House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, is asking for communications between the Biden administration and social media giants, as part of the group's ongoing censorship probe.
In his Wednesday letter to Brian Boynton, the principal deputy assistant attorney general in the Department of Justice's civil division, Jordan urged the DOJ to cooperate with the House investigation into alleged censorship of conservative voices online.
Jordan's document request mirrors what the DOJ was ordered to provide in a lawsuit brought up by several Republican attorneys general, who have accused the administration of similar free-speech violations.
"The Committee on the Judiciary is conducting oversight of the Executive Branch's efforts to sidestep the First Amendment by coercing and coordinating with private companies, including social media platforms, to suppress free speech and censor content online," Jordan wrote.
"As part of our oversight, we write to request a discrete set of documents and information that the Department of Justice has produced as part of discovery in federal litigation over the same subject matter," added Jordan.
The Ohio Republican then cited files already made public by Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry, a lead on the GOP multistate lawsuit, suggesting that Facebook and the federal government worked together to shutter COVID-19 vaccine skepticism.
"These documents appear to reveal that the Executive Branch repeatedly pressured social media platforms to censor certain viewpoints," Jordan wrote. "Congress has an important interest in protecting and advancing fundamental free speech principles, including by examining how the Executive Branch coordinates with or coerces private actors to suppress First Amendment-protected speech."
The Judiciary Committee's push came on the same day House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer, R-Ky., oversaw a hearing on Twitter's decision to suppress the New York Post's Hunter Biden laptop story from October 2020.
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