- The Biden admin abused its powers to coerce Facebook into censoring Americans’ according to bombshell new emails says Jim Jordan
- Republicans are suspending the markup on Zuckerberg’s contempt of Congress charge ‘for now’ since the documents were produced
By KELLY LACO, EXECUTIVE EDITOR OF POLITICS FOR DAILYMAIL.COM
PUBLISHED: 17:19 EDT, 27 July 2023 | UPDATED: 17:19 EDT, 27 July 2023
Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee Jim Jordan shared ‘smoking gun’ documents he says proves that Facebook took down content on social media at the direction of the Biden White House.
Jordan shared the string of documents ahead of a scheduled committee markup hearing during which Republicans were expected to take action to move forward a contempt of Congress charge against Meta, Facebook and Instagram’s parent company, CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
‘These documents, AND OTHERS that were just produced to the Committee, prove that the Biden Admin abused its powers to coerce Facebook into censoring Americans, preventing free and open discourse on issues of critical public importance,’ Jordan tweeted Thursday.
He said that Facebook only produced the documents after the committee announced its intention to hold Zuckerberg in contempt.
Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee Jim Jordan shared ‘smoking gun’ documents he says proves that Facebook took down content on social media at the direction of the Biden White House
The documents ‘PROVE that government pressure was directly responsible for censorship on Facebook,’ the chairman continued.
Jordan said that he would suspend the markup on Zuckerberg’s contempt charge based on Facebook’s ‘newfound commitment to fully cooperate’ with the Republican investigation.
But that only stands ‘for now.’
‘To be clear, contempt is still on the table and WILL be used if Facebook fails to cooperate in FULL,’ he threatened.
Jordan subpoenaed executives from Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, and Microsoft back in February soon after Republicans took control of the committee over any ‘collusion’ with the federal government to suppress free speech.
The subpoenas demanded internal communications between the company and the federal government over content moderation, deletion, or ‘suppression’ of content and related documents.
The thread of documents shared by the chairman began with an email from April 2021 to Zuckerberg and COO Sheryl Sandberg.
It stated: ‘We are facing continued pressure from external stakeholders, including the [Biden] White House’ to remove posts.
An additional April 2021 email from Facebook’s president for global affairs Nick Clegg to his team said that senior adviser to Biden Andy Slavitt was ‘outraged . . . that [Facebook] did not remove’ a particular post.’
The post had to do with the COVID-19 vaccines that the White House wanted labeled as ‘misinformation’ and removed off the social media platfrom.
Clegg responded to the White House saying that removing that content would ‘represent a significant incursion into traditional boundaries of free expression in the US.’
According to additional emails, Facebook sought to ‘repair’ its relationship with the Biden administration.
‘Given what is at stake here, it would also be a good idea if we could regroup and take stock of where we are in our relations with the [White House], and our internal methods too,’ Clegg wrote in another email.
Another key instance stuck out to Jordan – when the social media company demoted a video post by Tucker Carlson in response to White House demands.
‘Facebook was ready to tell the White House that it had demoted a video posted by Tucker Carlson by 50% in response to the White House’s demands, even though the post didn’t violate any policies,’ he wrote on Twitter Thursday.
The chairman said Biden’s surgeon general was also in on the censorship push, especially monitoring content put out by the ‘disinformation dozen’ that were allegedly spreading ‘misinformation’ about COVID.
Jordan wrote Zuckerberg last week to re-up his demands for the documents
Jordan wrote Zuckerberg last week to re-up his demands for the documents – this time mentioning Meta’s new platform Threads, which is a direct competitor to Elon Musk’s Twitter, which has brought back suspended accounts by conservatives and former President Donald Trump, and is now rebranding itself as ‘X.’
‘In light of Meta’s introduction of a new social media platform, ‘Threads,’ we write to inform you that it is the Committee’s view that the subpoena of February 15 covers material to date relating to Threads,’ Jordan wrote.
‘Since the Committee’s subpoena to Meta, we have obtained additional evidence that the federal government has coerced or colluded with technology, social media, and other companies to moderate content online. These examples reinforce the Committee’s serious concerns about whether the Executive Branch is engaging in censorship by proxy—using surrogates to censor, suppress, or discourage speech in a manner that the government is unable to do itself.’
Jordan claimed Twitter has faced ‘political persecution from the Biden Administration following Musk’s commitment to free speech,’ a charge the administration denies.
The move is largely symbolic, although a contempt of Congress citation can be referred to full house, where a vote can refer it to prosecutors, which could bring fines and jail time.