Republicans on two U.S. House committees are asking Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg to explain actions by his company that appear to have been an attempt to covertly influence the 2020 presidential election by suppressing damaging news stories about Democrat nominee Joe Biden – and to preserve documents ahead of a formal congressional investigation
House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Ranking Member James Comer (R-Ky.) and House Judiciary Committee on Ranking Member Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), along with Republican lawmakers on both committees, are asking Zuckerberg for more information on his admissions that his company worked with FBI leaders to suppress stories about potential criminal activity by Biden and family members, including emails showing shady overseas deals by son Hunter Biden which may have included an under-the-table cut for Joe Biden.
“During a recent podcast, Zuckerberg admitted Facebook reduced the circulation of the New York Post's explosive story about the contents of Hunter Biden's laptop following guidance from the FBI. The Republican lawmakers are seeking all documents and communications between Facebook, the FBI, and the Democratic National Committee about the Post's reporting on the Biden family,” the lawmakers write in a Sept. 1 letter to Zuckberg.
“Shortly before the 2020 presidential election, Facebook suppressed an explosive New York Post article detailing how Hunter Biden used the position and influence of his father, now President Biden, for personal gain, with the apparent awareness of President Biden,” the lawmakers' letter opens.
They continue, noting that while Facebook is generally recognized to have the right to censor posts as a private-sector company, it cannot do so at the direction or involvement of government officials, which Zuckerberg admits is the case.
“We wrote to Facebook at the time with important questions about Facebook's knowing suppression of First Amendment-protected activity. In March 2022, after other outlets finally acknowledged the veracity of the Biden family's influence-peddling scheme, we wrote again with additional questions about Facebook's actions to suppress critical election-related information,” they write.
“Facebook has never provided complete responses to these letters and, in the months since, has avoided any real accountability for its actions in interfering with election-related public discourse,” they add.
“We have seen in recent months how some in government have sought to use Big Tech to censor divergent viewpoints and silence opposing political speech. Government-driven and Big Tech-implemented censorship suppresses freedom of speech and free thought online in ways that harm public discourse. Facebook's suppression of the Post article—and allegations of Biden family corruption highly relevant to the 2020 presidential election—following guidance from the FBI is highly troubling,” the lawmakers continue.
“Recently, you described how Facebook's censorship of the allegations about the Biden family before the 2020 election followed a message from the Federal Bureau of Investigation that Facebook ‘should be on high alert' for ‘Russian propaganda.' You acknowledged that this official alert from the FBI is what led to Facebook reducing the circulation of the Post's reporting on its platform, preventing Americans from fully understanding highly relevant allegations about President Biden's awareness of and involvement in his family's influence-peddling scheme,” they note.
Accordingly, we write to request additional information about Facebook's actions to interfere in free and fair election-related public discourse,” they add.
The lawmakers then direct Zuckerberg to preserve all documents pending a congressional investigation, and ask him to produce:
…in addition to responses to all outstanding requests from our October 14, 2020, and March 31, 2022, letters—that you produce the following documents and information:
1. All documents and communications between October 1, 2020, and the present, between or among any employee or contractor of Facebook and any individual affiliated with the FBI referring or relating to the New York Post's reporting about the Biden family.
2. All documents and communications between October 1, 2020, and the present, between or among any employee or contractor of Facebook and any individual affiliated with the Biden for President campaign or the Democratic National Committee referring or relating to the New York Post's reporting about the Biden family.
3. All documents and communications between October 1, 2020, and the present, between or among any employee or contractor of Facebook and any individual affiliated with the FBI referring or relating to purported election misinformation in the 2020 presidential election.
4. All documents and communications between October 1, 2020, and the present, referring or relating to Facebook's plans to implement, or its actions based on, the FBI's message to be “on high alert” for election misinformation.
Please produce all documents and information requested above as soon as possible but no later than 5:00 p.m. on September 15, 2022.
President Donald Trump's personal attorney Michael Cohen was jailed for failing to report campaign spending efforts to influence campaign news coverage.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.
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This type of interference is election fraud. ZUCKERBERG interfered. FBI interfered. Foreign governments interfered. BIDEN IS NOT PRESIDENT nor are any DEMOCRATS WHO STOLE SEATS. THIS IS OUTRIGHT BLATANT TREASON. WHERE IS MILITARY?
Military?? They r busy getting taxpayer-paid transgender surgeries! The other, more conservative ones, doing what they r roboticallt trained to do: follow orders from above. Ya actually think the military was gonna overthrow this mess?????
Our problem is the ignorance of some of our people who are uninformed and also those brainwashed by the corrupt mainstream media. So, be pro-active in at least opening their eyes, of where we are heading with these radicals.
Your question is as good as mine and with many, mnay Americans. Are we now a Banana Republic under Democrat’s governance? Is this okay with everyone? Please people, protect our Republic from these radicals, vote them all out if you love our country.
It’s about time they get to the bottom of all the corruption of the Bidens. There was probably corruption in the home intrusion at President Trumps house also.
Get to bottom? Not even begun!!! And to what outcome? Damage waaaay past done. No real remedy at law (cannot make it up to Trump nor the country). And don’t think any dem heads gonna roll. Jim Jordan has ‘nads of steel & an encyclopedic brain, but democraps will find a way to weasel out. As for Joetato, I suspect not even some Rs wanna see the mush-headed, belligerent old man jailed, & dems will protect their own. He may die 1st. So, don’t expect too much.
The general population just want a closed border, a total SWAMP cleaning in our agencies, an oil independence and an affordable livelihood again.like what Trump left Biden, only for Biden to mess it allup.
They are probably trying to PLANT something that will incriminate Trump and finally get rid of him forever in politics. They are so afraid on what he eill do when he finally uncovers the corruption in DC if he is re-elected in 2024. They were there in JUne and everything was opened up for their inspection and they just told him to lock it up good and then 2 months later they came and raided his home? If it was an urgent security concern as they first claimed, why wait two months? Something very fishy here?
Why is any Republican under assault, almost for just taking a breath, but never a Democrat no matter how bad the deed was? Talk about favoritism, dishonesty, hiding the truth, etc. If everything was printed as it should be = equal time, about one party then shouldn’t the truth of the other party be brought out in the open as well? Things are quite lopsided these days. “Truth” for either side should be told – good or bad.
Because we are under a Democrat governance in the White House and in Congress and Senate, not to mention the higher ups in all our Government Agencies. So, no Democrats can be indicted even with all the evidences, but Republicans and Conservatives can be thrown in jail even without a crime as we are seeing it now, with just an unsubstantiated allegations and false indictments. Two impeachments based on hearsay and false allegations not to mention the Democrat’s concocted Russiagate, but Democrats won’t stop until they can get rid of Trump, for fear he will really clean out the Swamp and expose all their corruptions.it si up to us if we can give Trump a majority in both houses then he will run agin, knowing he can do much with that.and realy clean-up our government. Tothis we pray for Jesus’ intervention.
The Biden’s and his admin. are very EVIL, EVIL, EVIL people and needs to be delt with according to the Rules of Law…
Take down ALL Big Tech OK NO excuses
This is what you get when you spend $450 million to rig an election. You’ve cemented your legacy as a liar.
Yes, Zuckerberg gave the Democrats $450, MILLION to defeat Trump and he did not even go to jail for donating more than it is allowed to donate to any party? Yet they throw Dinesh D’Sousa to jail for just a few dollars over, when he donated to a friend?
Hang him out to dry.
No, at least he told the truth, All he has to do now is to cooperate with the requested documents and to never give out millions to Democrats ever again, no matter what the CCP tells him to do? The Chinese have control over any businessman who does business with them or else they are out of their country,leaving behind their “Intellectual propertyl.” To do business in China, Any foreign company must have at least THREE CCP MEMBERS IN THEIR BOARD. Later on, these three communist party members will control them and if they do not like it, they are made to leave, leaving behind the intellectual property of their business, so to stay, they acquiesce. I read that in Epoch Times report. I trusdt that unbiased news source.
Don’t anyone notice that our alphabet agencies are only acting against conservatives, Trump supporters and Christians even without a cause and yet don’t do anything to Democrats even when evidences are right nfront of thier faces? All the felons under Obama are still free enjoying their fat pensions, while Trump’s people are relentlessly investigated, raided and thrown in jail even without a crime? Are we still in USA?