Originally published on www.sayerji.substack.com
A certified State Department record names CCDH a 'key collaborator' in COVID-era censorship - and what happens next in a Florida courtroom will determine whether it can happen again
Read, share, and comment on the X post dedicated to this story.
If the government can work with a foreign organization to put your name on a list, pressure Silicon Valley to erase you from the internet, and then tell a court that nobody coordinated anything -- and get away with it -- then every American's right to speak freely is a permission slip that can be revoked the moment your views become inconvenient. On February 6, 2026, a certified State Department filing proved that is exactly what happened to us. And unless this case succeeds, there is nothing stopping it from happening to you.
[Disclosure: The author is a named plaintiff in Finn v. Global Engagement Center (M.D. Fla., Case No. 3:25-cv-00543), a federal civil rights case in which CCDH and Imran Ahmed are defendants. This analysis draws on public court filings from both Finn and Ahmed v. Rubio (S.D.N.Y., Case No. 1:25-cv-10705)]
Twenty-one days after telling one federal court it merely "published reports," CCDH now faces a certified finding from the Secretary of State that its CEO was a "key collaborator" in a government censorship campaign.
For five years, my co-plaintiffs and I have maintained that the Center for Countering Digital Hate did not simply publish a report about us and walk away. We have maintained that CCDH actively collaborated with government officials and pressured technology platforms to censor, deplatform, and demonetize us. We have maintained that the so-called "Disinformation Dozen" campaign was not organic public discourse but a coordinated operation involving a foreign-led advocacy organization, the White House, and the most powerful technology companies in the world.
On February 6, 2026, the United States Department of State confirmed it. In a certified administrative record filed in the Southern District of New York, the executive branch formally characterized CCDH's CEO Imran Ahmed as "a key collaborator with the Biden administration on weaponizing the national security bureaucracy to censor U.S. citizens and pressure U.S. companies into censoring."
That is not our allegation. That is the government's own finding--entered into the federal record, certified under penalty of perjury, and signed personally by the Secretary of State.
"Kill Musk's Twitter": CCDH's Own Words
Before examining what the State Department found, it is worth understanding what CCDH's own internal documents reveal about the organization's objectives. Because the administrative record does not exist in a vacuum. It is built on evidence that includes CCDH's own leaked strategic priorities.
The State Department's certified record references leaked internal CCDH documents listing two organizational priorities: "kill Musk's Twitter" and "trigger EU and UK regulatory action."
These are not the words of a neutral media watchdog. "Kill Musk's Twitter" is a stated organizational objective to destroy an American platform. "Trigger EU and UK regulatory action" is a stated organizational objective to weaponize foreign government power against American companies. These were not incidental aspirations or internal brainstorming. They were strategic priorities--and the record shows CCDH pursued both of them.
CCDH advocated for both the UK Online Safety Act and the EU Digital Services Act. Ahmed signed HateAid's petition calling on the European Commission to take enforcement action under the DSA. And the EU did exactly what CCDH called for: on December 5, 2025, the Commission levied a €120 million fine against X Corp under the DSA--the first enforcement action under that law. "Trigger EU regulatory action" was not an idle wish. It was an objective that CCDH pursued and helped achieve.
Domestically, the record states that Ahmed "successfully led efforts to lobby Google to remove ads from the Federalist and ZeroHedge." The word "successfully" is not casual. It means the government assessed that CCDH's lobbying efforts achieved their intended result--the demonetization of named American media outlets. CCDH did not merely express an opinion about those outlets. It conducted a lobbying campaign and succeeded.
This is the organization whose lawyers told a federal court in Florida, three weeks before this record was filed, that CCDH's involvement in the events at issue amounted to nothing more than "the publication of reports."
View the original report by Matt Taibbi and Paul Thacker on the CCDH Memo:
The Government Confirms the Coordination
The administrative record in Ahmed v. Rubio (S.D.N.Y., Case No. 1:25-cv-10705) was filed as Document 42 on the SDNY docket. It was certified by Ryan P. O'Donnell of the Department of State's Office of the Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and consists of four substantive documents: an Action Memo from Under Secretary Sarah Rogers to Secretary Rubio, a detailed summary of recommended deportability targets, a signed memorandum from Secretary Rubio to the Secretary of Homeland Security making the formal deportability determination, and statutory excerpts.
The determination was made under INA § 237(a)(4)(C), the statute's "foreign policy" deportability ground. This provision allows the Secretary of State to determine that an alien is deportable if the Secretary has reasonable grounds to believe the alien's presence or activities would have "potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States." Critically, when the basis for the determination involves the alien's otherwise lawful beliefs, statements, or associations, the statute imposes a heightened requirement: the Secretary must personally determine that the alien's presence would compromise a compelling U.S. foreign policy interest.
Secretary Rubio made that personal determination on December 19, 2025. He reviewed the evidence. He applied the heightened standard. And he concluded that Ahmed's activities--as CEO of CCDH--compromised a compelling U.S. foreign policy interest. This was not a political appointee issuing a press statement. It was the Secretary of State exercising a specific statutory authority that required personal evaluation of the factual record, under a standard that demands more than ordinary suspicion.
The Specific Conduct the Government Identified
The administrative record is specific about what Ahmed and CCDH did. The State Department determined that Ahmed:
Led a lobbying campaign that demonetized American media. The record states he "successfully led efforts to lobby Google to remove ads from the Federalist and ZeroHedge." This is not publishing a report. It is conducting a targeted economic campaign against named American outlets and succeeding.
Produced and weaponized the "Disinformation Dozen" report. The record describes CCDH's report as "infamous" and notes it "specifically called for deplatforming" named Americans, "including HHS Secretary Kennedy." Following the report, "twelve Democrat attorneys general sent letters to X and Facebook citing the report" and "White House officials in the previous administration pressured platforms to take action against CCDH's 'disinfo dozen.'"
Collaborated with the Biden administration on censorship. The record describes Ahmed as "a key collaborator with the Biden administration on weaponizing the national security bureaucracy to censor U.S. citizens and pressure U.S. companies into censoring." The word "collaborator" presupposes communication, coordination, and shared purpose.
Pressured platforms to restrict American speech and revenue. The record states CCDH was "involved in efforts to pressure U.S. companies to restrict speech of Americans and demonetize disfavored American media sources."
Pursued foreign regulatory action targeting American companies. The record states that CCDH "advocates for foreign regulatory action that extraterritorially impacts American citizens and companies," specifically the UK Online Safety Act and EU Digital Services Act.
Each of these findings maps directly onto a claim in our complaint in Finn v. Global Engagement Center. The State Department did not set out to validate our lawsuit. But in building its case for Ahmed's deportation, it documented the very conduct we allege caused our injuries.
Successor Liability and What Rubio's Signature Means for Finn
In Finn v. Global Engagement Center, we are suing government officials--including successors to the Biden-era actors who orchestrated the censorship campaign against us. The legal theory of successor liability holds that when government officials are sued in their official capacities, their successors inherit both the obligations and the accountability that attach to the office.
Secretary Rubio is the successor to former Secretary Blinken. Under Secretary Rogers holds the office once occupied by officials who oversaw the Global Engagement Center. When Rubio personally signed the December 19, 2025 memorandum determining that Ahmed was a "key collaborator" in a government censorship campaign, he was not merely making an immigration determination. He was creating a formal executive branch record that documents what the prior administration did with CCDH--from the perspective of the very office that now bears responsibility for addressing those actions.
This is exactly the kind of evidence our case requires. The central challenge in any government-coordination lawsuit is establishing that the government actually did what the plaintiffs say it did. Defendants typically argue that coordination is speculative, that evidence of it is lacking, and that the plaintiffs' theory is conspiratorial. Here, the current occupant of the Secretary of State's office has reviewed the record and reached the same conclusion we reached: the coordination was real, it was led by CCDH in collaboration with the Biden White House, and it resulted in the censorship of American citizens.
The government is not a neutral bystander in this story. The government was a participant in the conduct that harmed us. And now the government's own successor officials have formally documented that participation in a sworn filing. For purposes of our litigation, this is not merely helpful. It is foundational.
CCDH's Defense Collapses Under the Weight of the Record
On January 16, 2026, CCDH and Ahmed filed their motion to dismiss in Finn. Their defense rested on three core arguments. Each one is now contradicted by the State Department's own certified record, filed just twenty-one days later.
CCDH Told the Court There Was No Communication. The State Department Says There Was Collaboration.
CCDH's lawyers argued that our complaint fails because we "do not allege that CCDH or Mr. Ahmed even communicated with the White House, the Surgeon General, or Meta, or any party mentioned" in our indicators of coordination. They described a scenario in which "various government officials and companies read and heard things CCDH and Mr. Ahmed wrote and said and then acted unilaterally."
The State Department does not describe unilateral action. It describes collaboration. The word "collaborator" does not mean someone whose published writings happen to be read by others. It means someone who works together with others toward a shared objective. The Secretary of State, applying a heightened statutory standard that required personal evaluation of the evidence, determined that Ahmed was a "key collaborator" in an effort to censor American citizens. That finding is irreconcilable with CCDH's claim that it never communicated with anyone about the censorship campaign.
CCDH Told the Court It Merely Published Reports. The State Department Says It Lobbied, Pressured, and Succeeded.
.jpg)
CCDH's motion characterized its involvement as "the publication of reports" and argued that "that without more is neither an actionable tort or wrong."
But these were not neutral research papers. The reports in question accused named Americans -- including me -- of "profiting from causing death." Ahmed made this accusation publicly and repeatedly, branding the people CCDH targeted as lethal actors who deliberately crafted misinformation for profit. As I documented in a previous analysis, The Defamation Didn't Stop. It Escalated -- and Moved to a New Courtroom, Ahmed has never retracted, corrected, or substantiated this accusation -- not when litigation began, not in CCDH's motion to dismiss, and not in his own federal complaint in New York. He has instead reaffirmed the same narrative in court filings, treating it as settled fact while simultaneously arguing it should be immune from judicial scrutiny.
.jpg)
And the State Department describes far more than publishing of any kind. It describes an organization that "successfully led efforts to lobby Google to remove ads" from American outlets. It describes an organization "involved in efforts to pressure U.S. companies to restrict speech of Americans and demonetize disfavored American media sources." CCDH's own leaked internal documents confirm the picture: this was an organization whose stated priorities included destroying an American platform and triggering foreign regulatory enforcement. The gap between "publication of reports" and what the record actually describes is not a matter of characterization. It is a matter of candor.
CCDH Told the Court Its Reports Had No Impact. The State Department Found the Impact Threatened National Interests.
CCDH's motion argued that our injuries resulted from "independent, unilateral conduct by third parties with no alleged proximate connection to anything CCDH or Mr. Ahmed wrote or said." They cited Meta's Monika Bickert publicly rejecting CCDH's methodology as evidence that platforms "formed their own judgments."
If CCDH's advocacy were truly inconsequential--if platforms and governments ignored its campaigns and acted independently--the Secretary of State would not have determined that Ahmed's activities constituted "potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States." The INA 4C standard is not a low bar. It requires reasonable grounds to believe the consequences are both "potentially serious" and "adverse." And when the basis involves otherwise lawful speech, the standard is even higher: the Secretary must personally determine that the conduct compromises a "compelling" foreign policy interest. Rubio made that determination. He could not have done so if CCDH's campaigns had the negligible impact its lawyers now claim.
The X Corp Memo: Proof That CCDH's Campaigns Achieved Their Objectives
The administrative record reveals something else of enormous significance. The deportability recommendation did not arrive in its own standalone memo. It was embedded inside a State Department action memo titled "Response Options to the European Commission's Fine of X Corp. Under the Digital Services Act."
On December 5, 2025, the EU Commission announced a €120 million fine against X Corp--the first enforcement action under the DSA. Eleven days later, the State Department prepared response options. And in that same memo, alongside options for responding to a sovereign regulatory action against a major American technology company, Under Secretary Rogers recommended that Ahmed be determined deportable.
Why were these two issues in the same memo? Because the State Department recognized that they were connected. CCDH's leaked 'black ops' priorities included "trigger EU and UK regulatory action." CCDH advocated for the DSA. Ahmed personally signed a petition calling on the European Commission to enforce the DSA. And then the EU used the DSA to fine X Corp €120 million. The action memo's structure reflects the government's assessment that CCDH's advocacy was part of the chain of events that led to the regulatory action against X.
It is worth pausing on the targets of CCDH's "black ops" campaign. The State Department's own record notes that the Disinformation Dozen report "specifically called for deplatforming Secretary Robert F. Kennedy" -- a man who now serves as Secretary of Health and Human Services. CCDH did not merely disagree with Kennedy's positions on vaccine safety. It ran what its own internal documents described as "black ops" against him, sought his removal from every major platform, and pressured the government and technology companies to silence him during the precise period when he was building the political movement that would carry him into a cabinet position.
The implications extend beyond content moderation into something far more serious. When a foreign-led organization coordinates with government officials to deplatform, demonetize, and silence American political voices -- including a future cabinet secretary and the activists in his orbit -- during a period of active political organizing, the effect is not merely censorship. It is interference with the ability of Americans to hear from, support, and organize around political figures and movements. Every platform ban, every demonetized account, every suppressed post reduced the reach of voices that were building toward political outcomes the censorship apparatus opposed. That several of those voices ultimately prevailed -- Kennedy is now HHS Secretary, and the administration that empowered CCDH was replaced by one that views CCDH as a threat to American interests -- does not erase the interference. It confirms how high the stakes were.
This matters for our case because it demonstrates that CCDH's campaigns were not impotent. They achieved results. The organization set out to trigger EU regulatory action, and EU regulatory action occurred. The organization set out to pressure platforms to censor Americans, and Americans were censored. The organization lobbied to demonetize American media outlets, and those outlets were demonetized. The organization ran "black ops" against a man who is now a cabinet secretary. The State Department understood CCDH as an effective actor whose campaigns produced real-world consequences. That assessment directly undermines CCDH's defense that its activities bore no proximate connection to our injuries.
And those consequences were not limited to lost revenue or suspended accounts. When powerful institutions label named individuals as people who "profit from causing death" -- and when that label is amplified by government officials, embedded in a Surgeon General's advisory, and operationalized by technology platforms -- the stigma radiates outward into every dimension of a person's life. As I described in a personal statement on due process, the real-world impact of these operations extended far beyond the digital sphere. The coordinated campaign to brand us as dangerous did not stay on social media. It followed us into our communities, our professional relationships, and our daily lives. That is what CCDH's lawyers dismiss as the consequence of mere "publication of reports."
Discovery Will Show the Full Picture
The administrative record is ten pages long. It is a summary. It references evidence--communications, leaked documents, lobbying records, coordination with government officials--that it does not reproduce. Portions are redacted. Attorney work product is withheld. The full evidentiary basis for the Secretary's determination is not visible in the produced record.
But we know it exists. The Secretary of State did not make a personal deportability determination in a vacuum. He reviewed materials that supported the finding that Ahmed was a "key collaborator" in a censorship campaign. Those materials necessarily include the communications, coordination records, and internal documents that underlie the government's assessment.
In Finn, CCDH's motion to dismiss argues that our complaint should be dismissed at the pleading stage because we have not alleged direct communications between CCDH and the relevant government actors. The administrative record now provides a formal federal basis for believing those communications occurred. If the Secretary of State determined that Ahmed collaborated with the prior administration, the evidence of that collaboration is discoverable. And it is exactly the evidence that would answer the questions CCDH's lawyers claim our complaint leaves open.
We have always known what happened to us. We have always known it was coordinated. Now the government has formally documented that coordination in a sworn filing. Discovery will fill in the details.
Why This Case Matters for Every American: The Unfinished Business of Murthy v. Missouri
Our lawsuit does not exist in isolation. It is part of a larger constitutional reckoning over whether the government can outsource censorship to private organizations and technology platforms while claiming that no one's rights were violated.
That reckoning reached the Supreme Court in Murthy v. Missouri (2024), originally filed as Missouri v. Biden. In that case, the states of Missouri and Louisiana, along with five individual plaintiffs -- Dr. Jay Bhattacharya and Dr. Martin Kulldorff, two epidemiologists who co-authored the Great Barrington Declaration questioning COVID-19 lockdowns; Jill Hines, who led the Reopen Louisiana movement; Dr. Aaron Kheriaty, a psychiatrist who opposed lockdowns and vaccine mandates; and Jim Hoft, owner of The Gateway Pundit -- sued dozens of Executive Branch officials and agencies, alleging that the government had pressured social media platforms to suppress protected speech in violation of the First Amendment.
The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that the plaintiffs lacked standing -- not because government-platform censorship coordination didn't happen, but because the plaintiffs could not establish, to the Court's satisfaction, that their specific injuries were traceable to specific government actions directed at them. As Justice Alito wrote in his forceful dissent, joined by Justices Thomas and Gorsuch: "Government censorship of private speech is antithetical to our democratic form of government." The dissent made clear that what the evidence showed was deeply troubling -- but the majority held that the procedural requirements of standing had not been met.
Finn v. Global Engagement Center is built to overcome exactly the standing barrier that Murthy identified. Where the Murthy plaintiffs struggled to trace specific platform actions to specific government directives, we have something the Murthy plaintiffs did not: the Disinformation Dozen report itself. Our names were on the list. The government cited the list. The platforms acted on the list. The chain from CCDH's report to government pressure to platform action to our injuries is direct and documented. And now the State Department's own certified record confirms that chain by formally identifying CCDH's CEO as a "key collaborator" in the censorship operation.
This is not a case about six people's personal grievances. It is a case about whether the censorship architecture that was built during COVID-19 -- the partnership between government officials, foreign advocacy organizations, and technology platforms -- will be held to constitutional account. If government officials can identify American citizens for silencing, enlist private organizations to create the justification, and then direct platforms to execute the suppression -- all while every participant claims they acted "independently" -- then the First Amendment means nothing. The right to speak is only as real as the ability to be heard.
The Supreme Court in Murthy did not say the censorship was acceptable. It said the particular plaintiffs could not prove the particular chain of causation that standing requires. Our case supplies exactly that chain. And the State Department's administrative record now corroborates it with the government's own words.
If we succeed, the precedent protects every American -- regardless of their political views -- from the kind of coordinated government-private censorship that was deployed against us. If we fail, the blueprint survives for the next administration, the next crisis, and the next group of Americans whose views become inconvenient to those in power.
The Record Is Clear
For five years, the six of us named in the Disinformation Dozen report lost platforms, revenue, professional standing, and the ability to participate in the public conversation about health policy -- a conversation in which, it is now widely acknowledged, many of the positions we held were closer to the truth than the official consensus we were silenced for questioning.
Throughout that period, the entities responsible for our censorship insisted that each of them acted independently. The government was just expressing its views. The platforms were just enforcing their policies. CCDH was just publishing research. No one coordinated with anyone. The censorship was an organic, multi-party coincidence.
That story is over. The Secretary of State has now formally determined that CCDH's CEO was a "key collaborator" in a government campaign to censor American citizens. CCDH's own internal documents reveal an organization whose stated objectives included destroying an American platform and triggering foreign regulatory enforcement against American companies. The administrative record describes not a watchdog but an operational actor that lobbied, pressured, collaborated, and succeeded in achieving outcomes that harmed American speakers and American companies.
In Finn v. Global Engagement Center, we are asking the court to allow us to conduct discovery into the coordination that caused our injuries. The State Department has now given us the strongest possible foundation for that request: the government's own sworn determination that the coordination was real.
CCDH's lawyers can argue whatever they want in their motions to dismiss. But they cannot argue away the Secretary of State's certified finding. They cannot argue away their client's own leaked strategic priorities. And they cannot argue away the fact that the executive branch -- the very institution they once collaborated with -- has now put the truth on the record.
What You Can Do Right Now
We did not choose this fight. We were targeted because we exercised our right to question public health policy, to advocate for informed consent, and to speak freely about matters that affect every family in America. What happened to us was designed to serve as a warning to everyone else: speak out, and this will happen to you too.
But something has changed. The truth is now in the federal record -- not because we put it there, but because the government itself confirmed what we've been saying. That record cannot be unsaid. It cannot be memory-holed. It exists, certified under penalty of perjury, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. And it directly supports our case in Florida.
We are six individuals and a volunteer legal team standing against some of the most powerful organizations on the planet -- against Google, against Meta, against a foreign advocacy organization that coordinated with the White House, against government agencies with unlimited legal resources. Many of us have suffered immense personal and financial hardship as a direct result of the campaign that targeted us. We have lost income, platforms, professional relationships, and years of our lives to a fight we did not start.
But we believe this suffering can be transformed into something that matters for everyone. If our case succeeds, it establishes that Americans cannot be silenced through the kind of government-private coordination that was used against us. It establishes that foreign organizations cannot run "black ops" against American citizens and hide behind the First Amendment. It establishes that technology platforms cannot serve as enforcement arms of a censorship apparatus and claim they acted independently. And it establishes that when the government collaborates with private actors to suppress speech, the people who were harmed have the right to hold them accountable.
That precedent protects not just us. It protects every American who may one day hold an opinion that powerful institutions find inconvenient. It protects the next doctor who questions an official recommendation. The next journalist who challenges a government narrative. The next parent who asks questions about what is being done to their child. Freedom of speech and informed consent are not partisan issues. They are the foundation of a free society.
First: share this article. The most powerful weapon against coordinated censorship is coordinated truth. Share this with everyone you know who cares about free speech, informed consent, and civil rights. Post it on every platform. Email it to your representatives. Send it to journalists. The administrative record is a public filing. The contradictions are documented. The facts speak for themselves. Help them reach every American who needs to hear them.
Second: support this case financially. Our legal team is doing this work on a volunteer basis. They are going up against corporate law firms billing hundreds of millions of dollars annually, against government attorneys with unlimited budgets, against an organization funded by entities whose identities have never been fully disclosed. Every dollar you contribute goes directly to sustaining a case that has the potential to set the defining First Amendment precedent of our generation. Please make a donation here. No amount is too small. What matters is that we stand together.
We have been told for five years that we were conspiracy theorists. That the coordination we described was imaginary. That we were paranoid, dangerous, and deserving of what happened to us. We are NOT.
The Secretary of State just proved us right.
Now it is time to finish what we started -- together.
Share the X post dedicated to this story and call to action:
Referenced Filings
Ahmed v. Rubio, et al., Case No. 1:25-cv-10705 (S.D.N.Y.), Document 42, Certified Administrative Record, filed Feb. 6, 2026.
Finn v. Global Engagement Center, et al., Case No. 3:25-cv-00543 (M.D. Fla.), Document 118, CCDH and Ahmed Motion to Dismiss, filed Jan. 16, 2026
Sayer Ji is the founder of GreenMedInfo.com, Chairman and Co-Founder of the Global Wellness Forum, Senior Advisor to MAHA Action, International Steering Committee Member of Make Europe Healthy Again, Co-Founder of Stand for Health Freedom, and author of REGENERATE: Unlocking Your Body's Radical Resilience Through the New Biology. He was identified as a member of the "Disinformation Dozen" in CCDH's March 2021 report and is a named plaintiff in Finn v. Global Engagement Center. You can follow him on all platforms here.
No hay comentarios:
Publicar un comentario