Project 2025 Tracker / What’s done, what’s next

14. Department of Health and Human Services · Minor

Investigate HHS collusion with Big Tech to censor COVID dissent

Partially done

488 14. Department of Health and Human Services

“Investigate, expose, and remediate any instances in which HHS violated people’s rights by: 1. Colluding with Big Tech to censor dissenting opinions during COVID. 2. Colluding with abortion advocates and LGBT advocates to violate conscience-protection laws and the Hyde Amendment.”

What has happened

  1. Partially done

    OCR's Rescission of Office for Civil Rights Documents Under Executive Order 14192 identifies and repudiates four specific instances in which HHS took positions against conscience protections - the July 2021 letter withdrawing the University of Vermont Medical Center notice of violation, three November 2021 letters withdrawing RFRA foster-care exemptions, the December 2021 equitable-vaccine-administration guidance, and the August 2021 letter withdrawing the California Weldon Amendment notice of violation. That is the exposure-and-remediation the Quote's second limb asks for on the conscience side. Nothing comparable exists for the Big Tech censorship limb, and no Hyde Amendment collusion finding has been published.

  2. Attempted

    Executive Order 14149 section 3(b) directs the Attorney General, in consultation with agency heads, to investigate federal government activities of the previous four years inconsistent with the order's anti-censorship policy and to report with recommendations for remedial action. It is government-wide rather than addressed to HHS, and no report has been published.

Research log

What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence

Research notes

  • The same 2026-01-26 notice is the Evidence for #1383 and #1384, whose Quotes name two of its four deregulation items individually. This item’s Quote is the general “investigate, expose, and remediate” ask, so it takes the notice as delivery of part of a broader ask; the overlap is deliberate.
  • Searched and not found: any HHS or DOJ report on COVID-era content moderation. The OLC opinions page on justice.gov shows only its newest 25 opinions and could not be searched or paged further, so the full OLC catalog could not be checked.
Action
other
Object
HHS collusion with Big Tech and advocacy groups
ID
1363