my account, and eventually banned me from the platform altogether.
I would likewise like to know if President Trump believed that the coordination between the US State Department, the US Embassy in Ukraine, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Department of Justice, together with the US intelligence community, using permanent staff or contracted proxies, and the Ukrainian government which resulted in the creation and maintenance of several lists—including one which, with the support of the US State Department, labeled US citizens as “information terrorists” requiring summary justice (i.e., death), and another which did not shield its role as a de facto “hit list,” violates the new orders in so far as federal resources were involved in facilitating work designed to punish US citizens with the ultimate sanction—death—for the “crime” of exercising their right of free speech.
I’m particularly interested in the opinion of the president when it comes to Tulsi Gabbard, his pick for Director of National Intelligence, and Tucker Carlson, his close ally, since they both have had their names placed on these lists.
I would also like the Attorney General to review the enforcement practices of the Biden administration regarding the Foreign Agent Registration Act, and particularly how this law has been weaponized by the Biden administration to punish and prosecute American citizens for speech protected by the First Amendment, especially when performed in the context of journalism.
My house was raided by the FBI using FARA as a pretext; in conversations with the senior FBI agents present, the justification for this raid stemmed from an article I published on my Substack which addressed the issue of Russophobia in America, and which incorporated material I had received from the Russian Ambassador tot the United States at the time, Anatoly Antonov, whom I interviewed for this article.
The president, through these orders, has directed that “no Federal department, agency, entity, officer, employee, or agent may act or use any Federal resources in a manner contrary” to these orders.
It is my experience that numerous federal departments and agencies, together with federal officers and employees, routinely violated my free speech rights and weaponized law enforcement and intelligence agencies against me to punish me for the crime of speaking out in a manner which contradicted the official politically acceptable narrative.
Will they be held to account by the Trump administration in accordance with the mandate set forth in these two new executive orders?
I’ll take this moment to remind President Trump that one of the “crimes” I was accused of committing by the Ukrainian government which put me on their State Department-funded death lists, was to claim that the Russian-Ukrainian conflict was a direct result of NATO expansion.
Which is, of course, the same assessment put forward by President Trump.
If you were an average American citizen, Mr. President, your name would be on that list.
Now is your chance to stand up in defense of the average American citizen and shut these lists down while terminating all connectivity between the US and Ukrainian governments which target US citizens for speaking out against Ukrainian propaganda talking points.
“The First Amendment to the United States Constitution,” you wrote, “an amendment essential to the success of our Republic, enshrines the right of the American people to speak freely in the public square without Government interference.”
You promised to defend this right.
Prove it with action, not just words.
Bravo Scott. You have shown your integrity, humanity and courage on so many occasions — your principled and immediate unmasking of Bucha massacre by Ukrainian Nazi military is one of memorable among them.
With respect and gratitude your admirer.
If you expect anything for the good of the country and the people to come from this embodiment of anti-life, anti-intellectual, racist, sexist tiny minded wealthy yokel, you are deluded. What he does will never be motivated by a desire for justice and benevolence but always by a narrow, bigoted, bullying, world-uncomprehending product of prejudice and privilege.