After months of stonewalling Congress, the Justice Department will be compelled to give up the goods on how it has colluded with and pressured Big Tech platforms to silence certain viewpoints online. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) has been investigating this matter but has not had much luck getting federal agencies to cooperate. As a result, he is now forcing the matter.
The committee has issued subpoenas to the Justice Department and FBI to obtain documents related to their communication and relationships with Big Tech platforms:
Fox News Digital exclusively obtained and reviewed the subpoenas Thursday, which compel the DOJ and FBI to turn over responsive documents and communications to the House Judiciary Committee by Sept. 18 at 9:00 a.m.
“The Committee on the Judiciary is conducting oversight of how and the extent to which the Executive Branch has coerced and colluded with companies and other intermediaries to censor speech,” House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan wrote in letters to both Attorney General Merrick Garland and FBI Director Christopher Wray Thursday.
Jordan, R-Ohio, and committee Republicans have asked for communications between the Justice Department, private companies and other third-party groups in addition to other information for months, requesting the agencies to voluntarily cooperate with its oversight probe back in April.
In the documents, Jordan noted that the “First Amendment prohibits government officials from imposing viewpoint-based censorship restrictions.”
The lawmaker insisted that it is “necessary for Congress to gauge the extent to which DOJ officials have coerced, pressured, worked with, or relied upon social media and other tech companies to censor speech.”
Jordan criticized the DOJ for its apparent lack of transparency. He noted that the agency has provided “only a single document”—a public transcript of a deposition featuring FBI Special Agent Elvis Chan in the case of Missouri v. Biden. This is the case in which the judge issued a temporary injunction limiting communication between federal agencies and social media companies.
This is the latest development in an ongoing saga that intensified when Elon Musk, owner of X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, began releasing the Twitter Files, which exposed rampant political censorship and disturbing collusion with government agencies. The releases removed any doubt that federal agencies were collaborating with the leadership of these companies specifically to suppress dissenting viewpoints on COVID-19, elections, and other matters.
Recently, Jordan has begun releasing the “Facebook Files,” on social media. These posts provide details uncovered by the committee’s investigation and further sheds light on how federal agencies were also pressuring Facebook to crack down on supposed “misinformation.”
Originally, the agencies pushing Big Tech platforms to censor conservative and libertarian content claimed the operation was intended to target disinformation efforts coming from foreign governments. But the Twitter and Facebook Files revealed that this claim is about as far from the truth as a vampire from a sunbathing competition.
The investigation remains ongoing, and both the DOJ and FBI will likely fight the subpoenas tooth and nail. Still, it can be expected that the committee’s investigation will continue to further expose how deep the government’s censorship rabbit hole runs.
