Chair of the House Judiciary Committee Rep. Jim Jordan asked the Department of Justice for copies of documents produced in the lawsuit filed by Missouri and Louisiana, alleging the federal government pressured social media companies to censor certain viewpoints.
We obtained a copy of the letter for you here.
In the lawsuit, plaintiffs obtained documents that revealed communications between government officials and social media companies’ employees, Jordan noted in a letter to the DOJ. He added that the documents showed that the government “repeatedly pressured” online platforms to censor certain viewpoints.
“The Committee on the Judiciary is conducting oversight of the Executive Branch’s efforts to sidestep the First Amendment by coercing and coordinating with private companies, including social media platforms, to suppress free speech and censor content online,” Jordan wrote.
“As part of our oversight, we write to request a discrete set of documents and information that the Department of Justice has produced as part of discovery in federal litigation over the same subject matter.”
The DOJ has two weeks to respond to the letter.
The letter was sent the same day the House Oversight Committee questioned three former Twitter executives about the platform’s decision to suppress the Hunter Biden laptop story. The employees said censoring the story was a mistake but denied allegations that government officials pressured them to do so.
