[House Hearing, 118 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


                     HEARING ON THE WEAPONIZATION OF THE 
                           FEDERAL GOVERNMENT

=======================================================================

                                HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

               SELECT SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE WEAPONIZATION 
                        OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT

                                 OF THE

                       COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY

                     U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                    ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS

                             FIRST SESSION

                               __________

                        THURSDAY, MARCH 30, 2023

                               __________

                           Serial No. 118-13

                               __________

         Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary
         
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]         


               Available via: http://judiciary.house.gov
               
                              __________

                                
                    U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE                    
51-876                    WASHINGTON : 2023                    
          
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------     
              
                       COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY

                        JIM JORDAN, Ohio, Chair

DARRELL ISSA, California             JERROLD NADLER, New York, Ranking 
KEN BUCK, Colorado                       Member
MATT GAETZ, Florida                  ZOE LOFGREN, California
MIKE JOHNSON, Louisiana              SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas
ANDY BIGGS, Arizona                  STEVE COHEN, Tennessee
TOM McCLINTOCK, California           HENRY C. ``HANK'' JOHNSON, Jr., 
TOM TIFFANY, Wisconsin                   Georgia
THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky              ADAM SCHIFF, California
CHIP ROY, Texas                      DAVID N. CICILLINE, Rhode Island
DAN BISHOP, North Carolina           ERIC SWALWELL, California
VICTORIA SPARTZ, Indiana             TED LIEU, California
SCOTT FITZGERALD, Wisconsin          PRAMILA JAYAPAL, Washington
CLIFF BENTZ, Oregon                  J. LUIS CORREA, California
BEN CLINE, Virginia                  MARY GAY SCANLON, Pennsylvania
LANCE GOODEN, Texas                  JOE NEGUSE, Colorado
JEFF VAN DREW, New Jersey            LUCY McBATH, Georgia
TROY NEHLS, Texas                    MADELEINE DEAN, Pennsylvania
BARRY MOORE, Alabama                 VERONICA ESCOBAR, Texas
KEVIN KILEY, California              DEBORAH ROSS, North Carolina
HARRIET HAGEMAN, Wyoming             CORI BUSH, Missouri
NATHANIEL MORAN, Texas               GLENN IVEY, Maryland
LAUREL LEE, Florida
WESLEY HUNT, Texas
RUSSELL FRY, South Carolina

                                 ------                                

            SELECT SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE WEAPONIZATION OF THE
                           FEDERAL GOVERNMENT

                        JIM JORDAN, Ohio, Chair

DARRELL ISSA, California             STACEY PLASKETT, Virgin Islands, 
THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky                  Ranking Member
CHRIS STEWART, Utah                  STEPHEN LYNCH, Massachusetts
ELISE M. STEFANIK, New York          LINDA SANCHEZ, California
MATT GAETZ, Florida                  DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ, Florida
MIKE JOHNSON, Louisiana              GERRY CONNOLLY, Virginia
KELLY ARMSTRONG, North Dakota        JOHN GARAMENDI, California
W. GREGORY STEUBE, Florida           COLIN ALLRED, Texas
DAN BISHOP, North Carolina           SYLVIA GARCIA, Texas
KAT CAMMACK, Florida                 DAN GOLDMAN, New York
HARRIET HAGEMAN, Wyoming

               CHRISTOPHER HIXON, Majority Staff Director
              CAROLINE NABITY, Chief Counsel for Oversight
          AMY RUTKIN, Minority Staff Director & Chief of Staff
           CHRISTINA CALCE, Minority Chief Oversight Counsel
                           
                           
                           C O N T E N T S

                              ----------                              

                        Thursday, March 30, 2023

                                                                   Page

                           OPENING STATEMENTS

The Honorable Jim Jordan, Chair of the Select Subcommittee on the 
  Weaponization of the Federal Government from the State of Ohio.     1
The Honorable Stacey Plaskett, Ranking Member of the Select 
  Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government 
  from the Virgin Islands........................................     3

                               WITNESSES

The Honorable Eric Schmitt, Senator, U.S. Senate, Missouri
  Oral Testimony.................................................     6
  Prepared Testimony.............................................     9
The Honorable Jeff Landry, Attorney General, Louisiana
  Oral Testimony.................................................    15
  Prepared Testimony.............................................    17
John Sauer, Special Assistant Attorney General, Louisiana 
  Department of Justice
  Oral Testimony.................................................    42
  Prepared Testimony.............................................    45
  Supplemental Material..........................................    75
Matthew Seligman, Professor, Constitution Law Center, Stanford 
  University
  Oral Testimony.................................................    76
  Prepared Testimony.............................................    78

          LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC. SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING

All materials submitted for the record by the Select Subcommittee 
  on the Weaponization of the Federal Government are listed below   133

An article entitled, ``Trump Says the Justice System Has Been 
  Weaponized. He Would Know,'' Mar. 29, 2023, The New York Times, 
  submitted by the Honorable Stacey Plaskett, Ranking Member of 
  the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal 
  Government from the Virgin Islands, for the record
A National Terrorism Advisory System Bulletin, Department of 
  Homeland Security, submitted by the Honorable Stephen Lynch, 
  Massachusetts, a Member of the Select Subcommittee on the 
  Weaponization of the Federal Government from the State of 
  Massachusetts, for the record
A letter by Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry, January 12, 
  2021, submitted the Honorable Mike Johnson, a Member of the 
  Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal 
  Government from the State of Louisiana, for the record
Definition of salacious, submitted by the Honorable Linda 
  Sanchez, a Member of the Select Subcommittee on the 
  Weaponization of the Federal Government from the State of 
  California, for the record
An official State email for John Sauer, Special Assistant 
  Attorney General, Louisiana Department of Justice, submitted by 
  the Honorable Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a Member of the Select 
  Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government 
  from the State of Florida, for the record
Materials submitted by the Honorable Sylvia Garcia, a Member of 
  the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal 
  Government from the State of Texas, for the record
    An article entitled, ``In This Texas County, There's No Such 
        Thing as Moving on From COVID-19,'' Mar. 15, 2023, Time 
        Magazine
    An article entitled, ``Do face masks work? Here are 49 
        scientific studies that explain why they do,'' Dec. 23, 
        2021, KXAN
    An article entitled, ``How Trump's denial and mismanagement 
        led to the Covid pandemic's dark winter,'' Dec. 19, 2020, 
        Washington Post
    An article entitled, ``The great Texas COVID tragedy,'' Oct. 
        20, 2022, PLOS Global Public Health

                                APPENDIX

Statement by the Honorable Gerry Connolly, a Member of the Select 
  Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government 
  from the State of Virginia, for the record

                 QUESTIONS AND RESPONSES FOR THE RECORD

Questions to Matthew Seligman, Professor, Constitution Law 
  Center, Stanford University, submitted by the Honorable Dan 
  Bishop, a Member of the Select Subcommittee on the 
  Weaponization of the Federal Government from the State of North 
  Carolina, for the record

                                 VOTES

RC #1--Vote on Motion to Adjourn--failed 7-12
RC #2--Vote on Motion to Table the Motion to Subpoena, offered by 
  Ms. Wasserman Schultz--passed 10-7

 
           HEARING ON WEAPONIZATION OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT

                              ----------                              


                        Thursday, March 30, 2023

                        House of Representatives

   Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government

                       Committee on the Judiciary

                             Washington, DC

    The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:04 a.m., in 
Room 2141, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Jim Jordan 
[Chair of the Subcommittee] presiding.
    Present: Representatives Jordan, Issa, Massie, Stewart, 
Stefanik, Gaetz, Johnson, Armstrong, Steube, Bishop, Cammack, 
Hageman, Plaskett, Lynch, Sanchez, Wasserman Schultz, Connolly, 
Garamendi, Allred, Garcia, and Goldman.
    Chair Jordan. The Subcommittee will come to order.
    Without objection, the Chair is authorized to declare a 
recess at any time. We welcome everyone to today's hearing on 
the Weaponization of the Federal government. We, particularly, 
want to welcome back our friend and colleague Mr. Steube from 
the great State of Florida. Good to see him healthy and strong 
and back working with us. We would ask if Mr. Steube would lead 
us in the Pledge of Allegiance.
    All. I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States 
of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one 
Nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for 
all.
    Chair Jordan. Thank you, Mr. Steube.
    The Chair now recognizes himself for an opening statement. 
Twenty-two days ago, Republicans on this Committee released a 
report showing the Federal Trade Commission sent 12 letters to 
Twitter in a three-month time span. It happened to be the 
three-month time that Mr. Musk had purchased the company.
    In the first letter, after the first Twitter files, the 
first question was, who are the journalists you were talking 
to? Actually, named four journalists personally. Two of those 
four journalists testified the very next day, three weeks ago 
today, they testified that day in front of this Committee--
Michael Shellenberger and Matt Taibbi--right here in this room. 
In that hearing, Democrats asked them to reveal their sources.
    There's another thing that happened during that hearing. 
While Mr. Taibbi was testifying, the Internal Revenue Service 
paid a visit to his home; left a note on his door saying: We'll 
be back in touch with you next week.
    That all happened. That all happened.
    Then we learned at the same time--excuse me. Certainly, it 
appears that--we still do not have the answers from the IRS 
about that unlikely coincidence. It certainly appears to be 
just the latest example of the weaponization of the Federal 
government against the American people. It shows the need for 
this Subcommittee and its work to proceed no matter how robust 
the opposition.
    Today's hearing is so important and builds on our prior 
work related to government-induced censorship. It was 
interesting, in the first hearing, we had Mr. Turley--by the 
way, not a Republican--Mr. Turley, who talked about censorship 
by surrogate. In our hearing three weeks ago, we had two 
journalists--again, not Republicans--talk about the Censorship 
Industrial Complex. Today, Senator Schmitt and Attorney General 
Landry--I read through their written testimony last night--they 
talk about the vast censorship enterprise. The key word in all 
three is the word ``censorship'' because that is exactly what's 
going on.
    Today's hearing provides an opportunity to bring to light 
evidence from within the Federal government and Federal 
agencies that have driven much of this censorship. This 
evidence comes from the litigation efforts of Missouri and 
Louisiana against the Federal government. The States' lawyers 
in those cases are here to testify before us today.
    Within days of taking office, the Biden White House was 
already pressuring Big Tech to suppress free speech. The 
censor's goal is simple: Limit what Americans can see. Limit 
what Americans can say, which is a direct assault on the right 
to free speech that is protected by the First Amendment. The 
censor is bully Big Tech to get them to do the government's 
bidding, and Big Tech has all too often agreed to collude with 
the government and facilitate the censorship agenda.
    In this country, the government does not get to pick what 
viewpoints are right, what issues we discuss, or what we 
believe, but that is exactly what the White House and the 
agencies as varied as the CDC and the FBI have done. Their 
censorship has extended to speech on critically important 
topics, like how best to respond to COVID-19 and even to 
elections themselves. That kind of speech is at the heart of a 
free country and our Republic.
    The amount of content censored has been staggering. One 
nonprofit that is part of the Censorship Industrial Complex has 
boasted that 35 percent of the pages it flagged for social 
media companies were either labeled, removed, or soft-blocked. 
Perhaps even worse is the scope of the censorship. The 
government no longer pretends that censorship is limited to 
foreign disinformation or even domestic misinformation. 
Instead, censorship extends to the so-called mal-information; 
in other words, true information that is supposedly misleading 
and conflicts with the censor's preferred narrative. That is 
the most dangerous and, frankly, the most frightening thing of 
all. Censorship isn't about truth; it's about power.
    The evidence from this litigation shows the need for this 
Subcommittee's work investigating the entirety of the 
Censorship Industrial Complex. The Federal government is at 
fault, but it also should be able to weaponize nongovernment 
actors--it should not be able to weaponize nongovernment actors 
to work on its behalf to advance censorship. This Subcommittee 
must investigate the extent of what has happened here, and we 
must protect the American people from it happening again.
    Already this Subcommittee has requested related documents 
from the Federal agencies, Big Tech companies, and their 
intermediaries that make up this complex, this vast censorship 
enterprise. This important work must continue so that the 
American people learn what their government has done to them 
and that this Congress can take action to ensure that it 
doesn't happen again.
    The Chair now recognizes the Ranking Member, the 
gentlewoman from the Virgin Islands, Ms. Plaskett, for her 
opening statement.
    Ms. Plaskett. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and good morning to 
everyone. On Monday, multiple people, including three children, 
lost their lives to violence, gun violence in Nashville, 
Tennessee. This week a Federal grand jury and a judge, a 
Federal judge had to force Trump officials to testify 
concerning their possible involvement and what they knew 
regarding the violence and death in the riot and insurrection 
attempt on our Capitol from January 6, 2021.
    The debt ceiling is looming over the American economy, and 
Speaker McCarthy and the Republican Conference are holding the 
debt hostage right now. We're holding a hearing on what? 
Missouri v. Biden and some alleged deep State effort to censor 
Conservatives online. That allegation is nonsense.
    As we have discussed extensively in the hearings, as the 
Chair has said before, social media companies, deep-pocket 
private companies, social media companies actually amplify 
Conservative voices. They do less to center those voices. 
Everyone here should be alarmed when that amplification pushes 
out false and dangerous narratives: False narratives such as 
January 6th being a deep State effort, false narratives, such 
as, COVID vaccines somehow do harm, false narratives suggesting 
that President Trump won the election.
    In fact, that's the real reason we're here. Republicans 
know that these are false narratives, and they know that 
Americans know the truth. So, they are grasping for a way to 
spin the truth. How do you do that? You tell an untruth, a lie, 
misinformation, over and over and over and over and over again, 
and eventually people believe it. Some people right here in 
this audience believe it.
    Mr. Chair, thank you for calling this hearing because I am 
actually eager to speak to the witnesses that we have here.
    Mr. Seligman, you are a renowned lawyer, legal scholar, and 
expert on election law and disinformation. I'm eager to hear 
from you on exactly how disinformation harms our democracy. 
Part of the reason I'm interested in that is because of the 
other witnesses that are here.
    Senator Eric Schmitt, you are a U.S. Senator. You signed a 
statement defending Trump's indefensible campaign to stop 
social media from fact-checking election fraud falsehoods when 
Trump complained about censorship; served as the Vice Chair of 
the Republican Attorneys General Association while its 
fundraising arm made robo calls urging the march on the Capitol 
the day before the deadly January 6th insurrection. You also, 
sir, signed a brief in support of a Texas lawsuit seeking to 
invalidate electoral votes in the hopes of reversing the 
results of Presidential elections. I don't even how the time to 
go into some of the things that you did while you were attorney 
general; theories that you have with regard to the Great 
Replacement Theory, and other things of that nature.
    Mr. Sauer, you, as well, now serve as Missouri's Deputy 
Attorney General for special litigation. You have sought to 
silence people with disabilities from participating in legal 
cases about COVID-19 mask mandates. You've opposed LGBTQ rights 
on numerous occasions. As recently as 2015, you opposed same-
sex marriages; in a brief in 2021, opposing the President's 
Executive Order redefining sexual discrimination.
    Mr. Attorney General, Mr. Landry, congratulations on your 
bid for Governor of Louisiana. You refused to join 50 other 
attorney generals in condemning the insurrection of January 6th 
and, in your own separate letter, tried to equate that 
insurrection, that one violent day, with the Black Lives Matter 
protests of 2020: 7,750 demonstrations took place over the 
summer, and 93 percent of those were peaceful. One day, January 
6th. Yes, yes, yes, 93 percent were peaceful. One day on 
January 6th was devastating to our democracy. You've also 
denied climate change.
    So, I would like to speak to these individuals who are here 
but maybe for a different reason. We are here to talk about the 
weaponization of the Federal government when the greatest 
weaponizer has been Donald Trump.
    Yesterday, The New York Times--I know it's not everyone in 
here's favorite paper, but I'd like to submit this, I have a 
motion to submit this into the record.
    Chair Jordan. Without objection.
    Ms. Plaskett. Thank you. The article was on March 29, 2023, 
and it says: ``Trump says the justice system has been 
weaponized.'' He would know. Yes, he would. Why would he know? 
In that article, it lists instances of his attempts to 
weaponize the Federal government when he was President in the 
words of his own people. Quote:

        He was always telling me that we need to use the FBI and the 
        IRS to go after people. It was constant and obsessive, and it's 
        just what he's claiming is being done to him now.

said John F. Kelly, Mr. Trump's White House Chief of Staff.

        I would tell him why it was wrong. And, while I was there, I 
        did everything I could to steer him away from it and tell him 
        why it was a bad idea.

Mr. Kelly said,

        I thought we were successful, but he would often ask a lot of 
        people to do a lot of things that he didn't want to do himself 
        in the hopes that someone would do it, and he would claim that 
        he did nothing wrong.

    That's the twice-impeached former President Donald Trump's 
Chief of Staff speaking. So, don't tell me he didn't weaponize 
the government. I don't think we're going to be investigating 
that, however.
    Mr. Chair, I know that you and my Republican colleagues 
believe that Mr. Trump is still the leader of the Republican 
Party. Unfortunately, you're following his example and 
attempting to weaponize Congress.
    [Slide.]
    Last weekend President Trump posted the message that's on 
the screen right now--thank you:

        What kind of person can charge another person, in this case a 
        former President of the United States, who got more votes than 
        any sitting President in history, and leading candidate (by 
        far!) for the Republican Party nomination, with a Crime, when 
        it is known by all that NO Crime has been committed, and also 
        known that potential death and destruction in such a false 
        charge could be catastrophic for our Country? Why and who would 
        do such a thing? Only a degenerate psychopath that truely [sic] 
        hates the USA!

    He threatened death and destruction if an independent 
State-level, duly elected prosecutor took action against him.
    Now, Mr. Chair was asked about this post previously, and 
his response was that he needed his glasses to read it. I hope 
that he and all my colleagues can see it now up there on the 
screen.
    Mr. Chair, you and other Members of this body--have sent 
multiple letters in your capacity as Chair to seek to interfere 
in the investigation of the President by a duly elected State 
representative and demanding that District Attorney Bragg 
appear for a transcribed interview in a matter that is under 
criminal investigation. That is not appropriate. That is not 
what this Congress is supposed to be about. That is an abuse of 
the power of this body, of this Committee, and that is the 
weaponization of Congress. Plain and simple.
    The real question before us today is: Why are the Chair and 
others, why are Congressional Republicans doing the President's 
dirty work? That's what we should be investigating, not chasing 
politically motivated theories that have already been shown to 
be baseless.
    I yield back.
    Chair Jordan. The gentlelady yields back.
    Without objection, all other opening statements will be 
included in the record.
    We will now introduce today's witnesses.
    We first have The Honorable Eric Schmitt. Senator Schmitt 
represents the great State of Missouri in the U.S. Senate. 
Before his election to the Senate in 2022, Senator Schmitt 
served as the Missouri Attorney General and the Treasurer of 
that State.
    The Honorable Jeff Landry, a former colleague of ours, Jeff 
Landry serves as the Attorney General of Louisiana, a post he 
has held since 2016. Prior to serving as the Attorney General, 
he represented Louisiana's Third Congressional District here in 
the U.S. House of Representatives.
    Mr. John Sauer is a Special Assistant Attorney General for 
the Louisiana Department of Justice. He previously served as 
Deputy Attorney General for the special litigation with the 
Missouri Attorney General's Office and Solicitor General of 
Missouri. He clerked for Judge Michael Luttig and Justice 
Antonin Scalia.
    Then, Matthew Seligman is a nonresident fellow at the 
Constitutional Law Center at Stanford Law School. His research 
focuses on election law, constitutional law, Federal courts, 
contracts, and private law theory. He clerked for Judge Douglas 
Ginsberg.
    We welcome our witnesses today and thank them for 
appearing. We will begin by swearing you in.
    Would you please rise and raise your right hand.
    Do you swear or affirm under penalty of perjury that the 
testimony you are about to give is true and correct to the best 
of your knowledge, information, and belief, so help you God?
    Let the record show that each of the witnesses answered in 
the affirmative.
    Please know that your written testimony will be entered in 
the record in its entirety. Accordingly, we ask that you 
summarize your testimony in five minutes. We'll give a few more 
minutes, of course, to Senator Schmitt and Attorney General 
Landry, as has been the courtesy or has been the custom of this 
Committee.
    We'll start with Senator Schmitt. You know how it works 
here with the lights. Senator, you go, but like I said, we'll 
give you a little extra time there. We appreciate your service 
to our country and your State, and we appreciate you being here 
today.
    You are now recognized Senator Schmitt.

            STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE ERIC SCHMITT

    Senator Schmitt. Thank you. Chair Jordan, Ranking Member 
Plaskett, and Members of the Select Subcommittee, thank you for 
the opportunity to be here today to discuss this important 
issue.
    The First Amendment is the beating heart of our 
Constitution. The First Amendment is integral to maintaining 
our Republican form of government and the belief that we are a 
country of free people, not oppressive government.
    The Biden Administration has led the largest speech 
censorship operation in recent American history. Since taking 
office, President Biden and his team have labored to suppress 
viewpoints with which they disagree. In doing so, they have 
infringed upon the individual freedoms of millions of 
Americans. No matter what your political affiliation is, 
government censorship should concern everyone.
    The Biden Administration has coerced, cajoled, and colluded 
with social media companies to censor disfavored speech. The 
Biden team has publicly threatened social media companies from 
removing legal protections--with removing legal protections, 
blamed social media companies for societal problems, accused 
social media companies of killing people. These social media 
companies, some of the biggest companies in the history of the 
world, willingly took part in this Orwellian vast censorship 
enterprise.
    On multiple occasions, President Biden and his team have 
threatened to punish social media companies that did not 
sufficiently censor Biden's political opposition by revoking 
Section 230. Biden suggested Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg 
should be subject to civil liability and potential criminal 
prosecution for not censoring political speech.
    President Biden also repeatedly accused social media 
companies of, quote, ``killing people by not censoring enough 
disfavored speech.'' The Biden Administration has threatened 
and attacked social media companies so that those social media 
companies would censor speech the Biden Administration 
dislikes.
    Until the Missouri v. Biden lawsuit and later the Twitter 
Files, the Biden Administration's efforts to pressure and 
collude with social media companies was behind the scenes 
through meetings and emails and was unknown.
    On behalf of Missouri and Louisiana, I was proud to join 
with General Landry to sue the Biden Administration for 
violating the First Amendment through this vast censorship 
enterprise. This lawsuit alleges the Biden Administration, 
including President Biden himself, and Members of his team 
pressured and colluded with social media giants to censor free 
speech in the name of combating so-called disinformation and 
misinformation, which led to the suppression and censorship of 
truthful information on a scale never seen before.
    The lawsuit provides example after example of truthful 
information that was censored by social media companies that 
were admitted at a later date to be truthful or credible, 
including the Hunter Biden laptop story, the COVID-19 lab-leak 
story theory, and the efficacy of masks.
    Discovery obtained by Missouri and Louisiana demonstrated 
the Biden Administration's coordination with social media 
companies and collusion with nonprofits to censor speech was 
far more pervasive and destructive than ever known. Documents 
reveal multiple White House officials, from the former Press 
Secretary to the Digital Director, relentlessly pressuring 
social media companies to remove specific posts or accounts or 
expand censorship practices.
    The White House wanted posts censored from FOX News host 
Tucker Carlson, even though Facebook found that the content did 
not violate its policies. The White House also asked for 
unfavorable news to be put, quote, `` . . . in context with 
specific talking points, along with amplification of Biden 
Administration messaging and FAQs.''
    Missouri and Louisiana also deposed Dr. Anthony Fauci. This 
deposition showed that, when Dr. Fauci spoke, Big Tech 
censored. For example, Dr. Fauci was aware early in the 
pandemic that his agency had funded dangerous gain-of-function 
research on the coronavirus at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. 
He sought to discredit and suppress the theory that COVID-19 
leaked from a lab to deflect blame and avoid potential 
responsibility for the pandemic.
    In his deposition, Dr. Fauci claimed 174 times that he 
could not recall, including about critical details related to 
gain-of-function research and other issues associated with the 
lab-leak theory and the government's response to the pandemic. 
Because of Dr. Fauci's influence, social media platforms 
censored the lab-leak theory and other COVID-19 viewpoints that 
Dr. Fauci and his cabal of experts disfavored.
    Missouri and Louisiana also deposed the FBI agent about the 
Hunter Biden laptop story. This deposition and relevant 
documents reveal that the FBI deliberately planted false 
information about hack and leak operations in advance of the 
Hunter Biden laptop story coming out to deceive social media 
platforms into censoring the Hunter Biden laptop story. The FBI 
also flagged social media accounts for censorship on a monthly 
basis, and have an estimated 50 percent success rate in getting 
reported disinformation removed or censored.
    The Missouri v. Biden lawsuit also obtained documents 
revealing that multiple Federal agencies have pressured and 
colluded with Big Tech or social media companies to flag and 
censor large number of accounts and posts, especially related 
to public health and elections. The Federal government has even 
created public-private partnerships to expand its censorship 
reach.
    Without the Missouri v. Biden lawsuit and the subsequent 
disclosures in the Twitter Files, Americans would have never 
known about the Biden Administration's coordination, collusion, 
and coercion to censor speech. President Biden and his 
Administration may lust for its own ministry of truth, but I 
along with millions of Americans will never stop fighting for 
the God-given right to speak your mind, freedom of expression, 
and freedom of speech.
    Americans have enshrined the First Amendment in our 
Constitution more than 230 years ago for good reason and for 
times such as these. We cannot allow the Biden Administration 
to infringe upon the freedoms that we cherish and that had been 
purchased by the sacrifice of millions of Americans.
    Freedom of speech is vital to our country and our people; 
in many ways, it's our pressure release valve. We must stop the 
Biden Administration's threat to free speech so that America 
can remain the freest country in the history of the world.
    Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    [The prepared statement of the Honorable Senator Schmitt 
follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

    Chair Jordan. Thank you, Senator. I appreciate that.
    Mr. Attorney General, you are recognized for your five 
minutes.

             STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE JEFF LANDRY

    Mr. Landry. Good morning. Thank you, Chair Jordan, Ranking 
Member Plaskett, and the distinguished Members of this Select 
Subcommittee.
    Mr. Chair, I would ask if I could correct the record 
quickly. Ms. Plaskett fails to recognize that I submitted a 
letter on my own condemning all violence, all political 
violence, and urged my colleagues to do the same. Since I would 
remind everyone that violence throughout that past year had 
inflicted a lot of damage on other Federal buildings as well.
    Ms. Plaskett. That's not a correction--
    Mr. Landry. So, I would like to submit that letter for the 
record.
    Voice. The gentlelady is out of order.
    Ms. Plaskett. That's not a correction. I said he refused to 
join the--
    Chair Jordan. The gentlelady has not been recognized. The 
time belongs to the Attorney General from the State of 
Louisiana. Mr. Landry, you can proceed.
    Mr. Landry. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm grateful for the 
opportunity to join Congress today, along with my former 
colleague and now U.S. Senator Schmitt from Missouri and Mr. 
Sauer to discuss the findings of our Federal government 
censorship case, Louisiana and Missouri v. Biden.
    Since I was sworn in as the Attorney General in 2016, I 
have been ringing alarm bells about Big Tech. In fact, in 2018, 
I led a bipartisan discussion of attorney generals about the 
dangers that I saw regarding Big Tech. It was a bipartisan, 
multi-State coalition. Back then, the big story was the 
election of President Trump, and some were quick to blame 
social media platforms, especially Facebook, for enabling fake 
news to spread. Then, social media was actively used to tip the 
scales in President Biden's favor in 2020 by censoring real 
news such as the Hunter Biden laptop story, among others. 
Despite all of this, Federal agencies have been allowed to co-
op these private companies and use social media platforms to 
infringe upon the First Amendment rights of Americans.
    [Slide.]
    Let's look at the COVID-19 pandemic. During that time, 
Facebook had close to three billion users worldwide with 
roughly 124 million in the U.S. alone. In 2021, 66 percent of 
U.S. adults used Facebook while 23 percent used Instagram. Over 
500 million tweets were posted daily during the pandemic by 
more than 340 million users on Twitter.
    On YouTube, roughly, 500 hours of video content were 
uploaded every minute with more than four billion hours of 
video viewed each month. More than 72 percent of U.S. adults 
used the platform.
    Why is this important? Because our lawsuit has uncovered a 
censorship enterprise that spans numerous government 
institutions and all major social media platforms. That 
censorship enterprise has been widely successful in achieving 
its goals.
    White House Director of Digital Strategy Robert Flaherty 
was impressed when YouTube reported their success in reducing 
watch time of borderline content by 70 percent. This is what we 
found in our case. The FBI claims a success rate of 50 percent 
in getting platforms to censor content flagged as 
misinformation. The election integrity partnership now known as 
the virology project bragged that four major platforms, they 
worked with all had high response rates, and that 35 percent of 
URL shared with Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, and 
YouTube were either labeled, removed, or soft-blocked.
    As a result of this collusion between social media 
companies and the CDC, NIH, NIAID, American citizens, 
scientists, and journalists were shadow-banned, censored, 
silenced, and deplatformed for their valid concern about 
lockdowns, masks, COVID vaccines, and more.
    Robert Kennedy, Jr., the nephew of a President, the son of 
the former U.S. Attorney General of this country, the nephew of 
a distinguished U.S. Senator, who by the way was a Democrat, 
was censored. Tucker Carlson, who hosted the top-rated prime-
time television news, was also censored, as so were millions of 
Americans while deceitful and manipulative voices like Dr. 
Anthony Fauci were elevated. This censorship enterprise knows 
no bounds. It's not limited in scope to COVID-19 or elections. 
Yet, many of the Committee Members will sit here today and say, 
what can we do?
    I say bring the Federal government to heel. No one in this 
Chamber, no one in this Chamber, on both sides of the aisle, 
should be opposed to that.
    I applaud this body's efforts and the Chair for passing The 
Protecting Speech and Government Interference Act. However, I 
would offer that it just doesn't go far enough. I would ask 
those on the left to join in making it tougher.
    The time has come when we must hold Federal employees, 
contractors, and Federal actors accountable by terminating both 
their jobs and their retirement for violating the First 
Amendment of American citizens. If they participate in 
violating American citizens' First Amendment rights and that's 
what a court finds, then those are the penalties that should be 
imposed.
    This Chamber should also draft legislation that will open 
the pathway for legal liability for such conduct so that 
American citizens have a right of action against their own 
government in protecting their--and I will repeat ``their''--
First Amendment rights. There must be a penalty, or this 
problem will never be solved.
    If you would like to understand exactly how bad this 
problem has become, I invite you to read our satirical 
pamphlet, ``The Censorship Enterprise: The Future is Now,'' 
which is basically the Federal government's guide to limiting 
disfavored speech. If you're not disturbed by that document, 
you are either complicit or contributing to the problem. Know 
that the State of Louisiana and Missouri are fighting back 
against this vast government censorship in our Federal courts 
today. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    [The prepared statement of the Honorable Landry follows:]
    [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Chair Jordan. Thank you, Attorney General Landry. We 
appreciate your coming here and testifying today as well.
    Senator Schmitt, we'll let you move on to your other 
responsibilities, and we'll get back to our next witnesses. 
Thank you both for your leadership.
    Mr. Lynch. A point of order, Mr. Chair.
    Senator Schmitt. Thank you.
    Chair Jordan. The gentleman is recognized for a point of 
order. If he will State his point of order.
    Mr. Lynch. Mr. Chair, these witnesses are being dismissed 
without the ability to cross-examine their statements. They 
have made some outlandish allegations here. Consistent with the 
work of this Committee, especially this Select Committee, and 
Congressional hearings in general, we should have the ability 
to question their statements.
    Chair Jordan. Yes, it is a longstanding practice of the 
Committee to, when you have our colleagues from the other side 
of the aisle and other officials, to let them testify and--
    Mr. Lynch. No, no, no, no, no. These witnesses--Mr. Chair, 
these witnesses were direct witnesses to the cases that they 
brought. When we bring in our colleagues from the Senate and 
other colleagues from the House, we extend them a courtesy. 
Many times, we do not even swear them; we do not require them 
to take an oath. We allow their testimony in a ceremonial or in 
a nonsubstantive way.
    These two witnesses have just presented evidence that I 
think in part is false. I would like the opportunity to cross-
examine those witnesses. If this--
    Chair Jordan. Those witnesses aren't here--
    Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. Mr. Chair, a point of order--
    Chair Jordan. You will get a chance to cross-examine Mr. 
Sauer. You have not--
    Mr. Lynch. Reclaiming my--
    Chair Jordan. --point of order here. I will recognize the 
gentleman from Louisiana.
    Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. Mr. Chair, isn't it true that, 
even in recent--
    Mr. Lynch. Reclaiming my time.
    Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. No. You are not recognized, sir. 
Isn't it true that even in--
    Mr. Lynch. Yes, I am. I was recognized. He did recognize 
me.
    Chair Jordan. A point of order, I am now recognizing Mr. 
Johnson because you are not stating your point of order any 
longer; you are making a speech.
    Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. My point of order, Mr. Chair, is 
to recall--isn't it true that, in recent days, even colleagues 
like Congressman Jamie Raskin presented testimony that was 
pretty salacious and was allowed to leave the room, and we were 
not allowed to cross-examine him, too? Isn't that true?
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Mr. Chair, in response to the 
gentleman--
    Chair Jordan. The Committee will abide by the custom of the 
House--
    Ms. Sanchez. A point of order. Salacious has to do with 
sexual content, and I don't think that our colleague, Mr. 
Raskin, presented salacious comment. I would ask that--
    Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. Well, let's call it outrageous 
then. I'll use the same term that my colleague did.
    Ms. Sanchez. I ask that word be taken down because it's 
false.
    Chair Jordan. I think the--
    Ms. Sanchez. Debate on--
    Chair Jordan. The gentleman from Louisiana--
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Mr. Chair--
    Chair Jordan. The gentleman from Louisiana said it was not 
salacious; it was outrageous. He changed the term. We will now 
get to--
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Mr. Chair, in debate on the point of 
order, please. The phrase--
    Chair Jordan. The gentlelady from Florida is recognized.
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Thank you very much. The Attorney 
General is not--Mr. Landry is not a Member of Congress, is not 
extended--entitled to an extension of courtesy that we give to 
some of our colleagues or even former colleagues. He is the 
Attorney General--
    Chair Jordan. We extended the same--I would just say to the 
gentlelady from Florida, we extended the same courtesy to 
Attorney General Landry, former Member of the United States 
Congress--
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Mr. Raskin was a Member--
    Chair Jordan. --that we extended to Tulsi Gabbard, former 
Member of the United States Congress--
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. That was a Member panel. Mr. Chair?
    Chair Jordan. The Chair now recognizes Mr. Sauer for his 
five minutes of testimony.
    Mr. Lynch. Mr. Chair, on the point of order. At least if 
we're not going to have the ability to cross-examine, I would 
move that we move to strike the testimony provided by Senator 
Schmitt and Attorney General Landry. If we're not going to 
observe--
    Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. Do you mean you want to censor 
it? Do you want to censor their testimony.
    Mr. Lynch. I want to strike it. I want to strike it. I want 
to strike it.
    If we aren't able to probe the veracity of their 
statements, the truthfulness of their statements--
    Chair Jordan. You will be given your five minutes here when 
we get to the five-minutes of questioning. I have--
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. I understand that.
    Mr. Lynch. They're not here.
    Chair Jordan. Be able to--
    Mr. Lynch. They have scurried away with your complicity. 
They refused to defend--
    Chair Jordan. They have not scurried away. They were--
    Mr. Lynch. In a country of 330 million--
    Chair Jordan. Dismissed like all witnesses.
    The Chair recognizes Mr. Sauer for his five minutes of 
testimony.
    Mr. Lynch. --you couldn't find two people to defend their 
statements.
    That's pretty disgraceful.
    Chair Jordan. Mr. Sauer, you are recognized.
    Ms. Sanchez. If allowing them to leave is not 
weaponization, I don't know what is, Mr. Chair--
    Chair Jordan. Oh, yes, yes, right.
    Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. Thank you all for illustrating 
our point. Thank you.
    Ms. Sanchez. --at least the power of weaponization.
    Chair Jordan. The gentleman may proceed.
    Mr. Sauer. Mr. Chair, Ranking Member Plaskett--
    Mr. Lynch. Mr. Chair, I move to adjourn. I move to adjourn. 
I move to adjourn.
    Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. The gentleman is not recognized.
    Mr. Lynch. This is mockery and a disgrace. It is shameful 
that the--
    Chair Jordan. The gentleman, Mr. Sauer, is recognized for 
hisfive minutes of testimony.
    Mr. Lynch. There's a motion on the floor to adjourn.
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Motion to adjourn.
    Mr. Lynch. It is not debatable.
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. It's not debatable.
    Mr. Lynch. If you don't know the rules of the Committee, 
then talk to your parliamentarian.
    Chair Jordan. Well, you were recognized for your motion.
    Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. Nor are you following the rules 
of the Committee.
    Chair Jordan. Mr. Sauer is recognized for five minutes.
    Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. You can't speak out of order.
    Ms. Plaskett. What are you doing? What are doing? You are 
out of order.
    Chair Jordan. Mr. Sauer, you can proceed.
    Ms. Plaskett. Your--

                    STATEMENT OF JOHN SAUER

    Mr. Sauer. Mr. Chair, Ranking Member Plaskett, and Members 
of the Subcommittee, imagine a world where White House 
officials email The New York Times' editorial board when the 
paper runs a story criticizing the President. They abuse the 
paper in profane language and demand that it immediately pulls 
the offending story from its website while the White House 
publicly threatens devastating legal consequences if the paper 
doesn't comply, and it does.
    Imagine a world where the FBI every month sends all the 
major booksellers in the United States an encrypted list of the 
books that the FBI wants them to pull from their shelves that 
month and burn, and the booksellers comply by burning at least 
half of those books.
    Ms. Garcia. Out of order.
    Mr. Sauer. Imagine a world where a Federal National 
Security Agency teams up with a major research university to 
establish a mass surveillance program of ordinary Americans' 
political thoughts and opinions. They use swarms of analysts 
and cutting-edge technology to monitor hundreds of millions of 
domestic political communications in real time and covertly 
censor millions of them.
    These three scenarios do not come from a hypothetical 
dystopian future. The first two are very similar to what 
Federal officials are doing with social media platforms now. 
The third scenario is not hypothetical at all. That mass 
surveillance and mass censorship program started operating in 
2020.
    Last July, the plaintiffs in Louisiana and Missouri v. 
Biden received a limited discovery of communications about 
censorship between Federal officials and social media 
platforms. What we obtained was astonishing, staggering, and 
horrifying.
    A veritable army of Federal officials, pressures, 
threatens, coerces, colludes with, demands, and deceives social 
media platforms to censor online speech.
    Our evidence shows White House officials badgering social 
media platforms in private to censor speech that contradicts 
the White House's preferred narratives while the President 
publicly accuses them of, quote, ``killing people by not 
censoring enough of ordinary American speech.'' The President's 
spokespeople raised the specter of crippling legal consequences 
if they don't comply. One major platform responds to White 
House demands by assuring them: ``We hear your call to do 
more.''
    It scrambles the carry out, quote, ``what the White House 
expects from us on misinformation going forward.''
    Our evidence shows Federal officials routinely flagging 
social media posts by ordinary Americans for censorship. It 
shows Federal officials orchestrating elaborate plots of 
deception to dupe platforms into censoring disfavored speech. 
It shows Federal officials engaging in seemingly endless 
meetings with the content-moderation officers of major 
platforms to discuss disinformation and censorship. It shows 
Federal officials serving as privileged fact-checkers with 
effective authority to dictate what Americans can and cannot 
say on matters of immense public importance on social media. It 
shows Federal officials relentlessly pressuring social media 
platforms by threatening them with ruinous legal consequences 
if they do not cave to the Federal demands for censorship.
    Truth is not the goal of this Federal censorship 
enterprise. The censors have been proven wrong again and again, 
including on politically seismic issues. Each time the censors 
are proven wrong, the censorship has continued unabated, and it 
expands. That is because now, as in every time other time in 
human history, the goal of censorship is not to promote truth; 
it's to obtain, preserve, and expand political power.
    Censorship is not necessary to protect Americans' lives, 
security, or democracy. Systematically violating the most basic 
civil right of millions of Americans does not make Americans 
safer or healthier. Federal censorship is not democratic. It 
stifles the voices of ordinary Americans in places that 
channels a public debate under command and control of elites. 
Censorship inflicts lasting harm on Americans by impeding the 
pursuit of truth in a free marketplace of ideas.
    The Supreme Court describes social media as the modern 
public square. For years, Federal officials have been 
perpetrating a hostile takeover of that modern public square. 
This hostile takeover has largely succeeded. Congress should 
take swift action to banish the Federal censors and restore the 
freedom of speech to social media. I welcome the Subcommittee's 
questions.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Sauer follows:]
    [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    A complete statement with supplemental material is provided 
by John Sauer, Special Assistant Attorney General, Louisiana 
Department of Justice is available at: https://docs.house.gov/
meetings/FD/FD00/20230330/115611/HHRG-118-FD00-Wstate-SauerJ-
20230330.pdf.
    Chair Jordan. Thank you, Mr. Sauer.
    Mr. Seligman, you are recognized for five minutes.

                 STATEMENT OF MATTHEW SELIGMAN

    Mr. Seligman. Mr. Chair, Ranking Member Plaskett, and 
Members of the Committee, the focus of today's hearing is 
allegations of censorship by social media platforms purportedly 
at the direction of the Federal government.
    Once again, it bears repeating: The First Amendment applies 
to governmental restrictions of speech, not private conduct.
    The plaintiffs in Missouri v. Biden instead argue that the 
Federal government coerced those platforms into censoring 
disfavored speech through the application of the platform's own 
content-moderation policies.
    For reasons I detail in my written testimony, that 
contention lacks a reasonable basis in law and fact. In short, 
governmental officials offered their suggestions to platforms 
about misinformation, and no threat of adverse governmental 
action ever attached to whether those platforms took those 
suggestions or not.
    Social media platforms' content-moderation decisions have 
always rested and remain with the platforms themselves. By 
attacking those platforms' attempts to combat misinformation, 
the plaintiffs in cases like Missouri v. Biden, do disservice 
to the principles of free speech that they claim to support, 
and they invite the grave consequences of misinformation that 
they seek to spread themselves unchecked.
    It is perhaps not a coincidence that the proponents of 
measures that would handicap social media platforms' efforts to 
combat misinformation are often prolific purveyors of 
misinformation themselves.
    Senator Schmitt and Attorney General Landry, who just 
testified, filed a brief in the Supreme Court supporting the 
suit by the State of Texas seeking to block the counting of 
electoral votes from four States that President Biden won. Over 
a hundred Members of Congress, including Members of this 
Committee today, also filed briefs supporting that suit.
    Texas' complaint included a fantastical claim that the 
statistical likelihood that President Biden fairly won the 2020 
election was less than one in quadrillion. That is false.
    Members of this Committee have claimed that Dominion voting 
machines fraudulently flipped votes from Trump to Biden. That 
is false.
    Members of this Committee have claimed that thousands of 
ballots were cast on behalf of dead and unqualified voters. 
That is false.
    Members of this Committee have claimed that election 
workers around the country counted fake or fraudulent votes. 
That is false.
    On October 19, 2020, Chair Jordan tweeted that Democrats 
are trying to steal the election after the election. That is 
false.
    Lies like these corrode Americans' faith in the integrity 
of our elections and democracy. Those elections are, without 
question, fundamentally sound. These falsehoods form the 
foundation of an unprecedented effort to reverse the results of 
a Presidential election. They are just a drop in the bucket, a 
drop in the ocean of the flood of lies that flooded social 
media in the weeks and months after the 2020 Presidential 
election.
    This is not idle political theatre. Across the country, 
election workers have been targeted by extremists with threats 
of horrific violence as retaliation for their alleged 
complicity in a stolen election.
    Just over two years ago, a violent mob stormed the Capitol 
Building in an attempt to disrupt Congress' count of electoral 
votes. Some in that mob elected gallows on the steps of the 
Capitol not far from where we sit today.
    After the Vice President honorably confirmed that he would 
abide by his constitutional duty, some in that mob chanted 
``Hang Mike Pence.'' They did so because someone told them the 
lie that the election was stolen. They did so because someone 
told them the lie that Vice President Pence had the power to 
reverse the results.
    Whether or not our Constitution and our fidelity to the 
principles of the First Amendment permits us to punish or 
prosecute those who told those lies, surely, we can recognize 
the damage done. Surely, we can recognize that the social media 
platforms, which now serve as the main channels of 
misinformation, need all the help they can get in combating it.
    It is both constitutional and consonant with the principles 
of the First Amendment for government experts to help social 
media networks in identifying misinformation and to encourage 
those networks to stop spreading it and amplifying it.
    I welcome the Committee's questions.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Seligman follows:]
    [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Chair Jordan. I thank the gentleman for his testimony.
    The Chair now recognizes the gentlelady from New York, Ms. 
Stefanik.
    Ms. Stefanik. Mr. Seligman, isn't it true that Democrats 
objected to President George W. Bush's victory in 2000 on the 
House floor?
    Mr. Seligman. Yes, it is.
    Ms. Stefanik. Isn't it true that Democrats objected to 
President George W. Bush's victory in 2004?
    Mr. Seligman. Yes.
    Ms. Stefanik. I yield the remainder of my time to Mr. 
Johnson.
    Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. I thank the gentlelady.
    The irony is so thick in the room today that you could cut 
it with a knife. First, the Democrats' sole witness is this 
gentleman that comes to us from the Constitutional Law Center 
at Stanford Law School where, less than two weeks ago, the dean 
had to order mandatory training in the First Amendment to 
faculty and students after her apology for the debacle of them 
shouting down a Fifth Circuit Appellate Court judge. Were you 
present for that event?
    Mr. Seligman. No, I was not.
    Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. OK. Well, and you just told us we 
basically--that the media networks need to censor viewpoints 
you disagree with. It's unbelievable.
    The other irony is that our Louisiana Attorney General Jeff 
Landry just explained to us in detail and put on a brilliant 
presentation with all the evidence pointing out that there is 
literally a censorship enterprise now in the Biden 
Administration. Not five minutes later, our colleagues over 
here objected and wanted to strike his testimony as being too 
objectionable. I mean, we're illustrating the point right here 
as all of you talk.
    Many actors in the Biden Administration, many of them, have 
and continue to harass and pressure social media companies to 
censor COVID-19 content. That's just one of the subcategories 
here that I wanted to drill down on. That doesn't align with 
their chosen narrative because, when people talk about the 
origins or the effectiveness of lockdowns or the mass mandates, 
et cetera, the benefits of natural immunity, they wanted to 
censor and silence that, and they did.
    Through the great work, Mr. Sauer, of you and many others 
in the States of Louisiana and Missouri, we now know that there 
was a coordinated campaign of both public and private pressure 
against the social media platforms. Who did it come from, as 
you pointed out? President Biden himself, Senior White House 
staff, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the 
CDC. They targeted opposing COVID-19 viewpoints. They targeted 
the viewpoints, folks. If you're watching at home, they volume-
censored you, they turned you down, and they kicked people off 
the platforms because they said things that went against the 
Administration's narrative.
    One piece of COVID information that President Biden's 
Administration labeled as misinformation was the belief that 
the virus originated from a lab in China. We now know that is 
no longer just a theory; it's likely true, as some of the 
agencies of the government have had to admit now.
    Dr. Fauci himself was instrumental in contradicting the 
lab-leak discourse from the very beginning of the pandemic. 
Listen--everybody needs to pay attention to this--he 
commissioned a research paper to discredit the theory. Can you 
please share with us what his interest was in covering up the 
lab-leak theory, Mr. Sauer? What do you think about that?
    Mr. Sauer. Thank you, Congressman. The evidence in our case 
indicates that, going back to 2011, Dr. Fauci had been a public 
advocate in favor of gain-of-function research; that starting 
at least in 2014. NIAID, under his direction, had publicly 
funded gain-of-function research on bat coronaviruses in the 
Wuhan Institute of Virology, and that, in early 2020, when the 
virus was new, he became aware from briefings from his staff 
and emails from Jeremy Farrar of the Wellcome Institute in the 
United Kingdom that there was a grave risk that the virus had, 
in fact, leaked from that institution where NIAID-funded 
research--gain of function on viruses had been conducted. You 
see an elaborate plot, a deceptive plot to try to discredit 
that theory at that time.
    Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. NIAID was his agency. When he was 
asked at a White House briefing about this report that he 
commissioned, he claimed he was unfamiliar with the authors of 
the study, even though he was instrumental in every single step 
of its creation. I have a video if we can play that really 
quickly. We'll look at it in his own words. Go ahead.
    [Video played.]
    Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. All right. While they're trying 
to fix that, what Dr. Fauci says there, in his own words, is 
that he has no idea anything about the authors of the study, 
even though he is the one that orchestrated the whole thing.
    When he was asked in a deposition about his role in 
suppressing the lab-leak origin theory, among other things, he 
said--and we have another video, it's not going to work, I'm--
he said 300-something times that he doesn't recall, or he 
doesn't remember. He isn't the only bad actor.
    Mr. Sauer, can you please elaborate on the ripple effects 
of President Biden publicly saying social media companies are 
``killing'' people by failing to remove COVID information that 
his party disagrees with?
    Mr. Sauer. Yes, Congressman. Our evidence indicates that 
was a critical watershed in the Biden Administration's pressure 
campaign to attack Facebook, in particular, but also social 
media platforms in 2021. What you see is these amazing emails 
right after that July 16, 2021, comment from President Biden 
that they're ``killing people'' from very senior Facebook C-
suite Facebook executives desperately scrambling to get back in 
the White House's good graces and assuring them: ``We will do 
what you want.'' We won't carry out, quote, ``what the White 
House expects of us on misinformation going forward.''
    Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. It has an incredible effect of 
chilling the speech of Americans.
    I yield back.
    Chair Jordan. The gentleman's time has expired. The Chair 
now recognizes the gentleman from Massachusetts, Mr. Lynch.
    Mr. Lynch. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    Chair Jordan. You bet.
    Mr. Lynch. First, I want to correct the statement my 
colleague made that my objections were to the substance or 
content of the two witnesses that are now departed.
    My objection, as I had stated before, was that, if we are 
not going to observe the right to cross-examine witnesses that 
are providing substantive testimony before this Committee, then 
we should strike that. That is the practice in Federal courts 
when much is at stake. It is a device that ensures that, when 
people take a stand and offer evidence, that we can test the 
veracity of their statements. That is not the case in this 
hearing.
    The Chair and the majority have chosen to allow witnesses 
to offer substantive testimony here and then have allowed them 
to scurry away and not face cross-examination or the testing of 
the statements they have made.
    It's ironic that we began this hearing with a Pledge of 
Allegiance. We all stood and put our hands on our hearts and 
looked at the flag. Then we turned around, and we eviscerated 
the very process here that would protect rights, protect the 
integrity of this hearing to illicit the truth and to test the 
statements and testimony that are brought before us.
    This is such a departure, this is such a departure from 
regular order and the usual process of Congressional hearings 
that I'm compelled to strike that, to ask to strike that 
testimony because it's not worth anything if it can't be 
tested.
    Congress or the American people should not be able to rely 
on that information if it is not tested, not truthful. So, Mr. 
Chair, I resume my motion to adjourn, and I ask for a recorded 
vote.
    Chair Jordan. The gentleman moves to adjourn.
    The Committee will suspend while we prepare to have the 
clerk call the roll.
    Ms. Plaskett. Mr. Chair, may the time be suspended please 
for--
    Chair Jordan. It is suspended.
    Ms. Plaskett. The clock is going down.
    Chair Jordan. Yes, we will hold the time for Mr. Lynch.
    Ms. Plaskett. Thank you.
    Chair Jordan. We'll get the clerk out here, and we'll call 
the vote.
    Mr. Issa. Mr. Chair, point of query.
    Chair Jordan. The gentleman from California is recognized.
    Mr. Issa. Mr. Chair, I've testified before Committee even 
during the two-years I was out of Congress, and you and I have 
been here for more than a decade together. Have we ever cross-
examined a current U.S. Senator who testified before any 
Committee that you or I were on?
    Chair Jordan. No, we have not.
    Mr. Lynch. Mr. Chair, this is debating the point of order.
    Mr. Issa. No, it was a point of inquiry. I just asked the 
question of the Chair.
    Chair Jordan. The clerk will call the roll on the 
gentleman's motion from Massachusetts.
    Ms. Bidelman. Mr. Jordan?
    Chair Jordan. No.
    Ms. Bidelman. Mr. Jordan votes no.
    Mr. Issa?
    Mr. Issa. No.
    Ms. Bidelman. Mr. Issa votes no.
    Mr. Massie?
    Mr. Massie. No.
    Ms. Bidelman. Mr. Massie votes no.
    Mr. Stewart.
    [No response.]
    Ms. Bidelman. Ms. Stefanik.
    Ms. Stefanik. No.
    Ms. Bidelman. Ms. Stefanik votes no.
    Mr. Gaetz?
    Mr. Gaetz. No.
    Ms. Bidelman. Mr. Gaetz votes no.
    Mr. Johnson of Louisiana?
    Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. No.
    Ms. Bidelman. Mr. Johnson of Louisiana votes no.
    Mr. Armstrong?
    Mr. Armstrong. No.
    Ms. Bidelman. Mr. Armstrong votes no.
    Mr. Steube?
    Mr. Steube. No.
    Ms. Bidelman. Mr. Steube votes no.
    Mr. Bishop?
    Mr. Bishop. No.
    Ms. Bidelman. Mr. Bishop votes no.
    Ms. Cammack?
    Ms. Cammack. No.
    Ms. Bidelman. Ms. Cammack votes no.
    Ms. Hageman?
    Ms. Hageman. No.
    Ms. Bidelman. Ms. Hageman votes no.
    Ms. Plaskett?
    [No response.]
    Ms. Bidelman. Mr. Lynch?
    Mr. Lynch. Yes.
    Ms. Bidelman. Mr. Lynch votes yes.
    Ms. Sanchez?
    Ms. Sanchez. Aye.
    Ms. Bidelman. Ms. Sanchez votes aye.
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz?
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Aye.
    Ms. Bidelman. Ms. Wasserman Schultz says aye.
    Mr. Connolly?
    Mr. Connolly. Aye.
    Ms. Bidelman. Mr. Connolly votes aye.
    Mr. Garamendi?
    [No response.]
    Ms. Bidelman. Mr. Allred.
    [No response.]
    Ms. Bidelman. Ms. Garcia?
    Ms. Garcia. Aye.
    Ms. Bidelman. Ms. Garcia says aye.
    Mr. Goldman?
    Mr. Goldman. Aye.
    Ms. Bidelman. Mr. Goldman votes aye.
    Ms. Plaskett. Mr. Chair, how am I recorded?
    Ms. Bidelman. Ms. Plaskett, you are not recorded.
    Ms. Plaskett. I vote aye.
    Ms. Bidelman. Ms. Plaskett votes aye.
    Mr. Stewart, you are not recorded.
    Mr. Stewart. I vote no.
    Ms. Bidelman. Mr. Stewart votes no.
    Chair Jordan. All members voted. The clerk will report.
    Ms. Bidelman. Mr. Chair, there are 7 ayes and 12 noes.
    Chair Jordan. The motion fails.
    The gentleman is recognized for the remainder of his five 
minutes of questions.
    Ms. Garcia. Point of inquiry.
    Chair Jordan. The gentlelady is recognized from Texas.
    Ms. Garcia. Mr. Chair, I think we need to unconfuse the 
record. I mean, sometimes I hear you talk about Mr. Landry is 
appearing as a former Member of Congress, and sometimes I hear 
you saying he is--was Louisiana Attorney General.
    Chair Jordan. So, those are both true statements.
    Ms. Garcia. Those are true statements, but in what capacity 
was he testifying today?
    Chair Jordan. He is testifying--
    Ms. Garcia. As a former Member or as an elected State 
official?
    Chair Jordan. He was testifying as a witness in front of 
the Subcommittee of the Weaponization of Government.
    The gentleman from Massachusetts for his two minutes and 17 
seconds remaining in his five minutes of questioning.
    Ms. Garcia. In what capacity, sir?
    Chair Jordan. The gentleman from Massachusetts is 
recognized.
    Ms. Garcia. Mr. Chair, I should get an answer in what 
capacity he was here?
    Chair Jordan. He was in the capacity of a witness in front 
of our Committee. That was his capacity.
    Ms. Garcia. Attorney general?
    Chair Jordan. Yes, the gentleman from Massachusetts is 
recognized.
    Ms. Garcia. So, is the precedent now set that any State 
official can come--
    Chair Jordan. The precedent is now set that the gentleman 
from Massachusetts is recognized for the remainder of his five 
minutes of questioning.
    Ms. Garcia. Mr. Chair, I would--
    Mr. Lynch. Regular order.
    Mr. Seligman, in the Missouri v. Biden complaint, today's 
witnesses who are now departed claimed that a February 2022 
Department of Homeland Security threat bulletin somehow harmed 
them by warning that online disinformation could lead to real 
physical threats.
    I ask unanimous consent to introduce this February 7, 2022, 
National Terrorism Advisory System Bulletin--
    Chair Jordan. Without objection.
    Mr. Lynch. Mr. Seligman, this warning who obviously was not 
farfetched, as evidenced by the events of January 6th. Members 
of the extremist groups like Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers, and 
Three Percenters did not hesitate in calling for perpetrating 
violence on the basis of false or misleading election fraud 
narratives. We need only to remember the chants of ``Hang Mike 
Pence'' outside this U.S. Capitol.
    I would also underscore that more than 60 lawsuits brought 
by President Trump and his supporters, especially Rudy 
Giuliani, following the 2020 Presidential election failed 
because they lacked evidence to support them.
    Professor Seligman, do you agree that false or misleading 
narratives about the substance of election fraud could lead to 
calls for violence around elections?
    Mr. Seligman. Yes, I do.
    Mr. Lynch. Professor Seligman, the witnesses that were 
sitting next to you seem to think that it is censorship for DHS 
to warn that online disinformation could lead to election 
violence.
    Could you walk us through how disinformation can lead to 
that election violence?
    Mr. Seligman. Yes, Mr. Lynch.
    So, if 100 million people see a false claim about voter 
fraud or election interference on a social media website, some 
number of those 100 million people may become outraged to a 
degree that they are willing to commit acts of violence.
    That's exactly what we saw in the aftermath of the 2020 
election, that these false narratives, these false statements 
of fact about the integrity of the election in 2020 were 
propagated.
    Millions, hundreds of millions of people saw them, and some 
small number of those people took matters into their own hands 
and committed acts of violence that the Members of this 
Committee have seen.
    Mr. Lynch. Mr. Chair, my time is expired. I yield back.
    Chair Jordan. The gentleman yields back.
    I would point out that last Congress the Democrats ran a 
Committee in that Congress for a year and a half which gave no 
ability to the Republicans to cross-examine one single witness.
    So, we do believe the ability to cross-examine is 
important. We also believe in following the customs.
    Mr. Lynch. That's false.
    Chair Jordan. Mr. Sauer--
    Mr. Goldman. You couldn't question witnesses at a hearing?
    Chair Jordan. Mr. Sauer--
    Mr. Goldman. You were not allowed to question witnesses at 
a hearing. Is that what you're saying?
    Chair Jordan. Mr. Sauer, you deposed Dr. Fauci?
    Ms. Sanchez. Point of order. Mr. Chair, could you clarify 
that statement? Because I find it incredibly hard to believe.
    Mr. Gaetz. Point of order. That's not a point of order.
    Ms. Sanchez. What basis in fact do you have for making that 
assertion?
    Chair Jordan. The gentlelady does not State a point of 
order.
    I'm going to--the Chair now recognizes himself for his five 
minutes of questions.
    Ms. Sanchez. Are we just here to allege wild accusations 
that have no factual thing to pick it up?
    Chair Jordan. Mr. Sauer.
    The gentlewoman has not been recognized.
    I would like--Mr. Sauer, you deposed Dr. Fauci last fall?
    Mr. Sauer. Correct.
    Chair Jordan. In that deposition, you asked him the 
question, you said: ``Is it important for people to have access 
to both sides of the debate so they can assess what's good 
information and what's bad information?'' You remember that 
question you asked Dr. Fauci?
    Mr. Sauer. Yes, Representative.
    Chair Jordan. Here was his response. He said, Dr. Fauci 
said:

        Well, you know, it depends. If information is clearly 
        inadequate and statistically not sound, there can be a danger 
        in people who don't have the ability or the experience to 
        understand.

    Mr. Sauer, do you forfeit your First Amendment rights if 
you can't tell good information from bad information?
    Mr. Sauer. Absolutely not.
    Chair Jordan. That's not how our First Amendment works, is 
it?
    Mr. Sauer. You're correct.
    Chair Jordan. You need to turn your mike on, if you can, 
Mr. Sauer.
    Is the First Amendment only those people who have the 
ability or experience to understand?
    Mr. Sauer. No. It is for all Americans.
    Chair Jordan. All Americans, all 330 million of us. Is that 
right?
    Mr. Sauer. That's correct.
    Chair Jordan. Not just for the special people, not just for 
the super smart people like Dr. Fauci who worked 40 years in 
our government, highest paid guy, not just for them. It's for 
all of us, right?
    Mr. Sauer. Absolutely right.
    Chair Jordan. Even if, maybe, you don't know the difference 
sometimes between what's good or bad information, you still 
have your First Amendment liberties under our Constitution?
    Mr. Sauer. Both to hear and to speak, absolutely.
    Chair Jordan. Exactly right.
    By the way, when you deposed Dr. Fauci, how many times did 
he happen to say he didn't know or couldn't remember?
    Mr. Sauer. He said, ``I do not recall,'' or variations 
thereof, 174 times, and adding in variations of ``I don't 
remember'' at least 212 times.
    Chair Jordan. Wow. Smartest man on the planet couldn't 
remember 212 times?
    Mr. Sauer. He couldn't remember things, including things 
that he had told the national media, quote, ``I remember it 
very well,'' that he would say 16 times, ``I don't recall 
details of that meeting.''
    Chair Jordan. Now, you were near the top of your class at 
Harvard Law School, Rhodes Scholar. Is that right, Mr. Sauer?
    Mr. Sauer. I've submitted a biographical statement.
    Chair Jordan. Yes. Well, I looked at your biography. It's 
pretty impressive.
    Is that pretty high? You've done a lot of depositions. 
You've done a lot of legal work. You've deposed a lot of 
people. Is 212 times pretty high?
    Mr. Sauer. I've taken dozens of depositions. I've never 
seen anything like it, including in this case where other 
Federal government witnesses frequently profess inability to 
recall.
    Chair Jordan. So, the guy who told us all these things, who 
is the smartest man on the planet, he set a record, highest 
you've ever seen in not--couldn't recall, didn't remember?
    Mr. Sauer. I've never seen anything like that.
    Chair Jordan. OK. Page 4 of your testimony, you talk about 
the ``Censorship Enterprise.'' You give a bunch of facts and 
numbers here. You said Twitter disclosed that 84 government 
officials communicated with them--or as Mr. Seligman said, 
``gave them suggestions''--84 Federal officials gave Twitter 
suggestions on tweets and things to take down, 45 officials in 
the Federal government told the same thing to Facebook.
    Is that right?
    Mr. Sauer. They discussed disinformation and censorship 
with those officials.
    Chair Jordan. Yes. A handful of Federal agencies handed 
over 20,000 pages of documents in the communications they had 
had with these big-tech companies. Again, just suggestions, 
though, according to Mr. Seligman. Twenty White House officials 
were involved in these suggestions to these social media 
platforms.
    Mr. Sauer. That's conservative. It's probably higher.
    Chair Jordan. Yes. FBI Agent Elvis Chan testified the FBI 
alone sends encrypted lists to social media accounts sometimes 
containing hundreds of accounts and URLs in each list to 
platforms for censorship one to five times per month, 500 times 
a month, five hundred different email address--or websites, 
everything else they're sending to these social media 
platforms, the FBI. Mr. Seligman says, don't worry, that's not 
a problem with the First Amendment, that's a suggestion.
    Mr. Sauer. Yes, over the course of years that's been 
occurring.
    Chair Jordan. The Election Integrity Partnership, a 
censorship consortium of academics, think tanks, Federal, State 
government officials, social media platforms, both said it 
surveilled 859 million tweets, 21,897,364 tweets on ``tickets'' 
as ``misinformation.``
    Is that right?
    Mr. Sauer. That's correct.
    Chair Jordan. You learned this in your discovery in your 
lawsuit so far?
    Mr. Sauer. Correct, Your Honor--or Representative.
    Chair Jordan. The Virality Project, a mass surveillance and 
censorship operation conducted by the EIP, has done over 200--
6.7 million engagements on social media, 200 million.
    Now, let me just ask you this. Were most of those targets 
toward conservatives?
    Mr. Sauer. Virtually everything we've seen in evidence so 
far, or at least the vast majority of what we've seen so far, 
is conservative, right-leaning speech.
    Chair Jordan. You would be just as outraged--I read your 
testimony--you'd be just as outraged if it was the other way 
around, right?
    Mr. Sauer. Absolutely, because--
    Chair Jordan. Same here. Same here. Because the First 
Amendment, again, is not just for some people, not just for one 
political persuasion, not just for the so-called smart people 
like Dr. Fauci. It's for 330-some million Americans. That's how 
our Constitution works.
    Is that right, Mr. Sauer?
    Mr. Sauer. Every single American.
    Chair Jordan. I thank the gentleman for his answers.
    Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. Mr. Chair, I have a unanimous 
consent request.
    Chair Jordan. The gentleman from Louisiana is recognized.
    Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. I seek unanimous consent to enter 
into the record a letter dated January 12, 2021, by Louisiana 
Attorney General Jeff Landry, where he decries all political 
violence and calls for an end to that and asks for respect for 
all political viewpoints.
    Chair Jordan. Without objection, so entered.
    Ms. Plaskett. Another thing we can't examine because he's 
not here. Very good.
    Chair Jordan. No, you can examine it. It's a document. He's 
going to enter it into the record.
    Ms. Plaskett. No, examine him for what he wrote and the 
intent behind what he said. OK.
    Chair Jordan. Well, I would just point out that's--
unanimous consents are for documents, and we've got the 
document right here that he handed to you.
    Ms. Sanchez. Mr. Chair, I would ask unanimous consent--
    Chair Jordan. The Chair now recognizes Ms. Wasserman 
Schultz for her five minutes.
    Ms. Sanchez. Mr. Chair, I have a unanimous consent request, 
Mr. Chair.
    Chair Jordan. Pardon?
    Ms. Sanchez. I have a unanimous--
    Chair Jordan. Oh, OK. The gentlelady is recognized for a 
unanimous consent request.
    Ms. Sanchez. Yes. I have a unanimous consent request to 
enter into the record the Merriam-Webster's definition of 
``salacious,'' which says, ``arousing or appealing to sexual 
desire or imagination, lecherous or lustful,'' so that my 
colleague from Louisiana will not misuse that when describing 
the testimony of our colleagues here in Congress.
    Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. Well, as Senator Schmitt said 
earlier, there was a lust for censorship.
    Ms. Sanchez. I would ask that it be entered into the 
record--
    Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. I'll withdraw the word.
    Ms. Sanchez. I would ask that it be entered into the 
record, Mr. Chair. It's a document.
    Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. I said ``outrageous,'' but I'll 
withdraw it.
    Chair Jordan. I don't think the gentleman is objecting, so 
it's entered into the record.
    Ms. Sanchez. Thank you.
    Chair Jordan. The gentlelady from Florida, Ms. Wasserman 
Schultz, is recognized for five minutes.
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    This is our third hearing, and unlike the previous two, I 
find it ironic that the Republican majority brought us a 
witness who actually weaponized the government himself.
    Mr. Sauer, sunshine record requests show that you worked 
with the Republican Attorneys General Association and its dark 
money political arm, the Rule of Law Defense Fund. They also 
indicate that you took part in these groups', quote ``war 
games,'' unquote, on how to respond if Trump lost the 2020 
election.
    Very quickly, with a yes or no answer, please, Mr. Sauer, 
is that correct?
    Mr. Sauer. I would say yes.
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Yes or no. The answer is yes?
    Mr. Sauer. I think that you've mischaracterized the work of 
the Committee--
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. No. Yes or no, you worked with the 
Republican Attorneys General Association and its dark money 
political arm, the Rule of Law Defense Fund? Sunshine record 
requests show that you did.
    To confirm that, I have an official State email that points 
to your involvement in these political efforts, and I ask 
unanimous consent to enter it into the record.
    Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. [Presiding.] Without objection.
    Mr. Sauer, make sure your microphone is turned on.
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. So, the answer to that question is 
yes, Mr. Sauer?
    Mr. Sauer. That is not what I said. I said that you've 
significantly mischaracterized those--
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. OK. Mr. Sauer, I remind you that 
you're under oath. Behind me, and I just entered it into the 
record, I have a copy of an official State email where you 
responded to a message on these war games very specifically.
    OK. Mr. Sauer, the Rule of Law Defense Fund put out a 
robocall recruiting people to march on the Capitol on January 
6th to, quote, ``stop the steal,'' unquote
    Can we play that, please?
    [Video shown.]
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. OK.
    [Video shown.]
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. OK. It's also--you can see that 
recorded message behind me.
    I must say, Mr. Sauer, when you planned--
    [Video shown.]
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. OK. Let's move on past the audio.
    When you planned with these groups--what you planned with 
these groups was certainly no game, but it definitely resembled 
a war. You can see the pictures. This is an excerpt of the 
audio call.
    Now, these same dark money groups held at least 30 meetings 
for State Attorney General senior staffers, including you, 
during the 2020 Presidential campaign, even though I'm sure you 
knew that Missouri law bars State employees from using State 
resources for political activity.
    Missouri lawmakers were wise enough to make it illegal to 
weaponize State government facilities for political purposes, 
or in this case to subvert America's democracy.
    Approximately how many of these political meetings did you 
attend while in your office and using State resources?
    Before answering, let me remind you, your Fifth Amendment 
protections against self-incrimination do apply here if you 
need to use them.
    Mr. Sauer. None of the meetings I attended were political. 
I attended one meeting by Zoom that discussed legal issues 
only. So, everything you've said about the--
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. OK.
    Mr. Sauer. If I may--
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Reclaiming my time.
    Mr. Sauer. Everything you've said about that 
characterization is misleading.
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Reclaiming my time.
    Attorney General staff members also attended one of these 
war games meetings on January 5, 2021, on the very eve of the 
insurrection.
    Mr. Sauer, did you attend or participate in this meeting on 
January 5, 2021, and can you share with us what war game 
strategies you discussed?
    Mr. Sauer. I did not attend that meeting. I was unaware of 
it.
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. OK.
    Mr. Sauer. I actually am not sure of the meeting you're 
referring to.
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. OK. More bluntly, Mr. Sauer, did you 
violate Missouri statute Section 36.157 by using State 
resources on official time to collude with political groups to 
prevent America's peaceful transfer of power?
    Mr. Sauer. Absolutely not.
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Mr. Chair, thank you for finally 
bringing a witness before us that has personally weaponized the 
government. Mr. Sauer did participate in war game meetings with 
the dark money group the Republican Attorneys General 
Association.
    Given what we know and just heard, clearly my Republican 
colleagues would support further investigation into this 
matter. We have evidence. This is a State email suffix. It was 
during the time of day during the work hours.
    So, I move that the Chair issue subpoenas to Mr. Sauer 
requesting any and all correspondence relating to their 
political involvement in the January 6th insurrection and dark 
money groups while using State resources.
    That's my motion, Mr. Chair. We need to hold the time, 
please.
    Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. Yes, hold the time for just a 
second.
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. We have to roll the time back by 
about six or seven seconds.
    Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. OK. The gentlelady has moved to 
issue a subpoena. We will have a roll call vote on that. The 
gentlelady will suspend while we get the clerk prepared for 
that vote.
    Mr. Armstrong. I make a motion to table.
    Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. The gentleman has made a motion 
to table the motion to issue a subpoena. As the clerks are 
getting ready, let us sort this out.
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. I just want to point out that 
tabling the motion so that we can't get more information that 
shows that Mr. Sauer weaponized government and violated 
Missouri State law by--
    Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. OK. Hold on. We have a motion 
pending, so--
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. --by colluding with a political 
association to overturn a Presidential election.
    Mr. Johnson of Louisiana The gentlelady will suspend. The 
motion to table is not debatable.
    The clerk will call the roll.
    Ms. Bidelman. Mr. Jordan?
    [No response.]
    Ms. Bidelman. Mr. Issa?
    Mr. Issa. Yes.
    Ms. Bidelman. Mr. Issa votes yes.
    Mr. Massie?
    Mr. Massie. Yes.
    Ms. Bidelman. Mr. Massie votes yes.
    Mr. Stewart.
    Mr. Stewart. Yes.
    Ms. Bidelman. Mr. Stewart votes yes.
    Ms. Stefanik.
    [No response.]
    Ms. Bidelman. Mr. Gaetz?
    Mr. Gaetz. Yes.
    Ms. Bidelman. Mr. Gaetz votes yes.
    Mr. Johnson of Louisiana?
    Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. Yes.
    Ms. Bidelman. Mr. Johnson of Louisiana votes yes.
    Mr. Armstrong?
    Mr. Armstrong. Yes.
    Ms. Bidelman. Mr. Armstrong votes yes.
    Mr. Steube?
    Mr. Steube. Yes.
    Ms. Bidelman. Mr. Steube votes yes.
    Mr. Bishop?
    Mr. Bishop. Yes.
    Ms. Bidelman. Mr. Bishop votes yes.
    Ms. Cammack?
    Ms. Cammack. Yes.
    Ms. Bidelman. Ms. Cammack votes yes.
    Ms. Hageman?
    Ms. Hageman. Yes.
    Ms. Bidelman. Ms. Hageman votes yes.
    Ms. Plaskett?
    Ms. Plaskett. No.
    Ms. Bidelman. Ms. Plaskett votes no.
    Mr. Lynch?
    [No response.]
    Ms. Bidelman. Ms. Sanchez?
    Ms. Sanchez. No.
    Ms. Bidelman. Ms. Sanchez votes no.
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz?
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. No.
    Ms. Bidelman. Ms. Wasserman Schultz says no.
    Mr. Connolly?
    Mr. Connolly. Nay.
    Ms. Bidelman. Mr. Connolly votes nay.
    Mr. Garamendi?
    Mr. Garamendi. No.
    Ms. Bidelman. Mr. Garamendi votes no.
    Mr. Allred.
    [No response.]
    Ms. Bidelman. Ms. Garcia?
    Ms. Garcia. Nay.
    Ms. Bidelman. Ms. Garcia says nay.
    Mr. Goldman?
    Mr. Goldman. No.
    Ms. Bidelman. Mr. Goldman votes no.
    Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. The clerk will report.
    Ms. Bidelman. Mr. Chair, there are ten ayes and seven noes.
    Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. The motion carries, and it is 
tabled.
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Chair.
    Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. The gentlewoman is recognized to 
complete her time.
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. I think we've made it very clear 
that the Republican majority has no interest in investigating 
true violations of the weaponization of government. They just 
tabled a motion to get more information to demonstrate that. 
I'd ask with the remainder of my time; I think the video is 
ready so that we can play it. Thank you.
    Mr. Chair, can we play the video, please?
    Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. Is that video ready?
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. OK. I guess it's still not working. 
It would be nice if we could get the audiovisuals working here 
in the Committee.
    This hearing is fixated on a red herring. Studies show 
conservative voices are more prevalent on social media.
    We need to make sure that we are getting to the bottom of 
the weaponization of the Federal government. This Committee is 
only interested in selectively doing that, as evidenced by the 
fact that the Republican majority on this Committee squashed 
getting us more evidence than what I have behind me that I've 
entered into the record to prove--that proves that this 
witness, Mr. Sauer, weaponized government and participated in 
violating Missouri State law--
    Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. The gentlelady's time is expired.
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. --in politicizing and trying to 
overturn an election.
    Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. The gentlelady's time is expired.
    The gentleman from California is recognized.
    Mr. Issa. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm going to try and return 
to the subject as much as I can of this hearing.
    Mr. Sauer, are you familiar with the case in California 
disputing the Governor's order for universal ballots?
    Mr. Sauer. No, Congressman.
    Mr. Issa. OK. Well, oddly enough, I was the plaintiff, so--
and oddly enough, the Governor then went to the legislature and 
got the authority to have universal ballots and then the case 
was dismissed.
    Isn't part of free speech or the First Amendment the right 
of redress?
    Mr. Sauer. That is correct, to petition the government, 
exactly.
    Mr. Issa. Petitioning the government has been widely 
considered to be including to make cases before the Federal 
court when you believe that the Constitution is being violated 
or your free speech is being violated or due process is being 
violated. Those are all consistent with what we would broadly 
say is the First Amendment.
    Mr. Sauer. Correct.
    Mr. Issa. For the record, the First Amendment, incredibly 
short, and if we read it in its purest sense, you would say 
that Congress shall make no laws respecting, and that because 
it only says Congress that it doesn't apply to anyone else.
    Have our courts, including our Supreme Court, under 200-
plus years, have they ever considered it that narrow?
    Mr. Sauer. No, Congressman.
    Mr. Issa. So, isn't it true that they basically consider 
censorship of free speech very broadly to include intimidation 
by Federal, State, or local government authorities? Isn't that 
right?
    Mr. Sauer. Yes, intimidation and retaliation, among many 
other things.
    Mr. Issa. So, what was earlier called a suggestion by the 
Federal government, the vast power of the Federal government, 
which could even include the IRS, one might think, in this 
case, that kind of suggestion has historically been viewed as 
intimidation consistent with this relatively short statement 
about our right of free speech?
    Mr. Sauer. That's exactly right. There's overwhelming 
evidence in our case that contradicts the notion that these 
were mere suggestions from Federal officials. It's completely 
factually baseless to State that.
    Mr. Issa. So, you earlier testified that the vast majority 
of this was one-sided and came from government officials who 
wanted to take down things which disagreed with the government 
in place at that time, which happened to be the government of 
Joe Biden, correct?
    Mr. Sauer. Correct.
    Mr. Issa. So, what we really have here is something similar 
to historically Nixon v. IRS, if you remember that era, and 
that's not the actual case name. What you have is the power of 
the Executive Branch being used to reduce the opposition or the 
redress or the free speech or the communication of people who 
might disagree with what was being put out by the Executive 
Branch, which happened to be a Democrat President.
    Mr. Sauer. That's exactly right. We see not just 
interference with free speech but interference with the 
attempts to organize for political advocacy.
    Mr. Issa. Now, is this an opinion or are these indisputable 
facts based on the literally millions of events?
    Mr. Sauer. Yes, the evidence is overwhelming, and we've 
submitted extensive evidence to the Subcommittee.
    Mr. Issa. So, what we're dealing with here is tangible 
evidence that the other side of the aisle seems to want to talk 
around about the changing of what would have been public 
opinion if public opinion were freely allowed to occur without 
intervention by the Federal government and, candidly, agents on 
behalf of them, including private entities that were paid to be 
part of this program.
    Mr. Sauer. That's correct. You do see a concerted effort to 
change the subject.
    Mr. Issa. So, I would like to use the remainder of my time 
to give you an opportunity to speak to some of the personal 
attacks that were just made on you, if I could.
    Mr. Sauer. Very briefly, I would note that all the 
questions that came from the other side, they were misleading 
in the way they were characterized, they mislead my 
involvement. There's no suggestion that anything I did before 
the 2020 election was inappropriate or involved a misuse of 
State resources. I categorically deny that. It is false. That 
is misinformation.
    However, I recognize the Member's right to say 
misinformation, because you know what? That's protected by the 
First Amendment, contrary to what Mr. Seligman is suggesting in 
his testimony.
    Mr. Issa. Well, I very much appreciate it. Hopefully we 
will return to the debate that allows both sides to speak 
without having personal attacks on their character.
    I yield back.
    Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. The gentleman's time is expired.
    The gentleman from Virginia, Mr.--
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Truth hurts. Truth hurts.
    Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. The gentleman from Virginia, Mr. 
Connolly, is recognized for five minutes.
    Mr. Connolly. Thank you.
    I've been through a lot of hearings, seen a number of 
panels, and I must say, I find it disconcerting that we are not 
able to ask questions of two of our witnesses. If they're here 
to simply present their thoughts and their idle opinions, so be 
it. If they are presenting themselves as quasi experts on 
censorship, I think we have a right to question them.
    Even if Senator Schmitt and Attorney General Landry aren't 
here, I think it's important to note that every single witness 
of the majority took part in the effort to overturn the 2020 
election, and all three of them have interconnecting 
relationships, very convenient for a panel.
    If we turn our attention to the screen, please, the email 
sent to State Attorneys General.
    Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. Suspend the clock for me while we 
get that going.
    Mr. Connolly. I thank the Chair.
    I don't think that's it. It's the email from Mr. Sauer.
    Mr. Chair, I don't understand our technical problems. Mr. 
Sauer sent out an email to State Attorneys General--
    Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. Start the clock again for me if 
you're going to testify. OK, the gentleman will continue.
    Mr. Connolly. OK. Asked for responses by 12/9, 1 o'clock.
    Mr. Seligman, this email is signed by John Sauer. Is that 
the gentleman to your left?
    Mr. Seligman. I believe so.
    Mr. Connolly. When Donald Trump lost the 2020 election, Mr. 
Sauer was working for then Missouri Attorney General Schmitt, 
who testified here this morning, and they worked together to 
find 16 other Republican State Attorneys General, including 
Attorney General Landry, who is running for Governor, to join 
them in an amicus in support of a lawsuit to overcome the 
election.
    Now, his team filed this case on December 8th, and the 
Supreme Court rejected it three days later. Why did the Supreme 
Court reject?
    Mr. Seligman. Sir, the Supreme Court rejected--so it didn't 
issue an opinion explaining why it rejected that, so I can't 
speculate about what was going through the minds of the 
Justices. I can tell you about the legal flaws in the 
complaint--
    Mr. Connolly. Please.
    Mr. Seligman. --that rendered that decision correct.
    So, the State of Texas sued other States, including 
Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Arizona, for allegations 
that there were flaws in the election in those States.
    The State of Texas claimed that it was injured as a State 
because the alleged maladministration of the election in other 
States somehow undermined its own sovereign rights in the 
electoral college. That is a radical and unprecedented claim 
that no court has ever accepted.
    Mr. Connolly. Including the Supreme Court.
    Mr. Seligman. Including the Supreme Court.
    Mr. Connolly. One must say, they kind of dismissed it with 
dispatch.
    Mr. Seligman. That's correct.
    Mr. Connolly. Three days later.
    Mr. Seligman. Yes, it was three or four days later.
    Now, the Supreme Court dismissed it unanimously.
    A point of clarification about that. There was a 
concurrence in the dismissal by Justice Thomas and I believe 
Justice Alito explaining that they would accept the bill of 
complaint because they think as a matter of Supreme Court 
procedure the Supreme Court can't just refuse jurisdiction. 
Then they went out of their way to say they would grant no 
other relief, which is to say that they would reject the claim 
on the merits.
    Mr. Connolly. So, the allegations in the lawsuit range from 
claims of illegal voting to accusations about Dominion voting 
machines, now the subject of a civil defamation case with FOX 
News.
    Even FOX News reporters called the claims contained in the 
lawsuit dangerously insane. Why might FOX News reporters call 
this kind of lawsuit dangerously insane?
    Mr. Seligman. Well, the factual allegations that I believe 
they were referring to are demonstrably incorrect and have no 
basis in reality whatsoever.
    It was apparent at the time as well. This is not something 
that just became apparent in the months and years after those 
allegations came to light.
    Mr. Connolly. Well, it's certainly comforting to know that 
we have a panel that includes three people who are involved in 
a lawsuit that has been declared dangerously insane by none 
other than FOX News reporters. That's a comfort.
    I thank you, Mr. Seligman, for your testimony.
    I yield back.
    Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. The gentleman yields back.
    The gentleman from Utah, Mr. Stewart, is recognized for 
five minutes.
    Mr. Stewart. Thank you, Chair.
    Mr. Seligman, I'm curious, just as a sidebar, were you 
embarrassed by what happened at Stanford Law School a few weeks 
ago?
    Mr. Seligman. So, I'd like to clarify that I am--
    Mr. Stewart. In regard to the suppression of free speech 
with the Federal court, District Court judge?
    Mr. Seligman. So, I'd like to clarify that I am 
testifying--
    Mr. Stewart. Never mind.
    Mr. Seligman. --here on my own behalf and not on behalf of 
Stanford.
    Mr. Stewart. I understand that. I'm just curious. I mean, I 
would imagine you would be embarrassed by that.
    Are you familiar with GDR, East German Stasi secret police?
    Mr. Seligman. I'm sorry, can you speak up a little?
    Mr. Stewart. Are you familiar with GDR, the East German 
Stasi secret police?
    Mr. Seligman. Generally, yes.
    Mr. Stewart. Generally, yes.
    We know they used techniques of threats and intimidation, 
censorship, to maintain and control and ensure continuation of 
government power. They were one of the most repressive and 
powerful forces that we've seen in our modern world.
    Now, I'd like to quote some of their objectives and some of 
their tactics that they would use.

        The aim of the Stasi was to switch off a group or private 
        citizens by hindering any positive media or public exposure to 
        their thoughts, views, and policy positions, including 
        pressuring newspapers and other media.

    Would you be comfortable with the government using that, 
those kind of tactics, to suppress thoughts, views, and 
policies?
    Mr. Seligman. If your question is whether I'm comfortable 
with the American government using the tactics of the East 
German Stasi, the answer is no.
    Mr. Stewart. Thank you.
    Mr. Sauer, do you see any difference between Stasi secret 
police tactics and government suppression of individual 
expression on social media?
    Mr. Sauer. There's a very strong analogy to be drawn there. 
It's based on overwhelming evidence.
    Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. Make sure your microphone is on.
    Mr. Sauer. There's a very strong analogy to be drawn there, 
and it's based on overwhelming evidence.
    Mr. Stewart. Well, I see no difference at all.
    Mr. Sauer. It's a close, a very close comparison.
    Mr. Stewart. I think it's an incredibly close comparison. I 
would reemphasize, including pressuring social--or pressuring 
newspapers and other media to hinder any positive media or 
public exposure to their thoughts, views, or policy positions. 
There's no difference at all.
    Mr. Sauer. That's correct.
    Mr. Stewart. Let me give you another example. We're talking 
about the East German Stasi and the tactics they used. Another 
one:

        Conspicuous visits to homes or workplaces so that citizens 
        would be aware of and intimidated by their presence and power.

    We had a journalist here--who was not a conservative 
journalist, by the way--he was here for a matter of a few hours 
talking about the weaponization of the Federal government, and 
during that time the IRS showed up at his house, something that 
the Secretary of Treasury admitted only happens, so far as she 
knows, when someone is under investigation for fraud and they 
need a personal interview. That's the only time she knew of 
some IRS agent appearing at someone's house. That happened 
while he was here testifying before our Committee.
    Mr. Seligman, does that appear as an unlikely coincidence 
to you?
    Mr. Seligman. I'm not familiar with the factual details of 
Mr. Taibbi's taxes.
    Mr. Stewart. As I've described it, does it seem unlikely to 
you?
    Mr. Seligman. I am not familiar with this incident, so I 
can't comment.
    Mr. Stewart. Well, I've explained the incident to you. He 
was testifying before Congress, and the IRS went to his home.
    Mr. Seligman. I have no idea whether it's a coincidence or 
not.
    Mr. Stewart. OK. Mr. Sauer, how does it appear to you?
    Mr. Sauer. The timing is incredibly suspicious.
    Mr. Stewart. It's incredibly suspicious. I will quote again 
from Stasi secret police tactics.

        Conspicuous visits to homes and workplaces so that citizens 
        would be aware and intimidated by their presence and power.

I think my description to you is sufficient that you could make 
a judgment of that.
    Mr. Seligman. Again, I'm not familiar with the details of 
Mr. Taibbi's taxes.
    Mr. Stewart. Well, OK. All right.
    So, I'm surprised that you wouldn't want to condemn that. 
I'm surprised you wouldn't want to say,

        You know what? As you've described it to me, that makes me 
        uncomfortable, that the IRS would show up at someone's home 
        while they're testifying before Congress.

    Mr. Seligman. As a matter of principle, government 
retaliation for the exercise of free speech is problematic. 
It's wrong. I have no idea whether that has taken place in this 
case.
    Mr. Stewart. OK. So, conceding that you don't know if 
that's happened, you would be uncomfortable if that were the 
case?
    Mr. Seligman. I am uncomfortable with violations of the 
First Amendment, yes.
    Mr. Stewart. Thank you.
    That's what we're talking about here. I know you've seen on 
display the emotion of our colleagues on the other side of the 
aisle. I'm shocked that they don't want to condemn it. I'm 
stunned that they don't ask you the same questions that we ask.
    How in the world could anyone sit and listen to this and 
go, ``You know, that's OK with me, use the Federal government 
as contractors to go suppress free speech.''? They don't do it 
themselves. They instead pressure and intimidate and threaten 
individuals and organizations to do it for them.
    There is no difference between that and what the Stasi 
secret police did. No difference at all. If someone wants to 
stand and defend that, I will yield the last seven seconds of 
my time to you.
    Chair, I yield back. Thank you.
    Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. Actually, the gentleman's time is 
expired.
    Votes have been called. The Committee will stand in recess 
until the conclusion of this nine-vote series.
    [Recess.]
    Chair Jordan. [Presiding.] The Committee will come to 
order.
    The Chair now recognizes the Ranking Member, Ms. Plaskett, 
for her five minutes of questions. Oh, can't do that. We don't 
have Mr. Sauer.
    The Committee will suspend. I didn't look up.
    There we go. Apologize to our witnesses. We had some votes.
    Now, I turn to the Ranking Member for five minutes of 
questions.
    Ms. Plaskett. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
    Before the break, our colleagues were concerned and accused 
Democrats of refusing to condemn something that we have no 
actual facts about. The case is beyond our factual 
understanding at this time other than what Republicans have 
told us today.
    Thanks to a long and exhaustive examination by the January 
6th Committee, however, we do know for a fact that January 6th 
was spurred by President Trump, who used disinformation and 
violent rhetoric to egg on extremists and conspiracy theorists.
    Senator Schmitt and Mr. Landry, the two witnesses who were 
dismissed before their extreme and false claims could be tested 
under cross-examination, played an active role in that. They 
were a key part of the Republican Attorneys General Association 
which sponsored a robocall urging people to come to the Capitol 
on January 6th. That's what they were here for in their role as 
Attorneys General during that time.
    My colleague, Ms. Wasserman Schultz, attempted to play that 
call earlier, but technical difficulties prevented her from 
doing so.
    So, I have asked that we can play that now so that everyone 
can see and hear exactly what Mr. Landry and Senator Schmitt 
did and the violence and chaos that resulted.
    [Video shown.]
    Ms. Plaskett. We just witnessed--what was just given to us 
right now was real evidence, facts. What we just witnessed are 
very real crimes and violence that erupted because of what 
these witnesses' actions did. If they had been here, I'd ask 
them about that.
    I want to know also, and I'll yield time, to see if any of 
my colleagues would like to condemn the violence of January 
6th.
    Mr. Gaetz. I would.
    Ms. Plaskett. Not just the violence of all things that--
    Mr. Armstrong. I would.
    Ms. Plaskett. --are happening in America, but the violence 
on January 6th.
    Mr. Gaetz. Yes. Would the gentlelady yield?
    Ms. Plaskett. Are you going to condemn it? It's a yes or 
no.
    Mr. Gaetz. Yes.
    Ms. Plaskett. OK. Thank you.
    Mr. Armstrong. Same here.
    Voice. Same here. We all have on the record many times.
    Ms. Plaskett. No, you all have not, and we know that. 
Yield--
    Chair Jordan. Oh, wow.
    Ms. Plaskett. Reclaiming my time.
    So, Mr. Landry's appearance before the Committee today gave 
him free publicity. We know that he's running for Governor. The 
Chair's decision to dismiss him in his role as Attorney General 
before questions means he can't be held accountable for the 
efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
    Another--
    Chair Jordan. Will the gentlelady yield?
    Ms. Plaskett. No, I would not, not at this time.
    Chair Jordan. OK. Thanks.
    Ms. Plaskett. One of the things I would ask him about is 
other things that he was involved in with Donald Trump.
    As you can see on the screen, this is testimony given, 
deposition of General--the Attorney General Barr. It states:

        Question: How about discussions, General Barr, about the 
        possible appointment of special counsel to investigate the 
        allegations of election fraud? Do you recall any of that?

        Answer: Yes. I remember, there were some discussions about 
        special counsel, and I forgot how this came out--came up. But I 
        didn't feel there was any predicate or basis for naming a 
        special counsel, and I was opposed to it. And I think there was 
        a proposal made. I remember a proposal being made to take a 
        State attorney general being appointed. And I wanted to find 
        out--you know, I thought there might be a way to addressing 
        that without just saying no and it turned out State law 
        precluded it.

        Question: Yes. Was that Louisiana? Do you recall?

        Answer: I think it was Louisiana. I think it was Jeff Landry 
        maybe.

    Mr. Landry was President Trump's choice to be the special 
counsel to investigate allegations of election fraud.
    Mr. Sauer--and I apologize for not having pronounced your 
name properly before--yes or no, do you believe that the fraud 
impacted the outcome of the 2020 election?
    Mr. Sauer. I have no opinion on that.
    Ms. Plaskett. I'm sorry, you have to hit the--
    Mr. Sauer. I'm sorry. I have no opinion on that. That is 
totally aside from the evidence that we've brought forth to the 
Committee today.
    Ms. Plaskett. So, you--at this time, you don't--you--that's 
no opinion--you don't have an opinion on whether there was 
fraud or not?
    Mr. Sauer. I've never studied the evidence that you're 
referring to.
    Ms. Plaskett. But you were--
    Mr. Sauer. I've never seen the deposition transcript you 
just--
    Ms. Plaskett. I didn't ask about the deposition transcript. 
I asked you if you believe that there was election fraud in 
2020.
    Mr. Sauer. I don't have an opinion on that to express to 
the Committee today.
    Ms. Plaskett. OK. Thank you.
    Mr. Seligman, same question, did fraud impact the outcome 
of the 2020 election?
    Mr. Seligman. No, without question.
    Ms. Plaskett. Was there any evidence of fraud?
    Mr. Seligman. There was no evidence of fraud in any amount 
that was remotely close to what it would've taken to affect the 
outcome of the election.
    Ms. Plaskett. So, how did so many people come to believe 
that such fraud existed?
    Mr. Seligman. Because they were told that by people who 
should have known better.
    Ms. Plaskett. Thank you. I yield back.
    Chair Jordan. The gentlewoman's time is expired and yields 
back.
    The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Florida, Mr. 
Gaetz.
    Mr. Gaetz. White House staffers are some of the most 
powerful people on the planet Earth. Oftentimes they get the 
dispositive opinion on appointments to different positions 
within the Federal government. They influence statements of 
administrative policy. They initiate regulatory reform. They 
often have a significant voice on legislation that is 
considered and approved.
    So, Mr. Sauer, I want to understand, how many of these 
intensely powerful people who work in the Biden White House 
were involved in this effort that you've been investigating 
regarding the desire to shape discussions on social media?
    Mr. Sauer. At least 20, and very likely more.
    Mr. Gaetz. Was there a ring leader of this group, someone 
who had pervasive and repeated efforts to try to coerce social 
media companies to shape the truth according to the Biden White 
House?
    Mr. Sauer. Deputy Assistant to the President Rob Flaherty, 
and also Andy Slavitt.
    Mr. Gaetz. Who is Rob Flaherty?
    Mr. Sauer. He is the, I believe, the digital coordinator 
for the White House. His level is Deputy Assistant to the 
President.
    Mr. Gaetz. What behaviors of Mr. Flaherty did you observe 
that you found troubling?
    Mr. Sauer. We've seen many, many pages of emails between 
Mr. Flaherty and social media platforms where he relentlessly 
badgers them to increase the censorship of ordinary Americans' 
free speech on social media.
    He gets results. You see the platforms agreeing to censor 
things that are truthful, that do not violate their policies, 
at the behest and at the pressure of the White House.
    Mr. Gaetz. Can you give an example of that?
    Mr. Sauer. One great example of this is the Tucker Carlson 
video that was going viral in April 2021 where Mr. Flaherty and 
other White House officials were emailing Facebook privately 
demanding that it be censored. Facebook responded:

        This does not violate our policies. It has not been fact 
        checked. But nevertheless, we are substantially deboosting it 
        and limiting its distribution on our platforms, even though we 
        haven't identified anything false in it, and even though it 
        does not . . . .

They had a positive determination that it does not violate 
their policies.
    Mr. Gaetz. Did you assess that Facebook took that action as 
a direct consequence of the badgering coming from Mr. Flaherty 
and the Biden White House?
    Mr. Sauer. That is a compelling inference from the email 
traffic back and forth that we obtained in discovery.
    Mr. Gaetz. Did Mr. Flaherty ever request any reports from 
social media companies on specific censorship issues?
    Mr. Sauer. Very frequently. In fact, he was demanding that 
again and again. His steady drumbeat was what he called 
borderline content, that the email traffic makes clear 
borderline is what they call often true content, things like 
personal anecdotes, opposition to vaccination expressed in 
terms of political opposition, things of that nature.
    That is what he wanted to target. He was frequently asking 
for reports back. They were sending in biweekly CrowdTangle 
reports to the White House. They did that through the close of 
our discovery period last August in 2022.
    So, there was an overwhelming effort to get them to check 
their homework, if you will, to get them to report back on how 
much censorship are you doing and is it going to meet our 
standards as the White House.
    Mr. Gaetz. An overwhelming effort, badgering social media 
companies, demanding reports from those social media companies 
directly to someone in the White House.
    As my colleagues on the other side of the aisle remind us, 
not all speech is protected. Some speech is illegal.
    Did you see Mr. Flaherty constrain his concern to unlawful 
speech, or did you often see this badgering and this demand for 
reports from entirely lawful speech?
    Mr. Sauer. Virtually every--I can't remember a single 
instance of them going after unlawful speech.
    Mr. Gaetz. Almost all of it was after lawful speech?
    Mr. Sauer. Virtually everything that I can recall here was 
lawful, First Amendment-protected speech that was being 
targeted.
    Mr. Gaetz. We heard from the witness that the Democrats 
brought today that these were but suggestions, that of course 
the government should be able to make suggestions to social 
media companies.
    What would be your response to that testimony?
    Mr. Sauer. The characterization of them as suggestions is 
contradicted by overwhelming evidence. Calling Flaherty, for 
example, Mr. Flaherty's communication ``suggestions'' is akin 
to saying that the Earth is flat or the moon is made of green 
cheese.
    Mr. Gaetz. Well, and of course if someone shared those 
viewpoints, that would be lawful speech, wouldn't it?
    Mr. Sauer. You'd be allowed to say that on social media and 
based on--
    Mr. Gaetz. Not if Mr. Flaherty were in charge.
    Mr. Sauer. That is the difference. In fact, what happened 
was you had a de facto suppression of many, many views, 
including truthful views, political organization, at the behest 
of White House officials and other Federal officials.
    Mr. Gaetz. I would suggest, Mr. Chair, that when you have 
these intensely powerful people with the ability to control so 
many things, even a suggestion is coercive and problematic and 
worthy of the Committee's review.
    I yield back.
    Chair Jordan. I thank the gentleman for his five minutes. 
The gentleman yields back.
    The gentlelady from California, Ms. Sanchez, is recognized.
    Ms. Sanchez. Thank you.
    I think it's interesting, the last line of questioning. The 
video that's referenced, if I'm not mistaken, that you just 
mentioned about Tucker Carlson, was on replacement theory.
    I think it's interesting that you want to make a bogeyman 
of Mr. Flaherty, because not one of the emails from Mr. 
Flaherty or anyone else from the White House required or 
demanded or mandated any action by social media companies. I 
just want to clear the record on that.
    Chair Jordan. Would the gentlelady yield for just a 
clarification?
    Ms. Sanchez. No. The time is mine.
    Chair Jordan. OK.
    Ms. Sanchez. The time is mine. I would like to use it 
without interruption. Thank you.
    My colleagues on the other side of the aisle keep shouting 
that the Biden White House somehow influenced a private company 
to take down disinformation in 2020 before a Biden White House 
even existed.
    Chair Jordan wanted to make this point so badly that he had 
the two Republican Attorneys General who began this sham 
lawsuit come in and make five-minute statements where they 
could make all kinds of wild allegations, and then he let them 
scurry away so nobody could ask them any questions about their 
claims.
    I really want to focus in on the fact that this hearing 
really isn't about social media companies, and it's really not 
about COVID deniers. It's not even about Elon Musk. It's about 
protecting former President Donald Trump.
    I'd like to spend a few minutes looking at what 
Congressional Republicans are doing to try to keep him out of 
legal trouble. We have a video queued up, if they could show 
that.
    [Video shown.]
    Ms. Sanchez. Mr. Seligman, the general counsel to the 
Manhattan District Attorney called Chair Jordan's letter a, 
quote, ``unprecedented inquiry into a pending local 
prosecution,'' and said that it seeks ``nonpublic information 
about a pending criminal investigation, which is confidential 
under State law.''
    Can you please explain why it's incredibly inappropriate 
for Congress to interfere in State and local prosecutions?
    Mr. Seligman. Any political interference in pending 
criminal investigations and prosecutions is inappropriate. 
That's true of political interference into the Department of 
Justice's prosecutorial decisions, and it's especially true of 
interference by the Federal government into State and local 
prosecutions.
    The fundamental principles of federalism, which 
conservatives tend to agree with, hold that State and local 
government is free from the interference of the Federal 
government into these police matters.
    Ms. Sanchez. Chair Jordan apparently wrote to Mr. Bragg 
after Trump's attorneys asked him and after Trump himself 
claimed online that he was about to be arrested.
    Why would it benefit Donald Trump for Congress to intervene 
on his behalf in this criminal action?
    Mr. Seligman. Well, it appears that the purpose and the 
motivation is to try to influence the Manhattan District 
Attorney into not pursuing the charges that it has been 
publicly reported that he is pursuing.
    Ms. Sanchez. Why is even the appearance of a former 
President directing the action of Members of Congress dangerous 
to democracy?
    Mr. Seligman. Because the rule of law applies to all of us, 
whether we're a former President or merely a lowly law 
professor. All of us are protected by the procedural 
protections of the Constitution, and all of us are subject to 
the law without fear or favor.
    Political interference into criminal prosecutions, whether 
that's interference to bring cases that would otherwise not be 
brought or interference to protect politically powerful 
defendants from cases that ought to be brought, undermines the 
rule of law and democracy.
    Ms. Sanchez. To me, Chair Jordan's demand appeared to be an 
intimidation tactic plain and simple, and he's using this very 
Committee to carry out that intimidation.
    Isn't that, in fact, the very definition of weaponization 
of the government?
    Mr. Seligman. I see why you say that, and it is 
inappropriate for a Congressional Committee to inquire into a 
pending criminal investigation.
    Ms. Sanchez. I thank you for your testimony.
    I yield back.
    Chair Jordan. The gentlelady yields back.
    The gentleman from Florida, Mr. Steube, is recognized.
    Mr. Steube. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    Mr. Sauer, earlier this week I questioned HHS Secretary 
Becerra before the Ways and Means Committee, and I asked him 
about a report put out by a private research organization 
called Cochrane that found masks may not be effective in 
preventing COVID.
    That same organization did an about-face a few weeks later. 
In January, they issued the report finding there was no 
scientific evidence or proof that masks worked, and then, on 
March 10th, they issued a report that basically said: Well, 
what we said before was not fully accurate.
    Secretary Becerra claimed that he had no knowledge of HHS 
or anyone in the administration pressuring Cochrane to withdraw 
their findings, and I specifically asked him that. He was under 
oath. I specifically asked him if he knew if anybody in HHS had 
any information as it related to that.
    From your experience, has HHS pressured private 
organizations to take certain stances and censor information 
regarding COVID?
    Mr. Sauer. Yes. Our evidence includes pretty extensive 
emails involving senior HHS officials, including within the 
Office of the Secretary, involved in these kinds of pressure 
campaigns to engage in censorship.
    We also have extensive evidence of subagencies within HHS, 
which is described in some detail in my written testimony, 
including NIAID, NIH, and the CDC.
    Mr. Steube. Well, and the Biden Administration and these 
emails, much to the chagrin of my colleagues on the other side 
who say there's no evidence that Mr. Flaherty was working with 
Facebook, I mean, these emails that you put are actually part 
of your statement today. Is that correct?
    Mr. Sauer. That is correct.
    Mr. Steube. You have conversations here about content, you 
have conversations here about vaccines, you have Facebook 
sharing attachments and research with Mr. Flaherty. You have 
Mr. Flaherty telling them, I think, like actually telling them 
what Facebook should be doing.
    I'll just read a quick excerpt. Again, this is in the 
materials that you provided to the Committee:

        Generally, I think some combo of the following would be 
        effective, some kind of thing that puts the news in context if 
        folks have seen it, like COVID news panel.

He's directing Facebook of how they should promulgate 
information, which I would say is disinformation, but their 
opinion on certain information, and it's right there in your 
testimony that you've given here today.
    Can you just like expand on that a little bit?
    Mr. Sauer. Sure. Thank you for the question, 
Representative.
    We see email after email after email from the White House, 
from Mr. Flaherty, pressuring specifically Facebook, but also 
other social media platforms to take down disfavored 
viewpoints.
    The emphasis in those emails is on true content. The reason 
that the emphasis is on true content is because, he almost says 
this in so many words in one of the emails, that the true 
content is what they perceive to be doing the most to undermine 
the narrative that the White House favored at the time.
    So, it's viewpoint discrimination targeting truthful speech 
that they perceive to be the most damaging to the narrative 
that they're pushing.
    Mr. Steube. Which you have actual emails from the White 
House as part of your testimony today.
    Mr. Sauer. We have submitted those, yes.
    Mr. Steube. I would just--it's already in the record, but I 
just want to bring people's attention to that.
    As it relates to that, the Surgeon General also pressured 
big tech companies to only allow on their platforms 
administration-approved information about COVID.
    Could you go into a little detail about that?
    Mr. Sauer. That's exactly correct. What we see is what's 
probably an orchestrated pressure campaign involving the 
Surgeon General and the Surgeon General's office in what their 
witness described in sworn testimony is their bully pulpit, to 
engage in a pressure campaign that reinforced the pressure 
campaign that was happening largely covertly from the White 
House but also at key points became very public.
    For example, May 5, 2021, July 15-16, 2021, you have very 
public pressure from the White House. Then, behind the scenes 
you have emails where the Office of Surgeon General and the 
White House are in a sense teaming up with the social media 
platforms to pressure them to remove the information that they 
thought was unworthy of First Amendment protections.
    Mr. Steube. I've only got a little less than a minute, but 
could you use the remainder of your time to talk about the more 
inappropriate ways that the administration sought to control 
information related to COVID and vaccines?
    Mr. Sauer. Yes. There's a whole series of these that are 
set forth in my written testimony.
    You have the pressure campaign from the White House that 
involved both public and private components. That was executed 
in, as I said, kind of in tandem with a similar pressure 
campaign from the Surgeon General's office.
    Also, you see both extensive evidence of federally induced 
censorship out of NIAID under the leadership of Dr. Fauci, and 
also the CDC, who we haven't mentioned today. You see the CDC 
both having meeting after meeting after meeting and flagging 
specific content, individual posts in large numbers, saying be 
on the lookout for this, this is what we, the CDC, want you to 
censor.
    You see the platforms responding by kind of deferring to 
the CDC and allowing the CDC to dictate what Americans can and 
cannot say on social media.
    Mr. Steube. My time is expired.
    Thank you for being here today, and I look forward to 
working with you.
    Chair Jordan. I thank the gentleman. The gentleman yields 
back.
    The Chair now recognizes Mr. Garamendi from California for 
five minutes of questions.
    Mr. Garamendi. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    Before we broke for votes, the issue from one of my 
colleagues came up about comparing the administration with the 
German Stasis.
    Mr. Seligman, I'd like you to talk about this inappropriate 
comparison.
    Mr. Seligman. It is an inappropriate and inaccurate 
comparison.
    The allegations in the lawsuit brought by Mr. Landry and 
others are that the Federal government coerced social media 
platforms into censoring content. There has been vague talk 
about pressure campaigns in emails between White House 
officials and social media campaigns.
    In Federal court you have to make allegations about what 
exactly the threats were. So, from the record of the case, here 
is the Cybersecurity Infrastructure and Security Agency, the 
emails that are cited by Mr. Landry's lawsuit as threats.

        CISA will not take any action favorable or unfavorable toward 
        social media companies based on decisions about how or whether 
        to use this information. CISA neither has nor seeks the ability 
        to remove or edit what information is made available on social 
        media platforms.

    In light of this absence of a threat in the communications 
between government officials and social media platforms, the 
lawsuit turns to other allegations of threatened action. It 
turns to two.
    The first is antitrust action against big-tech companies, 
and the second is reform of Section 230. Now, these are 
implausible bases for threats by the Biden Administration 
against big-tech companies, and the reason is because there's a 
growing bipartisan consensus that big-tech companies should be 
subject to more antitrust enforcement.
    For example, on May 19, 2022, Congressman Gaetz was among a 
group of four bipartisan Congress Members who introduced 
legislation that, quote, ``takes direct aim at Google and 
Facebook's ad market duopoly.''
    So, Congressman Gaetz introduced legislation that targeted 
Facebook and Google for antitrust scrutiny. I don't think that 
this makes him threatening, in violation of the First 
Amendment, Google and Facebook such that their decisions on 
content moderation are suddenly the responsibility of 
Congressman Gaetz.
    Similarly, on June 11, 2021, Chair Jordan introduced the 
Protect Speech Act, which would have reformed Section 230 to 
limit or eliminate the immunity that social media platforms 
have for civil liability for content posted on their platforms.
    This too was a legislative proposal that is exactly the 
same type of legislative proposal that this lawsuit and 
Republicans on this panel are suggesting constitutes a threat.
    I don't think that Chair Jordan's introduction of 
legislation constitutes a threat in violation of the First 
Amendment.
    So, once we move past the vague allegations of threatening 
emails and look to what the lawsuit actually alleges, we see 
there were no threats, and the challenged coercive action was 
just legislative proposals that have been made both by 
Republicans and by Democrats.
    Mr. Garamendi. Thank you very much. It's useful to note the 
actions of the Members of this Committee in that regard. Thank 
you very much.
    As we look at what is going on here, our friends across the 
aisle here continue to claim that there's censorship.
    Last hearing, I provided substantive information and 
multiple studies that showed that the social media actually 
amplifies far-right voices more than left voices, including 
their false claims about election interference and their 
efforts to spread COVID disinformation. So, if there really is 
a problem here, it obviously isn't working.
    The Select Committee on the Weaponization of Government is 
really missing the major weapon that was used by the previous 
administration. President Trump used the Federal government, 
used his position as President and his office of the presidency 
and others in the administration to promote the big lie that 
the election was stolen. There is no doubt the January 6th 
Committee proved this beyond a doubt, that's exactly what 
happened.
    That is the example of weaponization that this Committee 
should be paying attention to and should be looking for 
legislation, that this kind of weaponization by the President 
of the United States to stop the lawful transfer of power in an 
election in which there was no proven fraud, that this is where 
we should be spending our time.
    My time having expired, I yield back.
    Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. [Presiding.] The gentleman's time 
has expired.
    The gentleman from North Carolina, Mr. Bishop, is 
recognized for five minutes.
    Mr. Bishop. I yield to Mr. Gaetz.
    Mr. Gaetz. I'm shocked that I have to explain to a law 
professor that there's an obvious difference between engaging 
in the legislative process that is open and transparent and 
subject to our constitutional system rather than having some 
skeevy White House staffers trying to threaten social media 
companies under the auspices of some sort of allowed content 
moderation.
    I yield back to the gentleman from North Carolina.
    Mr. Bishop. I thank the gentleman.
    Mr. Sauer, Mr. Seligman's testimony asserts that the 
Federal government didn't threaten or coerce the social media 
platform. It says the Attorney General's complaint that you're 
litigating in Federal court lacks a reasonable legal and 
factual basis. It didn't mention--as I understand it, just last 
week, the United States District Judge in that case denied the 
administration's motions to dismiss. Doesn't that denial mean 
the opposite of what Mr. Seligman testified?
    Mr. Bishop. Turn on your mike. Is your mike on?
    Mr. Sauer. Our Federal District Judge came to the opposite 
conclusion.
    Mr. Bishop. Yes. So, that conclusion is that the complaint 
plausibly alleges, but it gives plausible factual allegations 
in support of a legally sufficient legal theory that this 
censorship scheme, in fact, violates First Amendment. Can you 
summarize some of the allegations of fact concerning coercion 
and threats that you tendered to the court to lead to that 
conclusion?
    Mr. Sauer. Yes, and I premise that by saying, in fact, 
there's more than one way you can violate the First Amendment. 
There is coercion. There's joint participation. There is 
conspiracy. There is deception. There is pervasive entwinement. 
There is significant encouragement. So, even if we hadn't 
alleged threats, it would in no way undermine our claim that 
there's a First Amendment violation. There's overwhelming 
evidence of threats.
    If I may, I can summarize some of those.
    Mr. Bishop. I'll give you a little bit of time on that.
    Mr. Sauer. Obviously, one of things we have alleged is that 
the threats about anti-trust liability and Section 230 repeal 
or replacement. Those on one side are tied to demands for 
greater censorship. It's one thing for a Federal official to 
say we should repeal or replace Section 230 immunity. It's 
quite otherwise for them to say: You better censor private 
Americans' speech on social media, or we will take that action 
against you.
    Mr. Bishop. All right.
    Mr. Sauer. It's the threat linked to the demand, which is 
what violates the First Amendment. The case was abundantly 
clear on this, and the evidence of that is overwhelming. That's 
not all. We have all kinds of other threats. For example, in 
Elvis Chan deposition, it was revealed that Congressional 
staffers had been flying out to Silicon Valley to privately 
meet with the social media platforms since 2017, bringing 
proposed legislation with them to threaten them with adverse 
legal counsels if censorship didn't improve. What Mr. Chan, the 
government's FBI agent testified, is that this was effective. 
How they experienced the pressure, it made a huge difference. 
It censored--
    Mr. Bishop. How FBI agents did Twitter say interacted with 
Twitter?
    Mr. Sauer. I can't remember off the top of my head--
    Mr. Bishop. That was in eighties. Isn't it? Eighty-
something.
    Mr. Sauer. Certainly, the Foreign Influence Task Force 
includes about 78-80 agents, I believe. Then there's another 
eight in San Francisco office alone that are involved in these 
activities.
    Mr. Bishop. I know your written testimony contains hundreds 
of pages of these allegations. So, it's interesting.
    Mr. Seligman, you refer to yourself as a professor. Now, 
you're a fellow at the Constitutional Law Center at Stanford 
Law School. Isn't that right?
    Mr. Seligman. That is correct. Correct.
    Mr. Bishop. You are not on the faculty at Stanford Law 
School.
    Mr. Seligman. That's right. I didn't claim otherwise.
    Mr. Bishop. You graduated from law school in 2011. Your 
LinkedIn resume suggests you hadn't had any jobs longer than 
about 3\1/2\ years since then. I looked on Lexis, I couldn't 
find any case in which you've served as counsel of record in 
which you've finally prevailed. Can you name one?
    Mr. Seligman. I have worked on legal teams that have 
prevailed at every legal of the Federal judiciary, including 
the Supreme Court of the United States.
    Mr. Bishop. Can you name a case?
    Mr. Seligman. Yes, sure. So, Tyson v. Bouaphakeo, which is 
a case that the Supreme Court--
    Mr. Bishop. Tyson versus what?
    Mr. Seligman. Bouaphakeo. It was a case about Rule 23 class 
certification. It prevailed.
    Mr. Bishop. OK. What reason is--so you're not a professor--
you don't--do you claim expertise in the First Amendment? Do 
you claim to be a First Amendment expert?
    Mr. Seligman. I am an expert in constitutional law, 
including the First Amendment, yes.
    Mr. Bishop. Interestingly enough, on your website, on the 
Stanford website, it says you're an expert in election law. You 
also have broad research interest in constitutional law. It 
doesn't even mention First Amendment.
    Mr. Seligman. As many legal scholars do, I have a diverse 
set of interests.
    Mr. Bishop. Mr. Sauer, wouldn't it be squarely in conflict 
with the First Amendment to censor Mr. Seligman's opinion just 
because it conflicts with the official narrative as represented 
by the District Court judge's opinion?
    Mr. Sauer. Absolutely. The First Amendment protects 
everybody.
    Mr. Bishop. Can you take, in the last few seconds I have 
got, and talk briefly about how the Election Integrity Project 
and the Virality Project have moved to censoring whole 
narratives.
    Mr. Sauer. Yes, there is. I see the time is almost up. 
There was a concerted effort that we see in the evidence to 
censor narrative or narrative level where a narrative could 
contain hundreds of thousands of social media posts, and that 
is operated out of Stanford University.
    Mr. Bishop. Thank you.
    Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. The gentleman's time has expired.
    The gentleman from Texas, Mr. Allred, is recognized for 
five minutes.
    Mr. Allred. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    Mr. Sauer, when you came to the Capitol today, did you go 
through security? Yes or no?
    Mr. Sauer. Yes.
    Mr. Allred. Did you interact with Capitol Police at all 
when you did that?
    Mr. Sauer. I may have said hello to one of them.
    Mr. Allred. Well, just over two years ago, one of the 
police officers you saw might have been more than 150 officers 
who were injured when the Capitol was attacked by a violent 
mob, or one of the hundreds more that are still dealing with 
mental trauma from that day. That attack was organized, in some 
cases orchestrated on social media. Those officers' lives were 
put at risk, and seven people died in connection with the 
attack on January 6th.
    Are you familiar with the Internet Record Agency located in 
St. Petersburg Russia? Yes or no?
    Mr. Sauer. There is some evidence relating to it in our 
case.
    Mr. Allred. Are you familiar with it?
    Mr. Sauer. So, I would say that a level of familiarity at 
some level, but limited.
    Mr. Allred. Sure. Well, it's a Kremlin asset that uses fake 
accounts, bots, and hack materials to influence elections here 
in the United States in 2016, 2020, even 2022. That's not my 
opinion. It was at the center of a 2018 DOJ criminal indictment 
for its efforts to interfere with elections in our political 
processes. Do you know who was President of the United States 
in 2018?
    Mr. Sauer. President Trump.
    Mr. Allred. President Trump was in office. I note the 
attack on January 6th and the Russian misinformation efforts to 
point out that our social media is being used to incite 
violence and by foreign actors who do want to undermine our 
democracy.
    Despite that, as you noted in your testimony, Mr. Seligman, 
the agencies responsible for our national security are not 
requiring that content be taken down; they have flagged it. The 
decision has rested with those private companies. Is that 
correct?
    Mr. Seligman. That's correct.
    Mr. Allred. Maybe the most--one of the most egregious 
examples that's come out in the series of Congressional 
hearings we have held about this from a White House official 
contacting a social media agency, a social media company, was 
the Trump White House reaching out about a Chrissy Teigen tweet 
and saying that it should be taken down because it said mean 
things about the President. Can you imagine that? Do you think 
that was a violation of the First Amendment, Mr. Sauer?
    Mr. Sauer. We haven't seen that tweet. In our case, I'm not 
familiar with it. I would emphasize that for any Federal 
election--
    Mr. Allred. Are you not familiar.
    Mr. Sauer. --for any Federal elected official to demand 
that content be taken down raises serious First Amendment 
concerns.
    Mr. Allred. Good. Well, then, OK, so you're saying that 
when the Trump White House did that, that raises concerns for 
you?
    Mr. Sauer. I would say, if any Federal official, elected or 
unelected, is communicating with social media platforms and 
demanding that content be taken down, that raises grave First 
Amendment concerns. We put in evidence of that occurring on--
    Mr. Allred. Listen, listen--
    Mr. Sauer. --the scale of hundreds, hundreds of millions--
    Mr. Allred. The issue here is that much of the--some of the 
discussions that we're talking about here occurred when Trump 
was in office. There's a claim of some vast conspiracy led by 
the Biden Administration, much of it centering on activity by 
the FBI around the last election when Donald Trump was in 
office. The Trump--I'm not asking a question yet. The Trump 
White House itself was reaching out to social media companies, 
trying to suppress certain discussions.
    The truth is that, despite all the claims being made here 
today, that social media is being used to censor Conservatives, 
the truth is that their platforms have repeatedly failed to 
prevent their own platforms from being used to incite violence, 
to spread disinformation, and said Twitter actually changed its 
own policies to allow Donald Trump to repeatedly spread lies 
about the election. We have some examples I would like to put 
up here really quickly.
    [Slide.]
    All the way back in May 2020, six months before the 
election, President Trump was tweeting that this would be a 
rigged election. That there will be massive fraud and abuse. 
That 2020 will be the most rigged election in our Nation's 
history. That content was not taken down. It was allowed to 
stay up. That doesn't sound like censorship to me. Those 
decisions were made by private companies during Donald Trump's 
Presidency.
    Mr. Seligman, I don't have a lot of time left, but I just 
wanted to ask you as an expert, in a democracy, what does it do 
when statements like this from a head of State are allowed to 
attack the very democracy they're supposed to be leading?
    Mr. Seligman. I think it inflames people's political 
passions, and when hundreds of millions of people see claims 
like that and believe them and believe that our elections are 
not free and fair, contrary to fact, some of them ultimately 
take extreme action in response to that. That is the danger of 
misinformation.
    Mr. Allred. It was still allowed to stay up.
    Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. The gentleman's time has expired.
    Mr. Allred. Now, there's no ground of conspiracy. Take off 
the tinfoil hats and understand what is really going on--
    Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. The gentleman's time has expired.
    Mr. Allred. --and understand what's really going on.
    Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. The gentleman from Kentucky, Mr. 
Massie, is recognized for five minutes.
    Mr. Massie. Mr. Seligman, are you familiar with the lawsuit 
against President Trump where he blocked people on Twitter?
    Mr. Seligman. Yes.
    Mr. Massie. Very briefly. As briefly as you can State it, 
what was the issue there.
    Mr. Seligman. It's been a while since I've looked at the 
case, so I will speak from my recollection. So, President Trump 
blocks people on Twitter and, of course, as a private user, if 
had not been President, there would be no question that he had 
the right to do that.
    So, the question in the case was whether his taking that 
action while he was President and therefore wielding 
governmental power amounted to a violation of the First 
Amendment.
    Mr. Massie. Wasn't it a particular issue of the First 
Amendment that these were constituents who were trying to make 
their voices heard to the government?
    Mr. Seligman. That's right, as Attorney General Landry, I 
believe, mentioned before the right to petition for redress of 
grievances is part of the First Amendment.
    Mr. Massie. I think it's a very important part of the First 
Amendment. If you can't communicate with your government, how 
do you get any redress? So, I think it's really--we really have 
to be concerned when constituents who are trying to address 
their elected representatives, their voices get squelched.
    Before I get to a particular instance of that, I want to 
ask you, Mr. Sauer, how did the CDC, the Surgeon General, and 
NIAID communicate with social media platforms to influence 
them?
    Mr. Sauer. They did it in different ways. You see a lot of 
email traffic that was not public at the time where there's 
censorship activities that were out of public view.
    Mr. Massie. Like at CDC, what was the particular channel 
there? I heard that they had some portal partnership that they 
could access directly to Twitter. Who were the people involved?
    Mr. Sauer. That's correct. You see both Twitter and 
Facebook offering Federal officials privileged access to be 
sort of privileged flaggers of misinformation, using something 
that Twitter calls the partner support portal and something 
that the Facebook emails describe as Facebook's mis-info 
reporting channel. They would assure them: Hey, if you go 
through this process, you'll get very prompt responses. We'll 
prioritize escalation of your concerns.
    Mr. Massie. So, the government literally signed up as a 
partner with the social media companies?
    Mr. Sauer. I think that's a very fair comment on our 
evidence.
    Mr. Massie. So, one other avenue that I want you to tell us 
about that the government may have had influences is this 
Virality Project. Can you tell us what that is and what they do 
and if they receive taxpayer money?
    Mr. Sauer. The Virality Project is a kind of consortium of 
private entities working hand in glove with the Federal 
government. It's really just an extension under a different 
name with the Election Integrity Partnership. You're talking 
about entities like Stanford Internet Observatory, the 
University of Washington's Center for an Informed Public, 
Graphika, and the Atlantic Council's DFRLab collaborating 
closely with State, Federal, and local government officials, 
and collaborating closely with the social media platforms, all 
at once to engage in a mass surveillance and mass censorship 
program for social media, the breadth of which is staggering.
    Mr. Massie. Imagine my surprise when I found out that the 
Virality Project was targeting my communications in social 
media with my constituents. In June, they said Representative 
Massie uses Cleveland Clinic study to allege, counter to CDC 
guidance, that previously infected people do not need the 
vaccine.
    [Chart.]
    They were concerned that my Fox News interview had gone 
viral with 393,000 Facebook views. Then, finally, they said, 
whether or not this is a case in which scientific consensus is 
changing. In other words, whether this is true or not, they 
said that natural immunity key narrative is a source of 
uncertainty, not only among anti-vaccine activists, but also 
among the questioning and hesitant. That uncertainty must be 
addressed by experts and openly and responsibly communicated to 
the public. This Virality Project, working with the government, 
was advising the social media companies on what to censor. Is 
that correct?
    Mr. Sauer. That's correct. That's correct.
    Mr. Massie. So, here's what I find disturbing, not 
necessarily that my tweets were censored, but this is one of 
the tweets where natural immunity's better than vaccine 
immunity. There were multiple studies supporting that. I had 
subsequent tweet, just like this, that references studies. It 
got blocked, too. What concerns me is this statement down here. 
This tweet can't be replied to, shared, or liked. OK. Shared. 
When we do this to constituents, are we squelching their First 
Amendment?
    Mr. Sauer. Absolutely. The Knight v. First Amendment case 
that Mr. Seligman was talking about in the Second Circuit held 
that liking, commenting, reposting, retweeting--there's case 
law indicating these are First-Amendment-protected activities.
    Mr. Massie. I think it's appalling that we've got evidence 
that the First Amendment was violated by the Executive Branch, 
particularly people trying to redress their government.
    I yield back.
    Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. The gentleman's time has expired.
    The gentlelady from Texas, Ms. Garcia, is recognized for 
five minutes.
    Ms. Garcia. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    On July 16, 2021, a reporter asked President Biden what his 
message was to social media platforms when it came to COVID-19 
disinformation. He replied, quote: ``They're killing people,'' 
end quote.
    I know one of our missing witnesses referenced that quote 
earlier, but I can't ask him about those questions because he 
has been excused.
    [Chart.]
    Now, if you look at the chart behind me, this represents 
the consequences of vaccine signs' denialism. The arrow points 
to May 2021 when the vaccine became widely available in the 
United States. The deaths to the right of the arrow represent a 
continued wrath of COVID on our country, mostly among 
unvaccinated people in Texas and the Southern U.S. As you can 
see, 200,000 lives could have been saved. That's how many 
people were killed.
    Now, if we used the same formula, that means that 15,000 
lives could have been saved in Chair Jordan's State of Ohio or 
5,000 lives could have been saved in Chair Johnson's State of 
Louisiana. That's a lot of people. Many communities across the 
United States have been utterly devastated by COVID.
    You know I represent parts of Houston, a big city. I was 
born and raised in a small Texas rural community. In Duval 
County, where I was born, one out of 151 people died of COVID. 
In a similar community like Lamb County, Texas, nearly one out 
of every 100 people was killed by COVID. This death rate was 
one of the highest in the country and three times that of the 
Nation as a whole.
    In fact, across the country, rural America's death rate has 
been nearly 40 percent higher than that of those in cities. 
This is tragically sad. I believe it's vaccine denialism that 
have cost these Americans deaths. Only 56 percent of rural 
residents are fully vaccinated versus 67 percent of their urban 
counterparts.
    In my home State of Texas, it's estimated that 2,000 lives 
could have been saved if we had reached the vaccination levels 
of places like Vermont or Connecticut.
    Mr. Sauer, you cited Missouri v. Biden, plaintiff's motion 
for preliminary injunction. That motion claims that Biden's 
statement that the social media companies are, quote, ``killing 
people by letting vaccine disinformation spread'' was somehow 
illegal censorship. I, frankly, could not disagree with you 
more strongly. I have a simple fact question for you today.
    Mr. Sauer, do you agree that the COVID vaccine saves lives? 
Just a yes or no, please.
    Mr. Sauer. In my view First Amendment--
    Ms. Garcia. Mr. Sauer, I asked for a yes or no. Yes, two 
simple words. Yes or no.
    Mr. Sauer. I have no opinion to talk with the Committee--
    Ms. Garcia. So, you're Harvard-trained. You pretend to be 
an expert here, and you cannot answer the simple question of 
whether or not you agree that COVID vaccine saves live?
    Mr. Sauer. I have no--
    Chair Jordan. Gentleman, Mr. Sauer, if you could hit the 
microphone.
    Ms. Garcia. Mr. Seligman, will you answer my question since 
it looks like our Harvard colleague over there cannot?
    Mr. Seligman. Yes, I believe vaccines saves lives.
    Ms. Garcia. Thank you.
    Mr. Sauer, you also signed a Missouri v. Biden Second 
Amendment complaint which criticized Twitter for removing 
content suggesting that, quote, ``face masks do not work to 
reduce transmission or to protect against COVID-19.''
    Well, a journalist in Texas did a lot of the work that 
apparently you haven't and compiled 49 studies all showing that 
masks effectively reduce the rate of COVID transmission.
    Mr. Sauer, yes or no, again, do you agree that face masks 
stop the transmission of COVID?
    Mr. Sauer. I refer you to the--
    Ms. Garcia. Sir, a yes or no again.
    Mr. Sauer. Again, Congresswoman, I refer you--
    Ms. Garcia. It is my time; I want a yes or no. If that's 
too hard for you, then I'll just move on.
    So, I'll ask you, Mr. Seligman, do you agree that face 
masks stop the transmission of COVID?
    Mr. Seligman. My understanding is the scientific evidence 
is, yes, it does.
    Ms. Garcia. All right. So, Mr. Sauer, your motion for 
preliminary injunction claims that, even the U.S. Department of 
Health and Human Services' efforts to gather information about 
how widespread COVID-19 disinformation could somehow be 
censorship. Knowing how the American people are being lied to 
is not censorship. I guess you might be scared what the data 
will show.
    Mr. Sauer, again, a yes or no, do you believe that public 
health experts need data about the impact of disinformation to 
stop people in places like rural Texas from dying from this 
pandemic.
    Mr. Sauer. Federal officials should not be demanding data 
about people's political and social opinions expressed on 
social media.
    Ms. Garcia. Please answer yes or no. Yes or no, please.
    Mr. Sauer. I reiterate what I said. Under the First 
Amendment--
    Ms. Garcia. You are refusing to answer my question.
    Mr. Sauer. Under the First Amendment, a Federal official 
should not be demanding that.
    Ms. Garcia. You are refusing to answer my question.
    Mr. Seligman, do you agree that data on disinformation is 
necessary to help stop these lies from spreading.
    Mr. Seligman. Yes.
    Ms. Garcia. Thank you. You are on actual expert on 
disinfor-
mation--
    Chair Jordan. The gentlelady's time has expired.
    Ms. Garcia. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I yield back.
    Chair Jordan. Thank you. The Chair now recognizes the 
gentleman from North Dakota, Mr. Armstrong.
    Mr. Armstrong. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    Mr. Seligman, your testimony describes that--State action 
case law--and I'll try and boil that down in its simplest 
terms, that it comes down to the distinction between convince 
and coerce. You State that, because there was no overt threats 
to the platforms, that the government is in the clear.
    I want to be clear: I reject that premise and agree 
significantly more with Mr. Sauer. For the sake of argument, 
let's continue that each individual instance only constitutes 
attempts to convince platforms by the administration. We still 
have to view this in its totality.
    There was an unprecedented level of continuous engagement 
between the administration and social media companies to 
address not only categories of speech, but specific 
individuals, specific content, and specific viewpoints. The 
sheer quantity has a quality all its own.
    The administration performed this unprecedented level of 
continuous engagement at several levels: The FBI, the CDC, the 
Department of Homeland Security, essentially every single 
alphabet soup agency; the White House. That's not even taking 
into account the State Department funding a nonprofit whose 
goal was to censor such radical media as The Federalist, 
Reason, and the New York Post.
    In one instance, a White House staffer, Rob Flaherty, sent 
this exact message to Google: This is a concern that is shared 
at the highest level, and I mean the highest levels of the 
White House.
    He's talking about the President of the United States. This 
is coming from an administration that has supported and 
advanced several policies directly targeting the business 
models of social media companies.
    Anti-trust enforcement, Section 230, encryption. The list 
goes on and on. Regardless of which government agency is 
pressuring these social media companies on any particular 
issue, they were all being received by the same contract-
moderation teams at those social media companies. The 
administration isn't going to say: Do this, or we will shut you 
down.
    To be quite honest, that's not how government coercion is 
carried out. They are never going to directly threaten anyone. 
The message is clear from a continuous request: Play ball or 
else.
    The end result is harming Americans' First Amendment right 
to speak and also to receive information.
    Understanding that content--Mr. Seligman, understanding 
that content-based restrictions are unconstitutional, are you 
not at all different concerned that the administration's 
continuous actions have chilled Americans' free speech rights.
    Mr. Seligman. I don't think that the administration's 
actions constitute a First Amendment violation. As you noted, I 
don't think there were any overt threats, and I don't think 
there were any covert threats as well. The best indication that 
we have of that is that social media platforms could and did 
disagree with the suggestions that were offered by governmental 
officials, and they made decisions that conflicted with those 
recommendations without consequence, repeatedly.
    Mr. Armstrong. Well, without consequences. They got a lot 
of emails back and forth.
    Mr. Sauer, we all understand that, if Federal law 
enforcement wants to search the trunk of your car, you need a 
warrant. The Federal government can't get around that warrant 
by using a Capitol security guard to open that trunk and then 
look what's in it. One of the biggest things that we've been 
continuing to talk about in this context is the third party 
doctrine. If the DOJ can't search my car without a warrant, 
they can't use a security guard to search my car.
    This administration, even though they can't directly censor 
First Amendment viewpoint discrimination, is trying to use 
social media companies to carry out their tasks. How do you 
view that moving forward?
    Mr. Sauer. That is a grave threat to liberty. It directly 
undermines the First Amendment. Your statements are supported 
by overwhelming evidence in the record.
    Mr. Armstrong. The answer about the third party doctrine, 
which we have carried out in different things and we're dealing 
with it now just as simply new, and we continue to move 
forward. What recommendation would you have for us as Congress 
to start dealing with this issue?
    Mr. Sauer. I believe that this Subcommittee should take a 
very close look and scrutinize the various forms of First 
Amendment violations we see in this case, again, not just 
coercion but also joint participation and significant 
entwinement. For example, when you have Federal and State 
officials working hand in glove with nonprofits like the 
Stanford Internet Observatory, which are also tightly connected 
to social media platforms to engage in mass surveillance, to 
engage in the censorship of--we're talking about millions and 
millions of social media posts, systemic First Amendment 
violations--that needs to be carefully scrutinized.
    Mr. Armstrong. Then, just with the little time I have left, 
I know it came up earlier with objectionable. Provided that 
speech is lawful, content-based discrimination by the U.S. 
Government is a First Amendment violation.
    Mr. Sauer. Correct.
    Mr. Armstrong. So, the fact that this speech is 
objectionable, again, provided that it's constitutionally 
protected, it's irrelevant to when you're dealing with 
government discrimination.
    Mr. Sauer. That's exactly right. Under the First Amendment, 
government officials don't get to decide what is objectionable 
or what is true and false. We get to decide that.
    Mr. Armstrong. It absolutely has to be that way; otherwise, 
who polices the policers?
    Mr. Sauer. You're absolutely right. This is the heart of 
the First Amendment.
    Mr. Armstrong. Thank you. I yield back.
    Chair Jordan. I thank the gentleman. The gentleman yields 
back.
    Ms. Garcia. Mr. Chair.
    Chair Jordan. We now recognize--
    Ms. Garcia. Mr. Chair, I ask for unanimous consent to enter 
four documents into the record.
    Chair Jordan. Without objection. Can you identify the 
documents first, though? Can you identify the documents?
    Ms. Garcia. Sure. The first is a Time Magazine article is 
entitled, ``In this Texas County, There's No Such Thing As 
Moving on From COVID.''
    From KXAN News in Austin, ``Do face masks work? Here are 49 
scientific studies that explain that they do.''
    From The Washington Post, an article entitled, ``The inside 
story of how Trump's denial, mismanagement, and magical 
thinking led to the pandemic's dark winter.''
    Finally, a report published in PLOS Global Public Health by 
Peter Hotez, Dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine 
and Professor of the Departments of Pediatrics and Molecular 
Virology and Microbiology at Baylor College of Medicine, and 
the Endowed Chair in Tropical Pediatrics and Co-Director for 
Vaccine Development at Texas Children's Hospital entitled, 
``The Great Texas COVID Tragedy,'' be entered into the record.
    Chair Jordan. Without objection.
    Ms. Garcia. Thank you.
    Chair Jordan. The gentleman from New York is recognized for 
five minutes of questions.
    Mr. Goldman. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    Mr. Sauer, did you discuss the substance of your testimony 
here today with any Members of this Committee?
    Mr. Goldman. I can't hear you. Can you turn your microphone 
on.
    Mr. Sauer. Pardon me. I participated in a briefing 
yesterday afternoon with Members of the Subcommittee when my 
testimony had already been finalized.
    Mr. Goldman. Were any Democratic members included in that 
briefing?
    Mr. Sauer. I can't say for sure. I don't know all the 
Members who were involved.
    Mr. Goldman. You don't know?
    Mr. Sauer. I don't know. I'm not as familiar with the 
membership of the Committee as perhaps I should be.
    Mr. Goldman. Am I correct that--I'll just note, for the 
record, there were no Democratic Members in that briefing. Am I 
correct, sir, that you are one of the lawyers that brought the 
lawsuit that we are discussing here today?
    Mr. Sauer. That is correct.
    Mr. Goldman. So, you're a party to that case?
    Mr. Sauer. No, I'm an attorney. That's very different.
    Mr. Goldman. Well, you represent Louisiana. You work for 
the Attorney General's Office of Louisiana, and Louisiana 
brought the case?
    Mr. Sauer. That's correct. It would be inaccurate to 
describe me as a party.
    Mr. Goldman. OK. You don't decide whether or not your 
arguments that you make in that case and that you're making 
here today are valid or not, do you?
    Mr. Sauer. They seemed very valid to me. The judge will 
make a decision in our case.
    Mr. Goldman. The judge makes the decision, right not you?
    Mr. Sauer. Correct.
    Mr. Goldman. As you know, the District Court did not decide 
in its opinion whether your assertions are correct, right?
    Mr. Sauer. The District Court dismissed the pending motion 
to dismiss by the Department of Justice, saying that we had 
alleged sufficient facts to State claims, and we will have a 
hearing in late May on our pending motion for preliminary 
injunction. He has not ruled on that yet.
    Mr. Goldman. So, just so laypeople can understand, a motion 
to dismiss just says that, if the allegations that you make are 
true, you can continue with your claim. A preliminary 
injunction will actually address the evidence that you're 
discussing, right?
    Mr. Sauer. That's correct.
    Mr. Goldman. OK. Now, are you expecting that the Department 
of Justice will appeal the motion to dismiss order?
    Mr. Sauer. You would have to ask them--well, actually, the 
motion to dismiss order, it's very unlikely because there is no 
procedural right to appeal that. So far, they haven't made any 
attempt to do that. They would have to do by pursuing what's 
called an extraordinary writ. That would be very unusual. That 
said, I do not speak for them.
    Mr. Goldman. Do you read the news, sir?
    Mr. Sauer. I'm sorry?
    Mr. Goldman. Do you read the news?
    Mr. Sauer. Some news.
    Mr. Goldman. Are you aware of reporting that Donald Trump's 
defense attorney asked Republican Members of the House of 
Representatives to intervene in an ongoing criminal 
investigation into himself in a local prosecutor's office?
    Mr. Sauer. I don't recall reading that.
    Mr. Goldman. OK. If that were the case, would you consider 
that to be called, quote, ``directing,'' unquote that the House 
of Representatives act on behalf of Donald Trump?
    Mr. Sauer. I would have to know much, many more facts 
before I'm able to make any kind of judgment like that.
    Mr. Goldman. Right. All right. Well, I just want to 
understand because you talk a lot about directing here, that 
the government is directing. Then you also say that there's a 
compelling inference. Now, we lawyers understand that 
inferences only occur when you don't have direct evidence to 
support it. So, I would also just want to note that.
    Mr. Sauer. We have overwhelming--
    Mr. Goldman. There's no question--the sad reality here is 
that we are continuing to go down this phantom narrative that 
the White House or the Biden Administration coerced social 
media companies into censoring anti-vaccine and election 
disinformation and misinformation.
    Now, we know why that is because the Members on the other 
side of the aisle believe that disinformation and 
misinformation, if it gets out there, is politically beneficial 
to them. Unfortunately, neither you nor they have presented any 
direct evidence to support this.
    I would actually submit that this hearing is more notable, 
not because of the topic and the witnesses, including two who 
were too afraid to stay and answer questions, but because of 
what we are not focusing on. Apparently, this Committee is no 
longer focused on the so-called dozens and dozens of FBI 
whistleblowers who were supposedly going to show some massive 
government conspiracy to attack Conservatives. Three of them 
have now come in for transcribed interviews over a month ago.
    Where are those witnesses, Mr. Chair? Let's bring them in. 
Bring them in right here so that the American people can see 
for themselves what is the entire basis of this Subcommittee.
    Now, you want to talk about censorship. You imagined in 
your opening statement a world where the FBI sends a list of 
books that should be pulled from their shelves. Luckily, we 
don't have to imagine that, sir. Are you aware that recent laws 
in Florida have resulted in the mass removal of books that are 
now banned in public schools?
    Mr. Sauer. I don't know about Florida. I do know that we 
have sworn testimony from FBI agent Elvis Chan that directly 
backs up the analogy I drew in my opening statement.
    Mr. Goldman. OK. Well, you should go look into it--
    Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. The gentleman's time has expired.
    Mr. Goldman. --because Florida right now is banning books. 
You would agree that's a violation of the First Amendment, do 
you?
    Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. The gentleman's time has expired.
    Mr. Goldman. Can the witness answer the question.
    Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. No, because you were over your 
time. Because you addressed the Chair, I will stay tuned, Mr. 
Goldman; there's much more to come in this Committee.
    The gentlelady from Florida, Ms. Cammack, is recognized for 
five minutes.
    Ms. Cammack. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to our 
witnesses for appearing before us here today. I have heard your 
last name pronounced a couple of different ways today. How is 
it properly pronounced?
    Mr. Seligman. Seligman. Thank you very much.
    Ms. Cammack. Seligman.
    Mr. Seligman. Seligman.
    Ms. Cammack. OK. Thank you, Mr. Seligman. You stated you 
are an expert in constitutional law, correct.
    Mr. Seligman. Yes.
    Ms. Cammack. OK. Excellent. In your testimony, your written 
testimony, which was provided to us late last night, it says 
that, quote--this is your writing:

        No government official ever threatened any social media 
        platform with adverse action if a platform declined to moderate 
        content flagged by the official or if a platform decided not to 
        take an official's suggestions.

Do you stand by your testimony?
    Mr. Seligman. Yes.
    Ms. Cammack. OK. Now, a few minutes ago just prior, you 
said that Members of the Legislative Branch don't qualify for 
this particular statement, despite the fact that you said no 
government official ever. Does a Representative in Congress 
constitute a government official?
    Mr. Seligman. Well, let me clarify from earlier.
    Ms. Cammack. Please do.
    Mr. Seligman. I don't think that legislative proposals that 
were brought by Republicans or Democrats constitute threats 
against social media platforms. That's true whether--with 
respect to Section 230 reform.
    Ms. Cammack. Sure.
    Mr. Seligman. It's true with respect to anti-trust 
enforcement.
    Ms. Cammack. So, that would then lead us to the natural 
inclination to believe that you are talking about the Executive 
Branch, correct? Being government officials? So, government 
officials like the Deputy Assistant to the President and 
Director of the Digital Strategy, like Robert Flaherty, or the 
White House Senior Advisor, like Andrew Slavitt, or the NSC 
staffer Katy Colus (ph), or the Deputy Assistant to the 
President, or the White House Digital Director, or the Press 
Secretary for the First Lady, or the NSC Director for 
Counterterrorism, the Chief of Staff for the Office of Digital 
Strategy, the Director of Strategic Communication and 
Engagement, the White House Associate Counsel, Associate 
Director for Communications, the Deputy Director of Digital 
Strategy, and the Strategic Director of Digital Communications, 
those are government officials, correct?
    Mr. Seligman. Yes.
    Ms. Cammack. What's so interesting is that all these 
members of the Executive Branch, all of them have 
communications, thousands of emails between them and Twitter 
and Meta officials where they demand that posts be taken down 
and censored.
    I'll give you a couple of examples, and then we'll see if 
you still feel so strongly about your words. January 23rd, 
three days after the inauguration, at 1:04 a.m., Clarke 
Humphrey of the White House emails Twitter and says:

        We're flagging this post for you. Hey, folks, wanted to flag 
        this tweet, wondering if we can get moving on the process to 
        have it taken down . . . ASAP.

    Then, on February 7th, an email exchange took place between 
Twitter and White House Deputy Assistant to the President and 
Director of Digital Strategy Rob Flaherty and asked for the 
steps that he could take to, quote, ``streamline the process 
for the White House's demands for Twitter censorship.''
    Then, two days later on February 9, 2021, he follows up 
again with Facebook with a more aggressive demand for more 
information along with an accusation that would be repeated 
many times in the future, that Facebook was failing to censor 
speech on its platform, and it was causing, quote, ``political 
violence.''
    Fast forward, you have March 15th, White House senior 
advisor then made an ominous statement threatening unspecified 
executive action against Facebook in retaliation for Facebook's 
perceived lack of cooperation with the White House's list of 
demands--that have been documented and will be entered into the 
record for this hearing--on censorship of, quote, ``borderline 
content.''
    The line that I think is particularly troubling is saying, 
``Internally, we have been considering our options on what to 
do about it.''
    Do you consider that to be nonthreatening?
    Mr. Seligman. I am not familiar with the particular 
documents that you're referring to.
    Ms. Cammack. I just read you multiple examples.
    Mr. Seligman. Yes, and so I don't think that emphatic 
impressions of their concerns about the problem of 
misinformation is a threat. I don't.
    Ms. Cammack. So, when President Biden said that social 
media companies are killing people, and then there is a direct 
line from the White House to the social media companies 
demanding posts be removed, going so far as to say there has to 
be a quick and devastating takedown, a published takedown, that 
is not a threat?
    Mr. Seligman. I don't believe so.
    Ms. Cammack. Wow.
    Mr. Seligman. I also don't believe when President Trump 
made comments about social media.
    Ms. Cammack. I am so glad we have this on the record. 
Again, my apologies to you, sir, for what you have had to 
endure here today.
    With that, I yield back.
    Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. Thank you. The gentlelady's time 
has expired.
    The Chair recognizes Ms. Hageman from Wyoming for five 
minutes.
    Ms. Hageman. Thank you.
    Mr. Sauer, you and your colleagues have truly provided a 
great service to this Nation by exposing what we can rightfully 
describe as the Surveillance Industrial Complex, the Censorship 
Industrial Complex, the Corruption Industrial Complex. Take 
your pick. Your testimony today is stunning, as is your written 
statements, and I encourage everyone to read the information 
that you have provided.
    The breadth and scope of this vast censorship complex is 
stunning and extends from the Halls of Congress to the 
Executive Branch to the Office of the President of the United 
States.
    As one of the last questioners today, I wanted to give you 
the opportunity to speak directly to the American public, and 
I'd like you to give us examples of just one or two takeaways 
that you believe are paramount as we continue our work and as 
we seek to hold this administration and these corrupt 
government hacks accountable for their blatant violation of the 
First Amendment to the United States Constitution.
    Mr. Sauer. Thank you very much, Representative. I would 
emphasize maybe two or three points. First, Federal censorship 
activities are not in retreat. They are expanding. Federal 
executive officials are expanding the topics on which they seek 
censorship. It's expanding to more and more agencies, and it's 
expanding to any social media platform they can reach to. So, 
we are not in a situation where this is something that occurred 
in the past. We have overwhelming evidence that it's growing 
and growing and growing, and there's little indication that 
there will ever be any voluntary relinquishment of the power to 
dictate what ordinary Americans can say on social media. So, 
it's a problem that is growing. It's a looming threat.
    The second point that I would make is that censorship, as I 
said in my opening statement, both now and every other time 
when there's been censorship throughout human history, is not 
about truth; it is about political power. It's about obtaining 
power. It's about preserving power, and it's about expanding 
power. The evidence of this, again, is overwhelming. You see it 
right there in the documents, some of which were just quoted. 
You see the White House saying: What we really want you to take 
down, Facebook, Twitter, and so forth, is borderline content--
borderline content that's described in the emails is often 
true; it's often true; it involves core political speech--we 
want you to take that down because that is what most effective 
undermining the narratives that we want to be out there on 
social media.
    That's an egregious violation of First Amendment. It is 
viewpoint discrimination.
    I would also point out that many of the comments that have 
been made on the other side today have said: We can't let there 
be misinformation on social media because the tiny minority of 
the hundred million people who might see it might take it and 
do something bad.
    You might call the minority report approach to the First 
Amendment. It's absolute poppycock. It turns the First 
Amendment absolutely on its head.
    The promise of the First Amendment is that no official, 
high or petty, will be able to dictate what Americans do. 
Americans can make their own opinions. They're adults. They can 
read the evidence. They can form their own factual opinions and 
their own opinions. That is the core in the heartland of the 
First Amendment, which we see radically perverted, radically 
perverted in the communications between the White House and 
virtually every other Federal agency has discussed in my 
extensive written testimony.
    I would also emphasize censorship does not make Americans 
safer. It does not make them healthier, and it does not protect 
our democracy. Censorship is what kills, not freedom. Freedom 
is what preserves our liberty. Freedom is what makes us safe 
and healthy as a society. So, this notion that we've got to 
have censorship because it's going to be a threat to our 
democracy--what could be more antidemocratic than Federal 
censorship dictating what ordinary Americans can say on social 
media.
    The First Amendment in social media radically Democratized 
speech. The First Amendment is the most pro-democratic 
political statement in history perhaps. Because what it says is 
every ordinary citizen can decide for themselves without 
interference from Federal officials as to what their opinion 
is. We can participate in a free market of ideas with freedom 
of impression, freedom of association to engage in that. That's 
what we see under direct assault by a whole army of Federal 
officials in this case.
    Finally, I would emphasize that this should not be a 
partisan issue. Censorship violates the First Amendment no 
matter what viewpoint Federal officials are going after. 
Everyone, everyone in this Chamber should oppose the sorts of 
pressure, collusion, deception, all the things you see in our 
evidence in this case. Federal officials should not be in the 
business of saying what Americans can and cannot say on social 
media. Those are the conclusions that I would offer the 
American people.
    Ms. Hageman. Again, thank you for what you have just 
described. What an incredible summary and a statement of where 
we are in this country. We appreciate what you have done, what 
you've been willing to expose. With that, I yield back.
    Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. Thank you. The gentlelady's 
expired.
    I will yield to myself five minutes as we wrap this up 
today. We've heard a lot.
    Mr. Sauer, what you said was extraordinary, and I wish 
every American could watch that clip because you summarized it 
so well. I thank the gentlelady for giving you the opportunity.
    What you said earlier this morning summarizes it well, 
also. You said censorship impedes the pursuit of truth in the 
free marketplace of ideas. That's the summary.
    Look, we brought in exceptional witnesses this morning. We 
brought in the Attorney General of the State of Louisiana and 
the former Attorney General of Missouri, now a U.S. Senator, 
because their litigation has revealed overwhelming direct 
evidence, as you pointed out, that the Executive Branch has 
undertaken a broad campaign to censor the American people. 
That's the headline. That's the takeaway today.
    Rather than one-off instances of censorship in coordination 
between Federal agencies and the private sector, your cases 
revealed how Federal agencies and officials have taken a whole-
of-government approach to censoring online speech about topics 
that they think are disfavored.
    The Federal government exchanged in two blatantly 
unconstitutional acts. First, they coerced technology companies 
to engage in censorship. They did this in a number of ways. At 
least 20 officials in the White House itself were involved. 
Then the Federal government colluded with the Big Tech 
companies and others to censor content.
    We know that Federal agencies met frequently with social 
media companies and received internal platform data and other 
special privileges that empowered censorship.
    Third, third parties, such as certain nonprofit 
organizations, also worked as intermediaries to help the 
Federal government effectuate its censorship scheme.
    This litigation in Missouri v. Biden offers the American 
people a unique window into the Federal government's operation 
of what's now being called the Censorship Industrial Complex. 
This litigation, led by Missouri and Louisiana, continues to 
unveil the extent of Federal coercion and of collusion with 
tech companies to censor disfavored content.
    Of course, the censors have been wrong time and time again, 
but that's not the point here. The point we're trying to make 
is that the U.S. Government is pressuring these platforms, 
which nearly every American uses every day to censor speech. 
Whether you agree with the speech that's being shared or not, 
that doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is these 
actions are wrong, and they have to be stopped. We have to 
protect the First Amendment and the free exchange of ideas.
    The gentleman here, the Democrat's witness says in his 
closing statement, he quotes, ``he decries baseless conspiracy 
theories,'' end quote. He says social media platforms must be, 
quote, ``uncorrupted by misinformation.'' He doesn't seem to 
recognize how dangerous that position is.
    Who decides what is baseless, and what is misinformation? 
You provided, sir, a recipe for blatant viewpoint 
discrimination and tyranny. I would suggest that you attend all 
those mandatory First Amendment training courses that your dean 
at Stanford Law School has just been forced to order.
    I yield to Mr. Jordan.
    Chair Jordan. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
    Mr. Sauer, did the government pressure social media to 
censor Americans for saying things like natural immunity is 
real?
    Mr. Sauer. Absolutely.
    Chair Jordan. Did the government pressure social media to 
censor Americans for saying things like gain-of-function 
research happened in that lab in China?
    Mr. Sauer. Absolutely.
    Chair Jordan. Did the government pressure social media to 
censor Americans for saying things like the virus likely came 
from a lab?
    Mr. Sauer. That is right with the heartland of our 
evidence.
    Chair Jordan. Did the government pressure social media to 
censor Americans for saying things like the vaccinated don't--
getting vaccinated doesn't prevent COVID and it doesn't 
necessarily stop transmission of COVID?
    Mr. Sauer. Absolutely.
    Chair Jordan. So, all those were true statements, but 
according to the Democrats, it's fine for government to 
pressure social media to take those statements down. In fact, 
this administration started doing that on day two. Day three, 
excuse me. January 23, 2021, here is what the suggestion, as 
Mr. Seligman says, the Biden White House said to Twitter. 
Clarke Humphrey, Executive Office of the President, White House 
Office: ``Hey, folks, wanted to flag the below tweet and 
wondering if we can get moving on the process for having it 
removed''--then, in all capitals--``ASAP.''
    Is that a suggestion or maybe something a little stronger 
than a suggestion from the White House on the second day, third 
day, excuse me, of this administration.
    Mr. Sauer. Stronger than a suggestion.
    Chair Jordan. Heck, yes, it's stronger than a suggestion. 
Here is the scariest thing of all, the bulletin the Democrats 
put up earlier--the National Terrorism Advisory System Bulletin 
for February 27, 2022, talks about mis-, dis-, and mal-
information.
    Mr. Sauer, tell me, what is mal-information.
    Mr. Sauer. Mal-information by their definition is truthful 
information that the Federal official thinks lack appropriate 
context. It's an Orwellian term.
    Chair Jordan. So, it's true, but the government says: We 
don't want the people seeing that, hearing that, repeating 
that, liking that, sharing that; we don't want that to happen?
    Mr. Sauer. Correct.
    Chair Jordan. Now, that is scary. That is exactly what the 
Chair just said. That is this dystopian crazy world they want 
to go. That is exactly what they were doing on day three. 
Because you know what the underlying tweet was? The underlying 
tweet said this,

        Hank Aaron's tragic death is part of the wave of suspicious 
        deaths among elderly closely following the administration of 
        the vaccine.

He received the vaccine on January 5th. True. Hank Aaron, 
true--real American. Great American. Amazing athlete. Wonderful 
human being. He got the vaccine on January 5th to inspire 
others to get it, and then he passed--there's nothing false in 
that whatsoever. Nothing false. These guys in the Biden White 
House said: ``Take it down.'' Not just take it down; they said, 
``Take it down as soon as you possibly can.''
    Mr. Seligman, Mr. Professor of Law says: You know what? 
That's just fine.
    That is a scary, scary world that the Democrats want to 
take us to.
    As you said earlier, if it was the other way around, if 
this was Republicans doing this to Democrats, you would be here 
testifying, too, and you'd be just as ticked off about it, and 
so would I.
    I yield back.
    Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. I thank the gentleman--the Chair 
of the Committee.
    We thank all our witnesses for appearing before the 
Subcommittee today.
    Without objection, all Members will have five legislative 
days to submit additional written questions for witnesses or 
additional materials for the record.
    Without objection, this hearing is adjourned.
    [Whereupon, at 1:21 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.]

    All materials submitted for the record by Members of the 
Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal 
government can be found at: https://docs.house.gov/Committee/
Calendar/ByEvent .aspx?EventID=115611.

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