Rep. Jordan Subpoenas FTC Over Twitter, Musk Investigation

Elon Musk arrives at the justice center in Wilmington, Del., on July 13, 2021. (Matt Rourke/AP Photo)

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) on April 12 subpoenaed Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan, stepping up the conflict between House Republicans and the agency regarding its approach to Twitter in the Elon Musk era.

The Epoch Times has reviewed the subpoena.

The subpoena comes after a March 10 letter to Khan from Jordan, who chairs the House Judiciary Committee, and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), the ranking Republican member of the Senate Commerce Committee.

Lina Khan, then-nominee for commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), speaks at her confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, on April 21, 2021. (Saul Loeb/Pool via REUTERS)

The two sought documents related to the FTC’s intensified scrutiny of Twitter after it was acquired by Musk.

“We reached out to Committee staff to begin discussions about this request, and we provided a letter on March 27,” Jeanne Bumpus, director of the FTC’s Office of Congressional Relations, said in March 29 testimony before the Judiciary Committee’s oversight subcommittee regarding her agency’s responsiveness.

Bumpus testified that the FTC would keep working with the House on its many requests for information “while ensuring the FTC can continue to protect the independence, integrity, and effectiveness of the Commission’s law enforcement efforts and core agency processes.”

“To date, your voluntary compliance has been woefully insufficient,” Jordan wrote in his April 12 cover letter for the subpoena, which requests documents from Khan and the agency by April 26.

“The FTC respects the important role of Congressional oversight. We have made multiple offers to brief Chairman Jordan’s staff on our investigation into Twitter. Those are standing offers made prior to this entirely unnecessary subpoena,” FTC spokesperson Douglas Farrar said in response to the subpoena.

According to the FTC, those briefings would include nonpublic information.

Jordan and Cruz’s first request to the FTC was triggered by a 113-page report to the Judiciary Committee and its Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) raises concerns about Phillip Washington, nominee to head the Federal Aviation Administration, as Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), committee chair, reacts during a U.S. Senate hearing in Washington on March 1, 2023. (Janice Hisle/The Epoch Times via video screenshot)

The FTC entered into a consent agreement with Twitter in 2011. The agreement was revised in May 2022, before the South African-born billionaire entrepreneur completed his takeover of the platform, after the tech giant was accused of exploiting user data under deceptive pretenses and fined $150 million.

Yet, the March 7 report accused the agency of “overreach to harass Elon Musk’s Twitter,” citing numerous demands made of the company in the wake of his purchase.

“The timing, scope, and frequency of the FTC’s demands to Twitter suggest a partisan motivation to its action. When Musk took action to reorient Twitter around free speech, the FTC regularly followed soon thereafter with a new demand letter,” the report states.

The report claims that information already gathered by the Judiciary Committee “makes clear that the FTC has inappropriately stretched its regulatory power to harass Twitter.”

“The FTC is doing so consistent with the approach that partisan actors and interest groups have urged it to do: misusing a revised consent decree between the FTC and Twitter to justify its campaign of harassment.”

In March 9 testimony to the weaponization subcommittee, journalist Michael Shellenberger said he and his fellow “Twitter Files” investigators had helped uncover a “censorship-industrial complex” involving Twitter, the government, and government-funded nonprofits.

Michael Shellenberger, author of “San Fransicko: Why Progressives Ruin Cities.” (York Du/The Epoch Times)

“Our government built a cozy relationship with Big Tech,” Jordan said during that hearing.

Jordan’s latest subpoena comes just days after he subpoenaed Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who indicted former President Donald Trump on April 4. Bragg responded through a lawsuit of his own in a New York federal court, accusing Jordan of launching a “campaign to intimidate.”

In February, Jordan subpoenaed FBI Director Christopher Wray and Attorney General Merrick Garland, part of a long series of oversight requests by House Republicans worried about the politicization of federal law enforcement.

The congressman on April 10 announced another subpoena of Wray, this one motivated by a January FBI memo linking traditionalist Catholics to “violent extremists.”