Not even the federal government is exactly sure what is going on.
On Wednesday evening, the U.S. Supreme Court was expected to announce its decision on whether top Biden administration officials could continue reaching out to social media platforms like Facebook, X and YouTube to take down “misinformation.”
It’s a case that can affect potentially thousands of federal employees at the White House, FBI and other agencies, which is why the Department of Justice had gone to the Supreme Court for emergency relief this month.
Yet Thursday morning came and went with nary a word from the nation’s highest court. The court’s inaction is the result of curious developments in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit that have sidelined the justices and confused the parties to the case.
“Those (Fifth Circuit) orders have injected uncertainty into the proceedings during this Court’s active consideration of the case,” U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar wrote in a filing with the justices.