DOJ and FBI subpoenaed for social media censorship records
Ashley Oliver
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House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) subpoenaed the Department of Justice and FBI for documents on Thursday related to allegations they worked with social media companies to censor First Amendment-protected content, including the Hunter Biden laptop story in 2020.
Jordan told Attorney General Merrick Garland and FBI Director Christopher Wray in letters accompanying the subpoenas, which were obtained by the Washington Examiner, that the documents would help his committee’s investigation into “how and the extent to which the Executive Branch has coerced and colluded with companies and other intermediaries to censor speech.”
HUNTER BIDEN INVESTIGATION: COMER REQUESTS UNREDACTED EMAILS AND DOCUMENTS FROM NATONAL ARCHIVES
The chairman asked that both the DOJ and FBI provide him with all internal documents and communications involving the moderation, suppression, or removal of content on private companies’ platforms. He gave them a deadline of Sept. 15 to deliver the material.
He referenced letters he sent to Garland and Wray in April that contained wide-ranging requests for records related to censorship practices. Jordan cited at the time findings in the “Twitter files” that revealed that the FBI had engaged with X, formerly known as Twitter, about the New York Post’s story implicating Joe Biden in his son Hunter Biden’s business dealings ahead of the 2020 election.
Jordan noted in his correspondence Thursday that the DOJ and FBI had thus far produced to his committee “only a single document,” which he described as “woefully inadequate.”
The document “omits voluminous responsive material, including communications between DOJ and tech companies, internal communications, and communications between DOJ and other executive branch entities,” he wrote.
He noted that in the lawsuit Missouri v. Biden, U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty issued a sweeping preliminary injunction that ordered the Biden administration to cease certain censorship-related communications with social media companies while the lawsuit continues to play out.
The ruling detailed numerous interactions involving the FBI and social media companies, and the DOJ and FBI are named as two of several defendants in the case.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
“A federal judge has found that the communications of various executive branch entities with social media platforms, including the Department of Justice, very likely violated Americans’ First Amendment rights,” Jordan wrote. “Yet you have produced nothing of substance in response to the Committee’s request.”
The Washington Examiner reached out to the DOJ for comment.
Read copies of the letters below:
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