(Ken Silva, Headline USA) The House Judiciary Committee announced Wednesday that its chairman, Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, has subpoenaed Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan for documents related to the agency’s recent actions against Twitter.
#BREAKING: @Jim_Jordan Subpoenas FTC for Information on Actions Against Twitter pic.twitter.com/RbPyLBxqld
— Weaponization Committee (@Weaponization) April 12, 2023
Jordan’s subpoena stems from a March House Weaponization Subcommittee report, which accused the Federal Trade Commission of “harassing” Twitter by, among other things, demanding details of the company’s interactions with journalists.
The subcommittee, which was formed to investigate the weaponization of federal agencies, said in its report that the FTC targeted Twitter in retaliation for billionaire Elon Musk purchasing the platform.
The subcommittee noted that Musk completed his acquisition of Twitter on October 27, 2022. Just two weeks later, the FTC launched the first of over a dozen demand letters to the company. “Between just November 10 and January 18, the FTC issued over 350 requests—an average of roughly 35 requests per week,” the Weaponization Subcommittee said in its report.
The subcommittee spotlighted a particularly troubling request from the FTC, which demanded details of Twitter’s interactions with journalists, including “Bari Weiss, Matt Taibbi, Michael Shellenberger, Abigail Shrier,” and the identities of all other journalists to whom Twitter had potentially provided access of its internal records. This came only days after the first published report on the Twitter Files, the trove of internal documents showing the company’s censorship decisions.
“The journalists’ reporting did not concern private user data or information that Twitter users wanted private. Quite the opposite, the reporting in the Twitter Files concerned content that users attempted to publicly share but that the government had pressured Twitter to restrict,” the subcommittee said in its report.
“While the FTC’s inquiry would be inappropriate in any setting, it is especially inappropriate in the context of journalists disclosing how social media companies helped the government to censor online speech.”
Republican legislators have apparently been seeking answers since the publication of the subcommittee’s report.
Jordan said Wednesday tht Khan has “failed to sufficiently comply” with requests for relevant documents and information about the matter.
“Accordingly, and in light of your disregard of our earlier requests for voluntary compliance, please find attached a subpoena for the requested documents and information,” Jordan said in his letter to Khan.
Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.
