The Department of Justice announced on May 13, 2026, that it had settled *Berenson v. Biden*, a lawsuit brought by journalist Alex Berenson alleging that officials in the Biden administration coerced Twitter to remove or restrict his account in violation of the First Amendment [1]. The DOJ framed the settlement as consistent with its stated priority of protecting constitutionally protected speech [1]. Financial terms were not disclosed in the announcement.
Berenson, a former New York Times reporter who wrote critically about COVID-19 pandemic policy, filed suit after Twitter suspended his account in August 2021 [1]. His legal theory centered on the government-coercion doctrine, which holds that state action violates the First Amendment when government officials apply sufficient pressure on a private platform to compel it to restrict speech the government itself could not lawfully prohibit. The case proceeded in federal court and intersected with broader litigation, including *Murthy v. Missouri*, in which the Supreme Court addressed related questions about the government's communications with social media companies regarding content moderation. In *Murthy*, decided in June 2024, the Court declined to reach the merits on standing grounds, leaving the underlying constitutional framework largely unsettled.
The DOJ's decision to settle rather than litigate reflects the current administration's posture toward free-speech claims arising from the prior administration's conduct [1]. By settling, the government avoids a merits ruling that could define or constrain how future administrations communicate with platforms, while simultaneously signaling institutional disapproval of the conduct at issue. No consent decree or injunctive relief was described in the public announcement, and the settlement does not appear to bind any social media company directly.
The case's resolution leaves several legal questions open. Courts have not produced a durable standard for when government contact with a private platform rises to unconstitutional coercion, and the settlement forecloses this case as a vehicle for that clarification. Litigants in analogous pending cases, including challenges arising from documented communications between federal agencies and platform trust-and-safety teams, will not be able to rely on *Berenson* for precedential guidance. The DOJ announcement nonetheless signals that the current administration regards such pressure campaigns as constitutionally suspect, a posture that could inform prosecutorial and litigation decisions in related matters going forward [1].