Republican Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, chair of the House Judiciary Committee, is pressing the Biden administration to provide documents related to alleged coordination with social media companies to censor opposing viewpoints.
Jordan wrote a letter Thursday to White House Chief of Staff Jeff Zients, requesting all documents and communications from the Executive Office of the President (EOP) showing the extent to which the administration allegedly worked with social media companies to censor speech.
#NEWS: @Jim_Jordan Presses White House Chief of Staff on Social Media Censorship pic.twitter.com/H89YwhD7nj
— House Judiciary GOP 🇺🇸 (@JudiciaryGOP) June 15, 2023
“The Committee’s oversight stems, in part, from the White House’s extraordinary, often successful efforts to suppress core, First Amendment speech. In the words of a senior White House staffer, these efforts originated at ‘the highest (and I mean the highest) levels of the WH,'” the letter reads. (RELATED: ‘Strong Concerns’: House Judiciary Demands FBI Docs On Trump Raid After Testimony From Former Bureau Official)
Jordan was citing an April 2021 email sent by EOP official Rob Flaherty to YouTube about the platform’s COVID vaccine content. Flaherty accused YouTube of “intensifying people’s [vaccine] hesitancy” and asked to learn more about “what is going on under the hood here.”
He also mentions emails sent by Flaherty to social media platforms about removing content that promoted skepticism of COVID-19 vaccines. “Likewise, Mr. Flaherty made numerous written demands, which have since been publicized through discovery in a federal court case, to Facebook and Google, ordering companies to remove content he believed stoked vaccine hesitancy,” the letter reads.
Flaherty’s emails were revealed as part of a lawsuit filed against the Biden administration by Missouri and Louisiana for alleged COVID- related censorship. (RELATED: White House Pressed Facebook To Censor Tucker Carlson, Document Reveals)
The letter includes President Biden’s criticism of Facebook for “killing people” and former White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki’s public remarks about how the administration was working with platforms to monitor content.
“We’re flagging problematic posts for Facebook that spread disinformation,” Psaki said at a July 2021 press briefing.
“In short, there is already extensive evidence that the White House played a unique role in urging and directing social media companies to impose viewpoint-based censorship. Based on this evidence, and in light of the EOP’s unique position within the executive branch, the Committee has good reason to believe that additional material exists in the EOP’s custody and control that would help the Committee to understand the nature and extent of its involvement in this censorship scheme,” the letter asserts.
The House Judiciary is giving the EOP until June 29 to comply with its request voluntarily. “Please be advised that the Committee may be forced to resort to compulsory process if these requests remain outstanding,” the letter warns.
The committee previously wrote letters to the EOP in April and May with similar demands.