First on Fox: House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan on Tuesday asked FBI Director Christopher Wray to amend his testimony about the bureau’s efforts to curb “misinformation and disinformation” on social media.
In a letter to Wray obtained by Fox News Digital, Jordan, R-Ohio, said in a letter last week that Wray “has made numerous statements about the FBI’s actions regarding misinformation and disinformation that contradict the findings of a federal court and information obtained by the committee.”
“We write to give you an opportunity to amend your testimony,” wrote Jordan and Rep. Mike Johnson, chairman of the Constitution and Limited Government Subcommittee.
Last week, Ray testified that the FBI is focused on foreign disinformation … foreign hostile actors involved in covert efforts to misuse … our social media platforms.”
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Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, is giving FBI Director Christopher Wray an opportunity to amend his testimony about the extent to which the FBI has gone to censor social media. (Caroline Brehman/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
Wray also testified that “the FBI is not in the business of moderating content or suppressing or censoring the speech of any social media company.” He said the FBI could notify media companies about some content, but said the FBI was “very clear that it’s up to the social media companies to do something or not.”
But Jordan and Johnson said Ray’s testimony “conflicts” with the federal court’s findings in Missouri v. Biden, which specifically said the FBI “flagged domestic speech as potentially disinformation and that the FBI ‘significantly encouraged’ social media platforms to take certain actions regarding the content.”
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The federal judge presiding over the case this month barred key Biden administration agencies and departments from communicating with social media companies to avoid potential First Amendment violations. The Biden administration is appealing to the court. Preliminary injunction
In the ruling, the court found that the FBI had also flagged ‘domestic disinformation’ for social media platforms. Just before the 2020 election, information will be sent from other field offices to the FBI 2020 Election Command Post in San Francisco. The information sent will then be passed on to the social media platforms where the accounts were traced.
Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La., joined Jordan on Wray’s letter. (Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)
The ruling states that the FBI “made no attempt to distinguish whether those reports of election disinformation were American or foreign,” and that “in fact [misled] Social Media Companies Regarding Hunter Biden Laptop Story.”
Lawmakers told Wray that they also obtained documents “that show the FBI did nothing more than simply inform the social media companies of the allegedly false information.”
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“The FBI often followed up with the companies, requesting that the companies notify the FBI if they removed flagged accounts, and provide unsolicited input on whether the content violated the companies’ respective terms of service,” he wrote.
He specifically pointed to an email that Elvis Chan, the FBI’s assistant special agent in charge of the FBI’s San Francisco cyber branch, sent to Google employees regarding social media activity related to the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.
FBI Director Christopher Wray has said the FBI is only involved in policing foreign disinformation, but House lawmakers say otherwise. (Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
“We anticipate the type of information we will transmit as a tipper will violate your Terms of Service,” Chan wrote.
Jordan and Johnson also stated that the FBI “also attempted to ensure that the flagged material was, in fact, removed, even offering legal action to remove the material.”
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He said in March 2022 that an FBI agent asked a Facebook employee, “Can you tell me if these accounts have been closed, or if you need us to take any legal action?”
“The FBI’s offer to provide ‘legal process’ for flagged accounts, including in this case legal speech Americans, is inconsistent with your claim that the social media companies acted simply on their own accord with respect to accounts allegedly engaging in ‘disinformation’ by the FBI,” the lawmakers wrote.
Jordan and Johnson said Wray’s testimony “appears to contradict other information available to the committee.”
“Contrary to your testimony, the FBI did not passively provide information to social media companies and leave it up to the companies to decide what content moderation decisions to make,” he wrote. “Instead, the FBI was an active participant in the process — flagging content for companies, following up with them to ensure the content was removed, and offering legal action to remove the content.”
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Jordan and Johnson said the “inconsistencies” between Wray’s testimony and the information the committee had before it lead us to conclude that either you misled the committee about the FBI’s interactions with social media companies, or that you were not fully aware of the FBI’s nefarious and unconstitutional actions that you administer.
“Either scenario is alarming. Accordingly, we invite you to amend your testimony.”
Source by [Fox News]
