The House Judiciary Committee has sent subpoenas to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, and the Global Engagement Center for documents as it continues to investigate whether the federal government pressured social media companies to censor certain viewpoints.
The subpoenas mark an escalation in the panel’s inquiry, as House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan described the agencies responses to previous voluntary request in March as “inadequate” in the subpoena cover letter and said that none of the agencies have produced any documents responding to previous requests to date.
Jordan, a Republican, has long claimed that the federal government and big tech companies have been “weaponized” against conservatives, and leads a subcommittee on that topic.
The subpoena letters do not list any specific allegations the committee is investigating but raises the concern over censorship more broadly. The subpoenas set a document deadline of May 22 for a broad request of information and communications.
Through the subpoenas to the CDC, CISA (which is a part of the Department of Homeland Security) and the Global Engagement Center, under the Department of State’s purview, the Judiciary panel claims to be seeking information about the extent to which the Executive Branch “pressured and colluded” with social media and other tech companies and others to “censor certain viewpoints on social and other media in ways that undermine First Amendment principles.”
Conservative critics have said that correspondence released by Twitter owner and CEO Elon Musk late last year demonstrates a willingness by social media publishers to act on requests by government officials to suppress certain points of view. Federal officials, however, have rejected this accusation.
“The Department of Homeland…
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