House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) filed a subpoena with Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Avril Haines on Thursday, demanding she turn over records of intelligence contacts with social media companies and technology platforms.
Mr. Jordan initially began seeking a range of records of intelligence community contacts with major technology companies last April, as part of the Judiciary Committee’s work through the Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government. The Ohio Republican said he initially reached out to the DNI—a cabinet-level official overseeing the 17 U.S. intelligence agencies—on April 18, asking that she voluntarily divulge any instances of intelligence community members discussing and directly contacting private social media companies about their content moderation efforts.
Mr. Jordan said he would now pursue a subpoena to legally compel production of the documents he had been seeking, in light of ODNI’s “woefully inadequate voluntary compliance.”
The subpoena, which was reviewed by NTD News, orders Ms. Haines to turn over all documents and communications between ODNI employees and individuals the ODNI has consulted with discussing “misinformation,” “disinformation,” and “malinformation” and discussions of content moderation policies. The subpoena also calls for Ms. Haines to appear before the House Judiciary Committee on Feb. 9 for a deposition.
NTD News reached out to ODNI for comment on the alleged timeline of requests for voluntary document productions and about how the intelligence community office will respond now to a subpoena. ODNI did not respond by press time.
U.S. government efforts to influence the content seen on social media has been a major point of focus for House Republicans, with concerns that government actors may pressure private entities to shape public discourse.
“The investigative work performed by the Committee and its Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, along with other publicly available information, have revealed how the federal government has pressured and colluded with Big Tech and other intermediaries to censor certain viewpoints on social media in ways that undermine First Amendment principles,” Mr. Jordan’s Thursday letter reads.
“The First Amendment prohibits government officials from imposing viewpoint-based restrictions on speech,” the letter continues. “State action doctrine prohibits government officials from circumventing constitutional strictures by using private actors—whether through coercion, encouragement, entwinement, or joint participation—to accomplish what the government cannot directly.”
After billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk bought out Twitter in late 2022, several journalists were granted access to internal company documents. Among these internal documents—which were published in a series of reports dubbed the “Twitter Files”—were records revealing FBI and Department of Homeland Security officials flagged content on the social media platform for review.
“Hey folks-Wanted to flag the below tweet and am wondering if we can get moving on the process of having it removed ASAP,” Mr. Flaherty wrote.
In another allegation raised by the lawsuit, Mr. Flaherty reached out to Twitter about a parody social media account of one of the Biden family members, writing “Cannot stress the degree to which this needs to be resolved immediately,” and, “Please remove this account immediately,” prompting the account’s suspension 45 minutes later.
