August 29, 2024 – Two campaign staffers for Harris were involved in the Biden-Harris administration efforts to censor Americans

In Email/Dossier/Govt Corruption Investigations, Featured Timeline Entries by Katie Weddington

Aisha Shah and Rob Flaherty (Credit: public domain)

Two campaign staffers for Vice President Kamala Harris were previously involved in efforts to censor Americans for spreading purported “disinformation” about COVID-19 while working in the Biden-Harris White House.

Then-administration officials Rob Flaherty and Aisha Shah are named as having been involved in the government’s efforts to censor Americans in legal filings related to the Murthy v. Missouri lawsuit, which alleged that the federal government violated the First Amendment by pressuring social media companies to censor content related to the pandemic and other hot-button topics. On the Harris campaign team, Flaherty is now a deputy campaign manager and Shah is the director of digital partnerships, according to their respective LinkedIn profiles.

Flaherty served as the director of digital strategy and an assistant for President Joe Biden and Shah worked as the deputy director of partnerships, according to their profiles.

Flaherty participated in meetings with officials from Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, according to a July 2023 motion for a preliminary injunction filed in the Murthy v. Missouri case. He also corresponded with social media platforms via email to encourage them to take a more aggressive posture against COVID-19 “misinformation” and content that could make users more hesitant to take coronavirus vaccines.

“Since we’ve been on the phone — the top post about vaccines today is tucker (sic) Carlson saying they don’t work. Yesterday was Tomi Lehren (sic) saying she won’t take one,” reads one email Flaherty sent to Facebook officials in April 2021. “This is exactly why I want to know what ‘Reduction’ actually looks like — if ‘reduction’ means ‘pumping our most vaccine hesitant audience with tucker (sic) Carlson saying it doesn’t work’ then… I’m not sure it’s reduction!”

Additionally, Flaherty demanded that Twitter remove a parody account linked to Finnegan Biden, the president’s granddaughter, writing to the company that he “cannot stress the degree to which this needs to be resolved immediately,” according to the motion.

Flaherty subsequently testified to the House Judiciary Committee in May, defending his actions because the pandemic was still severe at the time, “misinformation” presented a public health challenge by increasing vaccine hesitancy and pointing out that social media companies ultimately determine what content is permitted on their platforms. (Read more: The Daily Caller, 8/29/2024)  (Archive)