A congressional Interim Staff Report revealed that The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) made apparently “partisan” demands of Twitter owner Elon Musk.
According to the Interim Staff Report released by the House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, The FTC sent “over a dozen” letters to Twitter’s legal counsel and made “more than 350 specific demands” for information. The report slammed the FTC for having blatantly abused its power. “[T]he Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is orchestrating an aggressive campaign to harass Twitter,” the report critiqued. “These demands have no basis in the FTC’s statutory mission and appear to be the result of partisan pressure to target Twitter and silence Musk.”
The FTC reportedly asked Twitter to hand over “[e]very single internal communication ‘relating to Elon Musk’ by any Twitter personnel” since he bought the company. Additionally, Twitter was asked to "’[i]dentify all journalists’" who were granted access to the internal files and explain why the company fired Jim Baker, the company’s ex-deputy general counsel and former FBI lawyer.
The Interim Staff Report also accused the FTC of making “partisan” demands with no “rational basis in user privacy. "The timing, scope, and frequency of the FTC’s demands to Twitter suggest a partisan motivation to its action,” the report noted. The report further suggested that the FTC’s legal basis for the letters included “monitoring Twitter’s privacy and information security program.” However, the report continues, this “fails to provide adequate cover for the FTC’s action” as “a number of the FTC’s demands have little to no nexus to users’ privacy and information."
Musk tweeted that the government’s demands were “shameful.”
“A shameful case of weaponization of a government agency for political purposes and suppression of the truth!” he tweeted in response to an “exclusive” from The Wall Street Journal.
The Interim Staff Report shows exactly the type of damning federal government overreach that the Twitter Files helped expose.
MRC Free Speech America previously reported on how pre-Musk Twitter executives met weekly with the “DHS, DOJ, FBI, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence,” according to an internal email quoted in Twitter Files part six. The platform also caved to the wishes of the White House and the Pentagon, according to Twitter Files parts eight and 10.
Media Research Center President Brent Bozell called on Congress to investigate the extent of the government’s efforts.
“[Pre-Musk] Twitter did everything they could to deliver the 2020 election to Joe Biden,” Bozell said. “Now we need Congress to investigate the rest of Big Tech and uncover the same for Facebook, Google, and the rest.”
Conservatives are under attack. Contact your representatives and demand that Big Tech be held to account to mirror the First Amendment while providing equal footing for conservatives. If you have been censored, contact us using CensorTrack’s contact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable.
