Thirty-five House Republicans want Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg to turn over all communications between Facebook and FBI officials regarding the social media giant's limited distribution of a story on Hunter Biden by the New York Post.
Their request came in a letter signed by those GOP House members, including Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, and Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., ranking member of the Oversight and Reform Committee.
Zuckerberg has admitted his Meta platforms suppressed the Hunter Biden laptop story in the final weeks before the 2020 presidential election after a visit from the FBI, retroactively saying now "it sucks" the story wound up being verifiable.
"The background here is the FBI basically came to us — some of the folks on our team —and said, 'Hey, just so you know, you should be on high alert: We thought there was a lot of Russian propaganda in the 2016 election, we have it on notice that basically there's about to be some kind of dump that's similar to that, so just be vigilant," Zuckerberg told "The Joe Rogan Experience" in a podcast interview.
The GOP lawmakers wrote: "We have seen in recent months how some in government have sought to use Big Tech to censor divergent viewpoints and silence opposing political speech."
"Facebook's suppression of the Post article — and allegations of Biden family corruption highly relevant to the 2020 presidential election — following guidance from the FBI is highly troubling."
The Hill noted, shortly before the 20020 elections, the Post published a story saying the FBI had obtained a laptop reportedly belonging to Hunter Biden.
The lawmakers are seeking all documents and communication between Facebook and the FBI relating to the New York Post story from Oct. 1, 2020, through Sept. 1.
A similar letter was sent Tuesday by Sens. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Ron Johnson, R-Wis.
Jeffrey Rodack ✉
Jeffrey Rodack, who has nearly a half century in news as a senior editor and city editor for national and local publications, has covered politics for Newsmax for nearly seven years.
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