by WorldTribune Staff / 247 Real News December 26, 2022
In a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray, top Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee demanded all documentation of communication between FBI employees and representatives of Twitter from Jan. 1, 2020 to present.
In the letter dated Dec. 23, Reps. Jim Jordan of Ohio and Mike Johnson of Louisiana pointed out that internal Twitter documents have revealed a coordinated effort between the FBI and Twitter to suppress and censor free speech.
The Judiciary Committee recently released a report, “FBI Whistleblowers: What Their Disclosures Indicate About the Politicization of the FBI And Justice Department,” detailing a rampant culture of unaccountability, manipulation, and abuse at the highest levels of the FBI.
“We are investigating politicization and abuses at the Federal Bureau of Investigation, as well as Big Tech’s censorship of conservatives online. Newly released information shows the FBI has coordinated extensively with Twitter to censor or otherwise affect content on Twitter’s platform,” the letter to Wray states. “These documents show that the FBI maintained this relationship with Twitter apart from any particularized need for a specific investigation, but as a permanent and ongoing surveillance operation. These revelations sadly reinforce our deep concerns about the FBI’s misconduct and its hostility to the First Amendment.”
Related: FBI paid Twitter millions in taxpayer dollars for ‘staff time’ before censoring of laptop story, December 20, 2022
The letter to Wray states: “The FBI’s extensive coordination with Twitter has apparently occurred independent of any particular criminal investigation. Instead, the FBI seems to have maintained ‘a permanent, end-in-itself surveillance operation.’ For example, before the 2020 election, the FBI apparently maintained a ‘sprawling’ endeavor that involved FBI field offices, prosecutors, and lawyers from the FBI and Justice Department. One FBI employee — Elvis Chan, the Assistant Special Agent in Charge of the Cyber Branch in San Francisco — encouraged reporting certain information to the FBI or Justice Department. The FBI ‘processed’ these types of reports, escalated them through field offices, and approved them at headquarters. Ultimately, the FBI’s San Francisco unit would flag for Big Tech firms to censor content the government considered disinformation or in violation of companies’ terms of service. Twitter and other companies often complied with the FBI’s directives.”
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Judiciary Republicans to FBI: Produce all records of bureau’s contacts with Twitter added by Editor Two on
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