[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
SECOND SESSION
__________
WEDNESDAY, MAY 1, 2024
__________
Serial No. 118-73
__________
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
55-618 WASHINGTON : 2024
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
JIM JORDAN, Ohio, Chair
DARRELL ISSA, California JERROLD NADLER, New York, Ranking
MATT GAETZ, Florida Member
ANDY BIGGS, Arizona ZOE LOFGREN, California
TOM McCLINTOCK, California SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas
TOM TIFFANY, Wisconsin STEVE COHEN, Tennessee
THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky HENRY C. ``HANK'' JOHNSON, Jr.,
CHIP ROY, Texas Georgia
DAN BISHOP, North Carolina ADAM SCHIFF, California
VICTORIA SPARTZ, Indiana ERIC SWALWELL, California
SCOTT FITZGERALD, Wisconsin TED LIEU, California
CLIFF BENTZ, Oregon PRAMILA JAYAPAL, Washington
BEN CLINE, Virginia J. LUIS CORREA, California
KELLY ARMSTRONG, North Dakota 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 BECCA BALINT, Vermont
WESLEY HUNT, Texas
RUSSELL FRY, South Carolina
Vacancy
------
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
ELISE M. STEFANIK, New York STEPHEN LYNCH, Massachusetts
MATT GAETZ, Florida LINDA SANCHEZ, California
KELLY ARMSTRONG, North Dakota DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ, Florida
W. GREGORY STEUBE, Florida GERRY CONNOLLY, Virginia
DAN BISHOP, North Carolina JOHN GARAMENDI, California
KAT CAMMACK, Florida SYLVIA GARCIA, Texas
HARRIET HAGEMAN, Wyoming DAN GOLDMAN, New York
WARREN DAVIDSON, Ohio JASMINE CROCKETT, Texas
RUSSELL FRY, South Carolina
CHRISTOPHER HIXON, Majority Staff Director
CAROLINE NABITY, Chief Counsel for Oversight
AARON HILLER, Minority Staff Director & Chief of Staff
CHRISTINA CALCE, Minority Chief Oversight Counsel
C O N T E N T S
----------
Wednesday, May 1, 2024
OPENING STATEMENTS
Page
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........................................ 4
WITNESSES
Robert Flaherty, former Director of the White House's Office of
Digital Strategy
Oral Testimony................................................. 9
Prepared Testimony............................................. 12
Andrew Slavitt, former Senior Advisor, COVID Response Team
Oral Testimony................................................. 17
Prepared Testimony............................................. 19
Todd Zywicki, University Foundation Professor, Antonin Scalia
School of Law, George Mason University
Oral Testimony................................................. 22
Prepared Testimony............................................. 24
Matthew Seligman, Nonresident Fellow, Stanford Constitutional Law
Center
Oral Testimony................................................. 47
Prepared Testimony............................................. 49
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 105
An email chain between Amazon employees and White House
employees, March 4, 2021, 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
An article entitled, ``Coronavirus is causing the `historic
decimation' of Latinos, medical expert says,'' Sept. 30, 2020,
NBC News, 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
Slides provides the an email chain during an interview with the
Amazon employee who received the email, Apr. 16, 2024,
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
APPENDIX
A statement submitted 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
VOTES
RC #1--Vote on Motion to Table
RC #2--Vote on Motion to Table
HEARING ON THE WEAPONIZATION OF THE
FEDERAL GOVERNMENT
----------
Wednesday, May 1, 2024
House of Representatives
Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government
Committee on the Judiciary
Washington, DC
The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:09 a.m., in
Room 2141, Rayburn House Office Building, the Hon. Jim Jordan
[Chair of the Subcommittee] presiding.
Members present: Representatives Jordan, Issa, Massie,
Gaetz, Armstrong, Steube, Bishop, Cammack, Hageman, Davidson,
Fry, Plaskett, Lynch, Sanchez, Wasserman Schultz, Connolly,
Gara-mendi, Garcia, Goldman, and Crockett.
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 government
censorship.
The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Kentucky to
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. The Chair now recognizes himself for an
opening statement. ``Can we include that the White House put
pressure on us to censor the lab leak theory?'' That's the
question Mark Zuckerberg asked in a group text with the top
people at Facebook. That is the question he posed to Sheryl
Sandberg, Nick Clegg, Joel Kaplan, and the top people at
Facebook on July 16, 2021. Now, what prompted this group text?
What prompted him to ask that question about the White House
putting pressure on Facebook to censor the lab leak theory?
Earlier that day, President Biden said, ``Facebook is
killing people.'' That is what got him talking. That is what
got him texting. That is what he is asking, can we put out this
statement that the White House has been putting pressure on us
to censor the lab leak theory? Ms. Sandberg responded to that
text message. She said, ``they are scapegoating us.'' Mr.
Zuckerberg further countered, or further stated,
Facebook had been combating misinformation just like the White
House wanted, but now there is this coordinated attack by the
White House against us.
Now, think about it. Facebook, Mr. Zuckerberg was saying
Facebook was doing exactly what the White House wanted, but it
still wasn't good enough.
Now, we should back up a few months. Senior White House
officials, and particularly, the two guys testifying here
today, Mr. Flaherty and Mr. Slavitt, had regular phone calls
and meetings with Facebook officials. One March meeting, Mr.
Flaherty said, and this is again from the internal
communications we got when we subpoenaed Facebook, Mr. Flaherty
said, ``my bias is to kick people off the platform.'' The White
House is telling a social media platform, the biggest one in
the world, you should kick people off your platform if they are
saying things we don't like.
In another one, Mr. Flaherty says, ``Can you change the
algorithm so Americans don't see news from outlets like the
Daily Wire?'' Telling a company, the Government, the White
House telling a company, change your algorithm so Americans
don't see news outlets like the conservative Daily Wire.
Now, Mr. Slavitt didn't want to be left out. He also got in
on the censorship effort. He told Nick Clegg he was outraged
that Facebook did not remove a meme. This one right here. Not
remove a meme.
What is interesting is Mr. Clegg counted that quote--let me
just read this quote. I think this is amazing. Mr. Clegg, a
British Member of Parliament who works at Facebook, countered,
I countered that removing content like that would represent a
significant incursion into traditional boundaries of free
expression in the United States.
An incursion into traditional boundaries of free expression in
the United States.
Think about it. You have got the British guy telling the
American guy how the First Amendment works. It is not just any
British guy. It is the British guy who is a member of the
British Parliament telling the American guy who works for the
President of the United States, this is an incursion of the
First Amendment and free expression. Now, it wasn't just
Facebook. It wasn't just Facebook. On day three, the White
House sent an email to Twitter, Ms. Clarke Humphrey sent the
email--we have talked about this one before. This email said
January 23, 2021, the third day of the Biden Administration.
The email goes to Twitter,
Hey folks, wanted to flag the below tweet and am wondering if
we can get moving on the process for having it removed ASAP?
Next sentence:
And then if we can keep an eye out for tweets that fall in this
same genre, that would be great.
White House, third day of the Administration telling Twitter
take down this tweet as soon as possible and any other tweets
like it, make sure you are taking them down, too.
That is censorship at its worst. Oh, by the way, the tweet,
the tweet was from Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., the guy who turned
out to be Biden's--the White House's opponent in the primary
election and all Robert F. Kennedy said is
Hank Aaron's tragic death is part of a wave of suspicious
deaths among elderly. Closely following administration of COVID
vaccines. He received the Moderna vaccine on January 5th to
inspire other Black Americans to get the vaccine.
Two sentences, both true and the White House is saying take it
down as soon as possible from the guy who is going to run for
the office therein.
So, it wasn't just Facebook. It was Twitter and they didn't
stop there, YouTube as well. Let me just read another one.
Again, all these are internal communications or communications
we got from the social media companies, but this one sent to
Mr. Flaherty.
Hi, Rob. Our YouTube Trust and Safety Team is working to
finalize a new policy to remove content that could mislead
people on the safety and efficacy of vaccines. We would like
for you to preview our policy proposal and get any feedback you
may have.
Preview our policy proposal and get feedback. They are asking
permission. It has gotten so bad they are saying, hey, White
House, is it OK if we do this? Will your censorship efforts
allow us to have this kind of policy?
Our other witness, Mr. Zywicki, was censored by YouTube.
Maybe you can blame the guys right beside you, Mr. Zywicki.
They are the reason you got censored, probably. I mean go
figure.
Now, here is the real kicker. The Biden White House didn't
stop with social media companies. They censored books as well.
So, it was Facebook. It was Twitter. It was YouTube and also
Amazon. This is from an internal Amazon communication where
they say,
I submitted a new ``do not promote class'' for any vax books.
The impetus for this request is criticism from the Biden
Administration about books we are giving prominent placement
and should be handled urgently.
So, it wasn't just social media. It was books. Books as
well. This virtual book banning that they were involved in and
if you disagreed with them, your social media company, your
book, your Amazon, you get censored. They come after you.
Maybe the most important point is when you violate the
First Amendment, public debate gets distorted and when that
happens, you get bad policy. You don't have full debate. That
is why we have the First Amendment. Some speech may be wrong.
You may not like it, but more speech is the answer, not taking
down speech. Policies get put in place when you censor, and you
restrict the First Amendment. Policies that kept Americans from
going to church, from going to school, from going to work,
policies that forced Americans to choose between taking a
vaccine or losing their job, all that happened, in part,
because this effort to restrict the First Amendment and speech.
I guess maybe the final thing I would point out is what
does the Biden Administration have up their sleeve in these
last six months before the election? What are they going to try
to censor now? We know the meetings have resumed. Foreign
influence task force meetings with big tech. We know those have
resumed. What are they up to now that is going to try to
restrict speech and keep information, important information
from the American people.
With that, I would yield to the Ranking Member for an
opening statement.
Ms. Plaskett. Thank you and good morning to everyone that
is with us today. While today is only our ninth hearing in this
Select Committee, which I note opened with much fanfare from my
colleagues on the right, it is the sixth hearing, like a Ground
Hog Day, for the same supposed weaponization of social media
through the curious case of the so-called Twitter files,
Facebook files, social media files, however we want to couch
it, the idea that the FBI and the Biden Administration have
stopped social media companies from free speech.
First, I thought when I heard this in the beginning, is
this just my poor colleagues doing the bidding of Elon Musk who
is no fan of American democracy or the great diversity of this
country? Is that what is going on here? What is really up their
sleeve? It eventually came to light though that this is about
the continual projection that the Republicans engage in
themselves. This is about them intimidating social media
companies to stop engaging in reviewing and moderating content
before the 2024 election. It is working. Media and particularly
social media executives and professionals have been targeted,
harassed, intimidated by this Committee and the many hordes
that follow behind them on Twitter and other places and they
are afraid to do their job. They are afraid to speak up. They
are afraid to do their work on those very same platforms. That
is well done, well done.
Guess what? You know how we did this? We did this by
spending $20 million, yes, that is how much this Committee has
spent to have nine hearings, six of which are repeat hearings--
$20 million. My fiscally conservative, budget conscious, don't
grow the Government coffers friends, have spent $20 million to
have nine hearings, six of which are about the very same
subject.
Now, what is even more interesting is I love when people
give you half a sentence and then don't respond with what the
answer is. They have been doing this repeatedly. You are going
to hear this throughout this hearing. For example, that first--
what was up on the board there, can we include that the White
House put pressure on us to censor the lab leak theory? That
looks like a question that he is asking his executive, Mark
Zuckerberg. What about the answer? The answer was I don't think
that they put specific pressure on that theory. That is the
answer. So, the answer was no. He didn't want to show you that
part because that doesn't help the argument that he is making.
The other one that he did where he says that is a question.
Were you asking if there were threats like if you don't do what
we want, a content moderation, we are going to sic Lina Khan on
you or are we going to go after--and Nick, maybe you can answer
just the subsequent question. The answer is we were never sort
of threatened with any. That is the answer. You're going to
hear this repeatedly. That is the answer. They weren't
threatened. They were informed. They were asked. They were
questioned. Things were pointed out to them, but the social
media content people did what they wanted to do. That is how a
private enterprise works.
What is going to happen now is I am going to give you a
preview of what is going to happen in this hearing because I
have been sitting in this chair for a while and I kind of know
the Ground Hog Day and how it goes. Up at the top row, we are
going to get a poster with a tweet supposedly demonstrating how
a Member got labeled by social media company as sharing
potentially misinformation on COVID. That is going to happen.
Then someone else down the line, we are going to hear about
censorship in another country like Canada and how we as
Americans need to be afraid of that happening here and how we
need to make sure that this doesn't happen and that is why we
are having this hearing.
Then wait for it. Wait for it because you know it is
coming. We are going to hear about Hunter's laptop because you
have got to hear about the laptop. You don't have a hearing
unless you hear about Hunter's laptop, and you are going to
hear the story about how it was squashed by the FBI and Trump
would have won if that had been able to get out more on social
media outlets. You are going to hear that one.
Then, finally, the final campfire story that you are going
to hear lower down there is about how scary the FBI is because
now they are going after people that look like them. You are
going to hear that. That is going to be part of this hearing.
So, everybody can go because I have just outlined for you what
we are going to do. Or you can watch the tapes of the six other
hearings we have done, sometimes with the same witnesses.
Thankfully, we have got some new witnesses here. We did bring
back one because it is the same subject.
I do want to thank the witnesses today, all whom are
appearing in front of the Select Committee voluntarily. I would
also like to share with you all why we are hearing these
witnesses, this twist on the social media spin that is
important right now, why this is so prescient having this
hearing with these witnesses. Republicans are holding this
hearing today in a last-ditch effort to influence the Supreme
Court opinion in the case of Murthy v. Missouri. That is what
is going on right now. During oral arguments in March, six
justices questioned Republicans' claim that the Federal
Government interactions with social media companies are
tantamount to censorship. The Supreme Court is presently
working in their chambers preparing, thinking, and
contemplating what that decision is going to be.
So, when the Chair sent a letter to several of the
witnesses asking that they testify today, the initial response
was shouldn't we wait until this court's decision? Wouldn't it
be bad form to hold this hearing now and use the U.S. Congress
to unduly influence the decision? That is exactly what we want
to do is the answer. That is exactly why we are holding this
hearing now because we do want to influence the decision. We do
want to use Congress for that. There is no doubt that this is
completely inappropriate use of congressional oversight powers,
that my colleagues are the biggest projectors ever. They are
like the bad boyfriend who tells you that you are the bad
person, when they are the ones doing the same thing that they
are accusing you of.
Let's take a step back and remember where we were during
this time in 2021 and when we think about all that think about
the projecting they are doing of using this Congress, this
body, to weaponize the Federal Government. The Congress is
actually weaponizing against social media companies.
So, in 2021, President Biden had just assumed office in the
wake of a coup attempt that many on the other side still refuse
to identify as such. More than 3,000 Americans were dying a day
of COVID, 3,000 a day. That is what was happening while all
this was going on that they are discussing. Doctors, nurses,
public health authorities were working to roll out a vaccine
that the former President Donald Trump, his administration
initiated. Did we forget that part? We forgot. Warp Speed,
remember that they wanted the vaccine until they weren't in
office, and then you don't want the vaccine because it is not
your President who is the one who is rolling it out? That was
done to stem the tide of deaths in the face of mounting waves
of conspiracy theories, claiming without evidence that the
vaccine was not safe. This is, while I will repeat it, 3,000
Americans a day were dying from the direct effects of COVID.
These conspiracy theories were downright dangerous. The
conspiracy theories I am referring to weren't just now--and I
love her music, Nikki Minaj, sharing a story that a friend of a
friend of her cousin from Trinidad something bad happened to
him in his private parts when he took the vaccine. Remember
that one? The Republican majority has even used our Select
Committee to give a platform to continue Robert Kennedy, Jr.'s
claim that COVID was proposedly bioengineered in a lab to
target Black people, but to spare Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese
people. These false claims that target Black people,
specifically, let me say putting on the echoes of very real
historic medical experimentation on Black people in America
that were tantamount to genocide. To those unfamiliar, I am
referring to a moment, the Tuskegee studies that the Federal
Government ran from 1932-1972 in Alabama where the centuries of
experimentation on Black women because it is believed that we
have a higher pain tolerance to be able to endure such
experimentation.
Robert Kennedy, Jr.'s claims directly echoed those
centuries past that as well scapegoated Jewish people and held
entire communities collectively responsible for illnesses like
the Black Plague, often as a precursor for massacres and
pogroms. It shouldn't surprise anyone that Mr. Slavitt, Mr.
Flaherty, and others in the Biden Administration were concerned
about these types of flagrant misinformation. They were trying
to stop a once in a lifetime global pandemic that had already
claimed far too many lives.
So, yes, Mr. Slavitt and Mr. Flaherty talked to technology
companies about what they were doing to stop misinformation.
This isn't a violation of the First Amendment to do that. It is
an example of the Biden Administration doing the work that a
President has been elected to do, to keep Americans safe, to
check on how companies are using their platforms to inform
Americans. Unless the majority forgets, the Government is
entitled to speak for itself. It is entitled to inform,
persuade, and yes, even to criticize private speakers. You want
to have the First Amendment, have it for everybody. Don't just
have it for who you want.
As Justice Kavanaugh noted during the recent oral arguments
and his quote is,
My experience is in the United States and all its
manifestations has regular communications with media to talk
about things they don't like or don't want to see or
complaining about factual inaccuracies.
In fact, Mr. Jordan's own staff regularly communicates with the
press. He and I communicated with the press about the content
of articles. You know what? We are entitled to do that.
The Chair in the majority claimed that Mr. Flaherty and Mr.
Slavitt somehow, ``coerced social media and technology
companies into removing content.'' This Committee and
Republican staff have gathered hundreds of hours of testimony
showing that this is simply not the case. Over and over again
in those testimoneys, you will see social media company
executives told the Committee that no matter who identified
concerning content, whether it is a member of the general
public, Members of Congress, the White House employees, the
companies evaluated the content against their own internal
policies. Only took action if the content violated those
policies.
Over and over again, social media company executives told
the Committee in no uncertain terms that no government official
ever coerced them into taking action. No government official
ever threatened them with any adverse consequences if their
companies did not take action. No government official ever
promised them any benefits if they did take action. The
Committee has heard hours of testimony to that effect, but the
majority has consistently rebuked our side, the minority's
request that the testimoneys be made
public.
The majority, who have controlled the tapes, likewise
declined to provide us with copies of hundreds of hours of
video taken during those investigations. That is because they
know the evidence shows that their big investigation, that $20
million investigation is a flop, just like their impeachment
investigation was a flop.
Has anyone forgotten that the investigation hinged entirely
on a 1023 form that was later determined to be completely
fabricated? That is right. The key witness turned out to be
passing along what may well have been Russian disinformation.
Apparently, that is the name of the game now. The extreme MAGA
majority has spent its time, not to mention tons of taxpayer
dollars on baseless investigations that have gone nowhere, all
of it in an effort to bully tech and media companies into
turning a blind eye to rightwing extremist conspiracies that
has spread across their platforms, even when those theories
violate very basic terms of service about deliberate
disinformation and promoting violence.
They haven't uncovered any quote, ``Weaponization in the
Federal Government.'' If anything, it is the Committee that has
been weaponized for a 2024 election. It is no accident, as I
said, that we are holding this hearing today as the Supreme
Court opinion in Murthy v. Missouri, a case brought on by
Republicans' States Attorney General vociferously supported by
Committee Republicans so much so that they even have an amicus
brief on it. We are having this hearing now.
So, I say let's tell the whole truth, the hours of witness
testimony showing that there is no ``there there'' to
Republican claims.
So, with that, I am going to move to introduce into the
record the transcript from the Committee's May 16, 2023,
interview with an employee of Meta Security Police Policy
Division. I would like to introduce into the record the
transcript from a Committee's June 20, 2023, interview with
Meta's Vice President for Public Policy; the transcript of the
Committee's June 21, 2023, interview with Meta's head of
Security Policy; the transcript from the Committee's July 25,
2023, interview with Meta Misinformation Policy employee; the
transcript from the Committee's February 2, 2023, interview
with Meta Trust and Safety Policy employee; the transcript from
the Committee's March 1, 2024, interview with Meta's President
of Global Affairs; the transcript of the Committee's May 22,
2023, interview with Meta External Affairs Manager; the
transcript from the Committee's May 23, 2023, interview with
the former Federal Partner Manager at Meta; the transcript from
the Committee's May 31, 2023, interview with Meta Programs and
Partnership Team Lead; the transcript from the Committee's June
14, 2023, interview with a Meta Trust and Security Policy
Manager; the transcript from the Committee's June 27, 2023,
interview with the former Public Policy Liaison at Meta; the
transcript of the Committee's September 19, 2023, interview
with the Security Engineering Manager of Meta; the transcript
from the Committee's May 23, 2023, interview with the Director
of Google's Trust and Safety Organization; the transcript of
the Committee's June 22, 2023, interview with Google Legal
Division employee; the transcript from the Committee's July 19,
2023, interview with an employee of Google's Privacy, Security,
and Safety Division; the transcript from the Committee's May
24, 2023, interview with Google Trust and Safety Analyst; the
transcript from the Committee's June 1, 2023, interview with a
formal Google Search employee; the transcript of the
Committee's June 16, 2023, interview with YouTube employee who
worked on external partnerships; the transcript from the
Committee's June 23, 2023, interview with Google's Government
Affairs and Public Policy Organizational employee; the
transcript from the Committee's June 26, 2023, interview with
Google's Information Quality Strategy employee; the transcript
from the Committee's June 28, 2023, with the Google Legal
Security employee; the transcript from the Committee's April
10, 2024, interview with a former Google Global Affairs
Organizational employee; the transcript from the Committee's
April 25, 2024, interview with the former Public Policy Manager
of YouTube; the transcript from the Committee's November 1,
2023, interview with the former head of Trust Safety at
Twitter; the transcript from the Committee's April 16, 2024,
interview with Amazon Public Policy and Committee Engagement
Division employee; the transcript from the Committee's June 6,
2020, interview with the University of Washington Associate
Professor Kate Starbird; the transcript from the Committee's
June 23d interview with the founder and director of Stanford
Internet Observatory at Stanford University, Alexander Stamos;
the transcript from the Committee's November 2, 2023, interview
with the former employee of the Center for Internet Security.
Mr. Massie. I object.
Chair Jordan. Objection being raised, I would just say that
we plan to release all these once we have talked to everyone we
have interviewed and their counsel to make sure they are
comfortable with it. When we get all that clear, we plan on
releasing all of that and the video is well.
The Chair now recognizes--excuse me, without objection--
Ms. Plaskett. We are not asking them to be released. We are
asking for them to be recorded. You can enter them into the
record and not release them.
Chair Jordan. The gentleman objected to that. Without
objection, all other opening statements will be included in the
record.
We will now introduce today's witnesses. First, your being
here, we appreciate your patience with what was maybe the
longest opening statement in human history, but we will now
start with Mr. Flaherty.
Mr. Robert Flaherty, excuse me, the former Assistant to the
President and Director of Digital Strategy at the White House;
Mr. Andrew Slavitt is former Senior Advisor for the Biden
Administration's COVID-19 Response Team.
Professor Todd Zywicki is the George Mason University
Foundation Professor of Law at the George Mason University
Antonin Scalia School of Law. Professor Zywicki is also a
Research Fellow at the Law and Economics Center.
Mr. Matthew Seligman is a Nonresident Fellow of the
Constitutional Law Center at Stanford Law School. His research
books have been on election law, constitutional law, Federal
courts, contracts, and private law theory. We welcome our
witnesses and thank them for appearing today.
We will begin by swearing you in. If you would please rise,
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 the witnesses have answered in the
affirmative. Thank you. You may be seated. Please know that
your written testimony will be entered into the record in its
entirety. Accordingly, we ask that you summarize your testimony
in five minutes.
Mr. Flaherty, you may begin.
STATEMENT OF ROBERT FLAHERTY
Mr. Flaherty. Chair Jordan, Ranking Member Plaskett, and
the Members of the Subcommittee, I'm Rob Flaherty, and from
January 2021-June 2023, I served as the Director of the White
House Office of Digital Strategy.
I'm appearing here voluntarily in response to the
Subcommittee's request for testimony of my interactions with
social media companies during my time in government. I'm glad
to have this opportunity to explain my role in government and
to correct some of the misunderstandings of me and my office's
work.
I'd like to take a moment to remind the Subcommittee of the
time and context in which those conversations took place. When
the Biden Administration began in January 2021, our Nation was
in the midst of a crisis unlike anything we'd previously
experienced.
Every week, over 100,000 Americans were being hospitalized
and over 20,000 were dying. These numbers aren't just
statistics. They're tragedies for millions of families. There
were empty chairs at family tables, including my own. My wife's
grandfather passed away from COVID on Thanksgiving Day 2020.
When President Biden took office, he made clear that his
administration's first and foremost task was to fight the
pandemic and bring our economy back from the cliff. That
started with getting the country vaccinated. Those vaccines
were a monumental achievement. Countless Americans worked day
and night to save lives. It's a story of generational American
ingenuity.
Even though the vaccines were developed in the prior
Republican Administration by nonpartisan scientists and brought
to market by an innovative partnership with the private sector,
they somehow became politicized and controversial, and false
information was proliferating on social media.
Concerns about COVID misinformation did not begin with the
President--with President Biden's Administration. Facebook laid
out their plans to, quote, ``stop the spread of
misinformation'' in April 2020. This was an issue that
platforms claimed they had begun to tackle long before
President Biden took office.
In that context, I took over the Office of Digital
Strategy, a communications arm of the White House. There's no
shortage of films or TV shows that show White House
communications staff interacting with print and broadcast media
to encourage coverage of certain stories and to persuade the
press that certain other stories are wrong, misguided, or would
otherwise harm the public.
Urging media to publish accurate information is nothing
new. While social media is a relatively new medium,
communications offices have long acted to ensure that media has
the most accurate information available and correct published
information that is false or misleading.
Social media companies make editorial decisions at the
scale of hundreds of millions per second. They decide what
content gets shown to whom and in what order. My office
encouraged those companies to exercise that editorial
discretion to avoid spreading inaccurate information,
particularly related to the ongoing pandemic. To be sure, those
companies are the ultimate decisionmakers about what goes on
their platform. That does not mean that communications staff
cannot ask, or even implore, those companies to address
misinformation on their platforms.
While social media companies have publicly announced
content moderation policies concerning COVID misinformation,
those policies were often opaque and difficult to understand.
Furthermore, despite the platforms' misinformation initiatives,
social media was still awash in false and misleading claims
about COVID and the vaccines when I entered government.
I wanted to understand why. Because if I knew where
misinformation was gaining traction, I could effectively focus
our messaging on countering it. I had hoped that social media
companies would live up to their own rhetoric to alleviate,
rather than aggravate, the dire public health challenges facing
the Nation.
Public reporting made us doubt whether the platforms were
doing what they claimed. For example, Facebook told me it was
too soon to draw conclusions about vaccine hesitancy on its
platform. A few weeks later, The Washington Post published that
Facebook had conducted, quote, ``a vast behind-the-scenes study
of doubts expressed by U.S. users on vaccines'' and found,
among other things, that, quote, ``a small group [of users]
appears to play a big role in pushing skepticism.''
With lives on the line and confronted by what I believed to
be dishonest actors, my tone reflected the urgency of the
matter and the stakes at hand. Although Facebook said its
policy was to remove false information about vaccine efficacy,
the platform was filled with posts falsely claiming the
vaccines didn't work. I was deeply concerned that Facebook was
exacerbating vaccine hesitancy while telling me they were
working hard to address the problem.
None of this is to say Facebook, or any social media
company, must do as the White House asks. They don't. While I
asked platforms to step up and adhere to their own stated
priority of reducing misinformation on their platforms, which
would assist in ending the pandemic, the choice was theirs.
There were no threats, period.
While the social media companies turned down many of these
requests, there were no consequences. Let me repeat that: There
were no threats and there were no consequences.
For example, Twitter abandoned all its prior policies
related to COVID misinformation over a year and a half ago,
while I was still there. That decision was Twitter's to make
and I'm not aware of any adverse actions against Twitter in
response to it. That's no surprise. My office never had or
claimed any ability to require the platforms to act on
misinformation.
In closing, I recognize there are many issues around COVID
misinformation on which reasonable minds can disagree. When my
interactions with social media companies became at times
acrimonious, it was not because they disagreed with my
perspective. It was because the answers they provided to my
questions about misinformation policies and algorithms were
incomplete, misleading, or downright wrong.
In 2021, work related to the vaccine was too important to
get wrong or unreasonably delay. Every day more people were
being hospitalized and dying of COVID. Some of those lives
likely could have been prevented if more people were
vaccinated. I'm proud of the Administration's work to get
people vaccinated and save lives.
If you have questions about the interactions I had with
social media companies during my time as the Director of
Digital Strategy in the White House, I would be happy to answer
them.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Flaherty follows:]
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Chair Jordan. Thank you, Mr. Flaherty.
Mr. Slavitt, you are recognized for five minutes.
Turn your mic on, if you would.
STATEMENT OF ANDREW SLAVITT
Mr. Slavitt. That would help. Chair Jordan, Ranking Member
Plaskett, and the Members of the Select Subcommittee, I'm here
today voluntarily to discuss my work on the COVID Response Team
at the peak of the pandemic.
Let me introduce myself and provide a brief statement. I'm
Andy Slavitt. Between January 2021-June 9, 2021, I served in
the Biden Administration as Senior Advisor to the COVID
Response Team. I've worked in the healthcare industry since the
early 1990s as an entrepreneur, a business leader, a regulator,
administrator, a CEO, and as an investor.
I was asked by the Biden Administration to assist in the
difficult operational work needed to end the pandemic as
quickly and safely as possible. Those first few days on the job
are cemented in my mind.
When President Biden was inaugurated, over 4,000 Americans
were dying that very day from COVID-19. By January 2021, the
number of COVID deaths was increasing so rapidly it had become
the No. 1 cause of death in the United States, nearly 50
percent higher than heart disease, the next leading cause.
Thanks to the work of successive administrations, vaccines
had recently become available. In those early months, we
procured and assisted in the production of vaccines; sent
military troops into the field to help Americans get
vaccinated, and coordinated the many moving pieces of a
response, while providing the public with straightforward and
clear information, so they could keep themselves safe.
As we did, we could see hospitalizations and death, the
death toll, begin to meaningfully decline. By June 2021, when I
left the Administration, more than 300 million doses of the
vaccine had been administered to two-thirds of the public had
been vaccinated. As a result, the number of COVID deaths were
reduced in the 139 days of my tenure by 90 percent, from over
4,000 on day one to 400, the lowest since the pandemic began.
By June 2021, COVID-19 had dropped from the top cause of death
to the seventh.
I understand that the Select Subcommittee is interested in
the Biden Administration's interactions with social media
companies regarding their policies on content moderation and
how such conversations comport with the vital American ideals
enshrined in the First Amendment. They were entirely
consistent.
My communication with social media companies consisted of a
limited number of conversations, mainly concentrated over the
course of a few weeks, in the middle of my four-month tenure. I
was guided by two principles in my interaction with social
media companies.
First, any content decisions and judgments about their
enforcement are strictly the domain of social media companies.
While policies varied, most social media companies during the
pandemic adopted standards designed to prevent what they
considered to be the most harmful false content from spreading
on their sites.
Second, where public safety is concerned, having policies
was not enough. As you will see today, I questioned social
media companies on how those policies were implemented.
We are all aware of the issues that social media companies
must contend with--from hate speech, to sex trafficking, to the
sale of illegal drugs like fentanyl, and to foreign adversaries
attempting to sow terrorism or violence. It is useful for
Congress and the Executive Branch to be able to have an open
dialog on these challenges for social media companies.
It was not our job to set or enforce policies on social
media companies. It was our job to understand how those
policies were implemented and how their decisions would affect
the safety of the American public.
Despite any concerns I had about the impacts of the COVID
misinformation, to my knowledge, no one within the
Administration ever sought to make decisions for Facebook or
any other social media site over their content moderation.
Further, we had no intention of coercing social media companies
into taking any action, and I never received any indication
that our dialog was ever interpreted that way.
Facebook and other social media companies heard our
concerns and occasional complaints, and I would like to think
they considered them, but I want to be clear that they made
their own decisions. Starting even before this administration
took office, Face-book reported publicly and told us that they
had removed 20 million pieces of COVID content that violated
their policies.
Finally, I want to add that these conversations were not
held in secret. We have spoken publicly about our intent, our
interactions with Facebook, and they were the subject of a long
interview which I sat for with The New York Times.
In closing, I want to thank the Congress for providing
resources to successive administrations to fund vaccine
development and help Americans through these dark times. By
some estimates, these actions and the vaccination program alone
saved three million American lives.
Thank you for your time and your consideration of these
perspectives. I will be happy to answer your questions to the
best of my ability.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Slavitt follows:]
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Chair Jordan. Thank you, Mr. Slavitt.
Mr. Zywicki, Professor Zywicki--excuse me--you are
recognized for five minutes.
STATEMENT OF TODD ZYWICKI
Mr. Zywicki. Thank you, Chair Jordan, Ranking Member
Plaskett, and the Members of this Select Subcommittee.
Thank you for the opportunity to appear here today to tell
you about my experiences during COVID, but my experiences I
think representative of millions of Americans who not only were
denied the opportunity to speak freely about COVID policy and
issues related to their own health, but millions of others who
were denied the opportunity to receive information essential to
their health decisions, the health and safety of their
families, and important matters like public policy, such as
whether schools should be closed, vaccine policy, vaccine
passports, and other sorts of things.
I got COVID. I was an early adopter in the first week of
March 2020, and so, had natural immunity. A year later, my
university tried to impose a vaccine--did, in fact, impose a
vaccine mandate. I asked them if they would recognize natural
immunity. They did not.
So, I sued them with the help of one of my lawyers that are
here today. Representative Hageman, thank you for your help
with that. We prevailed. I'm grateful to George Mason for
granting me an exemption.
As I dove into these waters, what I discovered quickly was
that all the major news media pretty much were part of a cartel
to suppress any heterodox opinions about COVID. So, as a
result, I became very active on social media, and I discovered
a number of doctors, such as the great Dr. Hooman Noorchashm,
my immunologist, who was tweeting on and the like.
I became a very active participant. I gave lectures; I gave
interviews about COVID policy and my case to try to inform the
public. What I discovered was that there was this system of
censorship going on quite clearly.
I had been a very active user of Facebook early on, and
then, somewhere during the period that is under investigation
it became quite clear that my Facebook feed was being shadow
banned. Do I know that for sure? No, because there's,
apparently, no way of determining whether or not your shadow-
banned on Facebook, but I could tell that my engagement had
gone down.
As I relate in my testimony, I had two interviews, I had
two programs removed from YouTube. One was an interview with
the Bill Walton Show, not the basketball player, that described
my, that described my case. Another was a lecture that I gave
describing my case and the scientific evidence that underlies
it.
Both of those were removed from YouTube without
explanation, and to this day, I don't know what supposedly the
medical misinformation was, whether it was something I said or
there was somebody else on that tape who said it.
Now, for those who were laughing during the Ranking
Member's opening statement, let me tell you, as an academic, as
somebody who takes ideas seriously, being libeled as a spreader
of medical misinformation is not a joke; being denied access to
information from doctors that is relevant to my health and my
family's health is not a joke. This is not a game. This is my
life, and this is the life of a lot of other people.
What we saw going on during this period was an ongoing
demand--now we've discovered--an ongoing demand for immediate
and swift action to censor people like me. There was no
information provided that I could see in any of the records
that have been produced that anything I said was wrong. I
document my testimony, all the things I say and the basis for
saying it. Yet, people like me were censored by people like
them, because they did not like what I was saying.
The First Amendment protects not just my right to speak,
but my right to receive information that's relevant to my
health. That was the seminal case of the Supreme Court in the
Virginia pharmacy case, that was a case about receiving medical
information.
I have a friend who is a leader in the vaccine-injured
group React19. He was part of a Facebook group. He suffers to
this day from chronic inflammatory demyelinating
polyneuropathy, an autoimmune disease brought on by the
vaccines, where literally his immune system is eating away at
the protective myelin insulation that insulates his nerves all
over his body. He joined a Facebook group for other people who
are suffering like him, who had tens of thousands of people who
are injured by the vaccines. That group, what did Facebook do
with that group? They terminated it--with no notice and no
explanation.
Now, I don't know whether that was done because some
sadistic employee at Facebook just decided that they were going
to terminate vaccine support groups. Maybe it was because Mr.
Slavitt and Mr. Flaherty succeeded with their hectoring of
getting Facebook to finally take action against people like my
friend and his group.
What I do know is that was wrong and that was cruel, and I
do know that is exactly what Mr. Flaherty and Mr. Slavitt were
demanding of Facebook and other social media companies. They
wanted to see action and they wanted to see this sort of
information taken down.
I appreciate this Committee looking into what was going on
here. Millions of Americans appreciate the Committee getting to
the bottom of this and this egregious abuse of power that we
saw in suppressing ordinary Americans' free speech rights
during the COVID pandemic.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Zywicki follows:]
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Chair Jordan. Thank you. Thank you, Professor.
Mr. Seligman, you are recognized for five minutes.
STATEMENT OF MATTHEW SELIGMAN
Mr. Seligman. Chair Jordan, Ranking Member Plaskett, and
the Members of the Committee, I thank you for the opportunity
to testify today.
The focus of today's hearing is, once again, allegations of
censorship by social media platforms purportedly at the behest
of the Federal Government under the direction of the Biden
Administration. Once again, it bears repeating the First
Amendment applies to governmental restrictions of speech, not
private conduct.
The point of the case now captioned Murphy v. Missouri at
the Supreme Court, instead, argued that the Federal Government
coerced those platforms into censoring disfavored speech
through the application of the platform's own content
moderation policies. That accusation lacks a reasonable basis
in law or, just as importantly, in fact.
As I detail in my written testimony, the Justices'
statements at oral argument indicate that the Court will
recognize that the social media platforms' decisions to
moderate content have always rested with the platforms
themselves. There's no evidence in the record, or anywhere
else, for that matter, indicating that any governmental
official ever threatened governmental action of any kind if the
platforms did not take action on any particular piece of
content.
So, I'll begin with common ground. All agree that, if the
government coerces a private social media platform to remove
content, that coercion renders the private platform's decision
subject to the First Amendment. All agree.
The real questions in this case are: First, as a matter of
law, what governmental conduct amounts to coercion? Second, do
the facts alleged by the Plaintiffs in this case amount to such
coercion? Based on the oral argument, I believe that the
Justices recognize and will hold that the allegations here do
not.
The communications between governmental officials and
social media platforms were efforts by the government to
provide factual information and, at times, to express the
government's perspective on the types of content it believed
was appropriate for platforms to promote. That effort of
persuasion, even when it used strong language, did not violate
the First Amendment.
As Justice Scalia once explained, ``It is the very business
of government to favor and disfavor points of view on
innumerable subjects.'' To take one example, the Plaintiffs
argue that the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency violated
the First Amendment by sending messages to platforms flagging
content as false, explicitly stating that the agency made no
recommendation about what the platform should do about that
content, and explicitly stating that the government would take
no action at all based on the platform's content moderation
decisions. That does not protect free speech. That muzzles the
government in its efforts to assist social media companies as
they combat the onslaught of misinformation that plagues their
platforms.
Today's hearing will focus on communications between
platforms and Mr. Slavitt and Mr. Flaherty. Some of those
communications used strong language, but strong language does
not convert governmental speech into coercion. As the Deputy
Solicitor General explained at oral argument, ``The First
Amendment is not a civility code.''
Ranking Member Plaskett quoted Justice Kavanaugh saying
that his experience in government is that the government and
all its manifestations has regular communications with the
media to talk about things they don't like or don't want to see
or complaining about factual inaccuracies. Justice Kagan
agreed. She says that this happens literally thousands of times
a day in the Federal Government.
The stakes are high. We're fast approaching an election
season that promises to be at least as politically polarized as
the last. We know from experience that social media is a
primary vector of election misinformation. We know that
technological advances, advances in artificial intelligence,
including deepfakes of candidates and governmental officials,
present grave risks to our democratic system. We know that
foreign adversaries will attempt to flood social media
platforms with disinformation to sow discord, unrest, and
unwarranted doubts about the integrity of our elections. We
must not deprive the Nation of critical tools it needs to
protect itself in the face of these threats.
I encourage the Committee to hold another hearing after the
Supreme Court issues its decision in Murphy v. Missouri by late
June, so we can engage in a productive conversation and dialog
about how to address these pressing threats, while protecting
Americans' First Amendment rights.
I welcome the Committee's questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Seligman follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chair Jordan. Thank you, Mr. Seligman.
We will now proceed with five-minute questions.
Mr. Flaherty, when the Biden Administration told Americans
that the vaccinated couldn't get the virus, were they guessing
or lying?
Mr. Flaherty. Congressman, first, it's important to
remember my role in this discussion, which is as a communicator
on behalf of the--
Chair Jordan. You worked for the Biden Administration; you
were an assistant to the President. It's a simple question.
When they told the American people that, if you get the
vaccine, you will not get the virus, was that a guess or was
that a lie?
Mr. Flaherty. Congressman, we were communicating on behalf
of the Administration. We were communicating the best
information provided by some of the best medical scientists in
the world in Atlanta, Bethesda, and beyond. So, our role is
to--
Chair Jordan. Well, let me ask you a simple question. Can
the vaccinated--the people who got the vaccine, could they
still get the virus?
Mr. Flaherty. Congressman, again, I'm not here as a medical
expert.
Chair Jordan. Oh, no, that's just common--everyone knows
that. Of course they can. I'm just asking you a simple
question.
Well, let me do it this way: What's the definition of
misinformation?
Mr. Flaherty. Congressman, certainly there's different and
varying definitions of mis- and disinformation. At the end of
the day, the platforms are the ones--
Chair Jordan. Tell me the difference. Tell me what
misinformation is.
Mr. Flaherty. Congressman, these are decisions that the
platforms, ultimately, get to make about how they--
Chair Jordan. I'm not asking you that. I'm--a simple
question: What's misinformation?
Mr. Flaherty. Well, Congressman, I think it's important in
the context of these platforms where--
Chair Jordan. How about you, Professor? Can you tell me
what misinformation is?
Mr. Zywicki. I assume it would be saying something that was
completely untrue.
Chair Jordan. Saying something that's untrue but with no
intent?
Mr. Zywicki. Yes.
Chair Jordan. No intent? Disinformation, this is what all
the misinformation experts tell us: Misinformation, saying
something that's not accurate; disinformation, saying something
that's not accurate with the intent to mislead, right?
Mr. Zywicki. That sounds right to me.
Chair Jordan. Do you agree, Mr. Seligman, that's the common
definition in the misinformation industry out there?
Mr. Seligman. Yes, my understanding--
Chair Jordan. OK, that's the definition.
So, now, Mr. Flaherty, how about this question? When the
Biden Administration told the American people that the
vaccinated couldn't get the virus, was it misinformation or
disinformation?
Mr. Flaherty. Congressman, again, we were communicating the
best medical research that we had at the time on behalf of a
group of some of the best doctors in the world in Atlanta and
Bethesda.
Chair Jordan. When the Biden Administration told the
American people that the virus didn't come from a lab, was that
misinformation or disinformation?
Mr. Flaherty. Congressman, again, I can't speak to
discussions that were on that topic. It's been a couple of
years. Again, generally--
Chair Jordan. ``The White House put pressure on us to
censor the lab leak theory.'' This was something the White
House cared about, so much so that Facebook was having--the top
people at Facebook were having a group discussion on it. So,
I'm just asking, when they said that; was that misinformation
or disinformation?
Mr. Flaherty. Congressman, I can't recall the specific
example of the meeting with the Facebook--
Chair Jordan. When the Biden Administration said that
``masks work,'' was that misinformation or disinformation?
Mr. Flaherty. Again, Congressman, we were communicating the
best research at the time. I also believe that this was a
discussion that began in the previous administration as well.
Chair Jordan. How about what Professor Zywicki brought up,
Mr. Flaherty? When the White House said, ``there was no such
thing as natural immunity,'' was that misinformation or
disinfor-mation?
Mr. Flaherty. Again, Congressman, I am not a medical
expert, and my job was to communicate on behalf of a team of
medical experts.
Chair Jordan. So, you weren't a medical expert, but you
could suggest to Facebook that they needed to change their
algorithm, so that the American people would not see stuff from
the Daily Wire; they'd only see stuff from The New York Times.
You can do that, but you can't tell me if they were guessing or
lying when they said something that was absolutely not true?
Mr. Flaherty. Well, again, Congressman, my role as a
communicator on behalf of the best information available. The
role of the platforms was to have a set of policies that they
enforced on their own. My engagement with them had no bearing
on what their--
Chair Jordan. No bearing? No bearing?
Mr. Flaherty. Well, Congressman, again--
Chair Jordan. The third day--who's Clarke Humphrey?
Mr. Flaherty. Clarke Humphrey was the Digital Director for
the COVID--
Chair Jordan. Did you work with her?
Mr. Flaherty. Yes, Congressman, I did.
Chair Jordan. Part of the White House operation in this
same area, right? You worked with her?
Mr. Flaherty. Congressman, she worked in a similar area.
Chair Jordan. Yes, OK. So, when she said on the third day
the Biden Administration ``Wanted to flag the below tweet,''
wondering if you can get moving on--``get moving on the process
for having it removed ASAP,'' that's not trying to impact what
the platforms do? That's not telling the platform what kind of
speech can be out there?
Mr. Flaherty. Congressman, again, we had the ability to
flag whatever we wanted, and the platforms had an ability to
say no. I can't speak to whether or not they took any action on
the particular content in question.
Chair Jordan. Well, no, if they said no, the President of
the United States says Facebook is killing people. They
obviously felt the pressure. That's why they're having that
group text conversation.
How about this one: When the Biden Administration told the
American people, ``the border is secure,'' was that
misinformation or disinformation?
Mr. Flaherty. Congressman, again, I'm here to discuss my
engagements with social media platforms.
Chair Jordan. I'm just asking. You were in the Biden
Administration when these kinds of statements were being made.
How about this one: When the Biden Administration said,
``the Inflation Reduction Act will actually reduce inflation,''
was that misinformation or disinformation?
Mr. Flaherty. Congressman, again, I'm here to discuss my
interactions with social media companies.
Chair Jordan. Yes. Let me go back to the first question in
the last 13 seconds. Any chance you'll answer one question for
me? When the Biden Administration told the American people that
the vaccinated couldn't get the virus, were they guessing or
lying?
Mr. Flaherty. Congressman, we were communicating on behalf
of the best medical research that we had available at the time.
Chair Jordan. All right. The Ranking Member, I yield. The
Ranking Member is recognized for five minutes.
Ms. Plaskett. Thank you. May I ask that you yield the time
to Mr. Connolly?
Chair Jordan. Oh, yes, I can do that, with whoever you guys
want.
Ms. Plaskett. Thank you.
Chair Jordan. The gentleman from Virginia is recognized.
Mr. Connolly. I thank the Chair, and I thank my friend for
her graciousness. I've got a little problem with my knee this
morning.
Mr. Flaherty, since you're in the hot seat, when the
President of the United States, the previous President,
suggested that perhaps the ingestion of bleach might cure
COVID, was that misinformation or disinformation?
Mr. Flaherty. I--
Mr. Connolly. Oh, you--
Mr. Flaherty. Congressman, I can't speak--
[Laughter.]
Mr. Connolly. All right. Got it. When he suggested perhaps
sources of light in certain orifices of the body might also
work, was that misinformation or disinformation?
Mr. Flaherty. I believe my understanding is that was
medically inaccurate, yes.
Mr. Connolly. By the way, did that President get COVID?
Mr. Flaherty. Congressman, I do recall that he did.
Mr. Connolly. Did he get vaccinated?
Mr. Flaherty. Congressman, I believe that he did.
Mr. Connolly. Yes. Well, I seem to recall the Chair of this
Committee and I actually got vaccinated--I think I'm right, Mr.
Jordan--on the same day. We were in the same clinic here on the
Hill when the vaccine first got--
Chair Jordan. That's not accurate.
Mr. Connolly. Oh, it's not? I thought I saw you.
Chair Jordan. You may have saw me, but I didn't get
vaccinated.
Mr. Connolly. OK. I'm sorry. Well, anyway, he was hanging
around.
Chair Jordan. My office is close to where you got
vaccinated, but I didn't.
Mr. Connolly. So, I want to show some photos from an
information slide show that was presented at social media
companies by the CDC to inform these companies of false
information--what Professor Zywicki, apparently, refers to as
``hectoring'' by you, Mr. Flaherty, and you, Mr. Slavitt.
These slides also included facts provided by the CDC of
correct, scientific-based information. I want to take a moment
to go through some of these posts that the government
identified for social media companies as false information--
that ``hectoring'' that seems to bother Professor Zywicki.
It, basically, on the screen, as you can see. There was a
theory floating around in social media in the first half of
2021 that said COVID vaccines cause humans to become magnetic.
For example, one of these posts' states, ``The magnetism from
the vaccine reportedly spreads throughout the body over time.''
It shows pictures of a person's arm in the middle there with
spoons attached to it from the magnetic attraction.
Mr. Slavitt, is there any evidence at all that COVID
vaccines caused human skin to become magnetic?
Mr. Slavitt. No, Congressman, not that I am aware of.
Mr. Connolly. So, after I get the vaccine, I don't need to
start holding forks and spoons on my arm to see if they stick?
Mr. Slavitt. Yes, nothing that I am aware of.
Mr. Connolly. Nothing that you are aware of. There are,
quote, ``self-reproducing nanoparticles in the vaccines that
take over our bodies that cause metal objects to stick to
you.'' That is also false?
Mr. Slavitt. Yes, that was a common internet rumor, but
that was not true.
Mr. Connolly. So, you were concerned during COVID, that we
best know of 1.2 million Americans died. Almost everyone in the
country got COVID at one point or another. I got it twice.
Almost all of us, like you, Mr. Flaherty, lost family
members or friends who succumbed to the virus. I don't know, I
have a different interpretation perhaps of your actions which
is you were desperate to get correct information out to protect
lives. In the beginning, we didn't know everything we needed to
know about COVID. It was a brand new virus and not a lot of
studies. We weren't sure what worked and what didn't. We
weren't sure about the protections. That is hardly you engaged
in a disinformation campaign, nor is it hardly you trying to
crack down on the free expression of ideas that can jeopardize
lives. Would that be a fair characterization, Mr. Flaherty, of
your motivation?
Mr. Flaherty. I think that would be a fair
characterization, Congressman.
Mr. Connolly. If we can go to another photo really quick.
This one says the magnetic skin conditions were emerging daily
and there were verified reports that whoever took the COVID
vaccine was going to be magnetic. Mr. Slavitt, was this post
accurate?
Mr. Slavitt. I don't believe so.
Mr. Connolly. This one got to Moderna. It actually
slandered the Moderna vaccine by saying it contained a deadly
poison that was not even approved for veterinary use, let alone
human use. Many of us got the Moderna vaccine. Has it ever
contained ingredients that are fatal or carcinogenic or that
cause infertility or nerve, liver, or kidney damage that you
know of?
Mr. Slavitt. I don't believe so. I think that vaccine has
been given hundreds of millions of times in the United States.
Not aware of it.
Mr. Connolly. I just think it is important that when we use
words like disinformation, misinformation, or hectoring of U.S.
Government officials who are trying to save lives that we see
the other side. There was a real problem, people lost their
lives because they believed that stuff. It had no basis in
scientific fact and it jeopardized lives in the middle of a
pandemic, the worst pandemic in over 100 years. I yield back.
Chair Jordan. The gentleman's time is expired. He yields
back.
The gentleman from Florida, Mr. Steube, is recognized.
Mr. Steube. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Slavitt, how can you honestly say, and I am quoting
from your testimony, and when you said it out loud, I about
lost it, and I quote,
Further we had no intention of coercing social media companies
into taking action and I never received any indication that our
dialog was ever interpreted that way.
What exactly was your intent? Why all these emails? The Chair
was just talking about vaccine misinformation that you guys
were involved in. There is a litany list, and I will go through
all these.
Amazon emails. What was your intent if your intent wasn't
to coerce? In fact, Amazon themselves in an internal document
that we have on an email on March 12, 2021, at 14:47, Friday,
Ty Rogers, and the other ones are blacked out, ``Feeling
pressure from the White House.'' Are you a medical doctor?
Mr. Slavitt. No.
Mr. Steube. You, Mr. Flaherty, testified that you are not a
medical expert, right?
Mr. Flaherty. That's correct.
Mr. Steube. You are not a doctor?
Mr. Flaherty. Correct.
Mr. Steube. Any scientific training at all?
Mr. Flaherty. That's correct. No.
Mr. Steube. Ever engaged in advanced scientific research or
vaccine development?
Mr. Flaherty. Myself, no, I did not. Again, Congressman--
Mr. Steube. Did you, Mr. Slavitt?
Mr. Slavitt. No.
Mr. Steube. OK. So, while serving as Senior Officials at
the White House both of you engaged in lengthy and often
hostile discussions with social media companies about your
opinion of disinformation related to the pandemic. Despite your
lack of what you just testified under oath of medical training
or scientific research experience, you both sought to restrict
the free flow of information and opinions you deemed as
disinformation, demanded that these online forums restrict the
reach of your opinions you disfavored through changes to
algorithms, internal content policies, and simply taking down
posts in violations of Americans' First Amendment rights.
Unfortunately, many of these social media companies caved
to your pressure campaigns despite your lie to the American
people today and this Committee that you had no intent of
coercing them. You absolutely did, and that was absolutely your
intent because what other reason would you waste all this time
communicating with Amazon, Facebook, and Twitter to get them to
take down stuff?
In fact, simple things like books--so on--you guys had a
busy day on March 2nd in the White House. March 2, 2021, you
guys were emailing fervorously (phonetic).
So, let's see. We will start with Mr. Slavitt. You emailed
from you to Zach Butterworth. Flaherty, you were in the email.
Talking about a specific book, and this is just one of many
examples that you flagged for Amazon, ``Anyone Who Tells you
Vaccines are Safe and Effective is Lying.'' So, here is the
email that you sent on that date. After that you guys started
emailing Amazon. Then on the same day at 6:16 p.m.--so the
emails started about 3 p.m. in the afternoon and it is now 6:16
p.m., Mr. Flaherty. Then, you are emailing Amazon saying,
Let's talk about what your policies are. We want to understand
what lines are here. My colleague Ora can help find us a time.
So, that was on March 2nd. Despite the fact that you don't want
to coerce social media companies, even though you are under
oath and that was what your testimony says.
Then, on March 12th, Amazon says in an internal email about
the discussion in the phone call that you, and I quote--this is
on an email March 12, 2021, 14:47. Ty Rogers is on this, other
people from Amazon. It is an internal email that says,
PP is feeling pressure from the White House Task Force on this
issue as well as it relates to banning books.
Then, there is another internal email on April 20th. So, just
laying this out. On March 2nd you guys have a busy day
identifying books that you wanted banned on Amazon. Then you
have organized a call with Amazon on the 2nd later in the day.
Then on the 12th it looks like you had that call because then
there is internal emails from Amazon about the pressure that
they are receiving from the White House.
Then just a month later here is another email from Amazon,
and I quote--this is Wednesday, April 20, 2022,
There may be parallels in the transgender book debates here
even if we disclose that we have removed 1,500 books.
So, because of your coercion campaign, despite the fact under
oath of your saying that you didn't intend to coerce them, they
took 1,500 books off Amazon.
So, it is like the American people are smarter than what
you think. You can just say that you didn't coerce them. They
are smarter than that. They realize that this is a complete
outright lie to the American people because they have all this
information now thanks to the great work of this Committee and
the Chair of getting actual email correspondence and records of
phone conversations of you talking to people at Amazon, people
at Facebook, people at Twitter to take down not just books--and
then our testimony from another witness of him on Facebook. All
this work that you did was clearly intended to coerce the
social media companies to act in a certain manner. To testify
otherwise is a complete and outright lie to the American
people.
Here is another internal Amazon email:
Is the Biden Admin asking us to remove books or are they more
concerned about search results or order?
That is an email between Amazon employees on March 9th, all
during this kind of monthly timeframe where are all this was
going on.
High levels of propaganda. This is another email from you
on that same day. Man, that was a busy day at the White House
for emails. March 2, 2021. Slavitt emailed Amazon's Vice
President of Public Policy asking who to the White House could
talk about the, quote,
High levels of propaganda and misinformation and disinformation
on Amazon's online bookstores.
A month later they banned 1,500 books.
So, to testify under oath that you didn't intend to coerce
these social media companies to act in a certain manner
favorable to your political position is an outright lie to the
American people. I yield back.
Chair Jordan. The gentleman yields back.
Ms. Plaskett. Mr. Chair, I would ask unanimous consent to
enter into the record excerpts from the Committee's April 16,
2024, interview with the Amazon employee who received the email
that has been discussed in which the employee explains that
Amazon did not take down any content and they had been working
on policies regarding vaccine-related books on Amazon.
Mr. Issa. Mr. Chair, I object. That is not a unanimous
consent to insert.
Ms. Plaskett. Can you please let me finish my statement?
Mr. Issa. You know you are not allowed to--
Mr. Issa. Mr. Chair, you are not allowed to testify on a
unanimous consent.
Ms. Plaskett. Have some respect.
You guys have been talking over me all morning and I am
getting a little tired of it now.
Mr. Issa. Mr. Chair I object and I ask you to rule.
Ms. Plaskett. Can we have some respect for one another
here?
Mr. Issa. Mr. Chair, I object.
Chair Jordan. There has been an objection for vaccine-
related books on Amazon for weeks before the Slavitt email.
Mr. Issa. I object to unanimous consent.
Mr. Issa. The unanimous consent is objected to.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Mr. Chair, I would like to move that
what the gentlelady is trying to insert into the record be
allowed to be inserted into the record, and I would call for a
recorded vote.
Ms. Plaskett. Yes.
Mr. Lynch. Move to table.
Ms. Plaskett. Second. Second the motion.
Mr. Lynch. Move to table.
Chair Jordan. Objection. We are in five-minutes questions.
Mr. Lynch. Point of order.
Ms. Plaskett. I am asking for a second of that motion.
Chair Jordan. The Chair recognizes the Ranking Member for
five minutes of questioning.
Ms. Plaskett. I am not using my five minutes of questions.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Mr. Chair--
Mr. Lynch. Point of order.
Ms. Plaskett. I am talking about this motion at this time.
You said that there was an objection to the motion. I move that
there be a roll call on the motion.
Chair Jordan. There has no valid been made.
Mr. Lynch. On of a point of order.
Chair Jordan. You asked for unanimous consent. There was an
objection.
Ms. Plaskett. Then, I said--Ms. Sanchez--
Chair Jordan. There was an objection.
Ms. Plaskett. --asked the--moved a motion.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. It was Ms. Wasserman Schultz.
Ms. Plaskett. I am sorry, Ms. Wasserman Schultz had a
motion which I seconded.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. A motion was made.
Mr. Lynch. On a point of order, Mr. Chair. Point of order?
Ms. Plaskett. I did ask for a unanimous consent and when
that was objected to Ms. Wasserman Schultz made a motion which
I seconded.
Chair Jordan. The motion is to enter it into the record?
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Yes.
Ms. Plaskett. Yes, it is.
Chair Jordan. OK. The gentlelady has made a motion. The
gentleman has--
Mr. Lynch. On a point of order on the motion?
Chair Jordan. There has been a motion to table the--all
those in favor to table, will say aye?
Ms. Plaskett. I know, but sir--Mr. Chair--
Mr. Lynch. Point of order.
Chair Jordan. Those opposed, no?
Ms. Plaskett. Mr. Chair, there is a point of order, you can
hold that request--
Mr. Lynch. I have been standing for about five minutes now.
Ms. Plaskett. --an outstanding point of order that you as
the Chair need to address.
Chair Jordan. The gentleman will State his point of order.
Mr. Lynch. OK. So, this hearing is--
Chair Jordan. That is not a valid point of order.
Ms. Plaskett. You haven't even heard him finish his
sentence.
Mr. Lynch. This hearing--
Chair Jordan. A point of order has to start with a
reference to the section and the order. You can't just start
talking.
Mr. Lynch. No. No.
Chair Jordan. There has been a motion to table.
Mr. Lynch. Mr. Chair, this is--
Chair Jordan. The question is on the motion to table
Ms. Plaskett. You are going to do this for the rest of this
year?
Mr. Lynch. It is ridiculous.
Ms. Plaskett. You are going to operate this way with your
colleagues?
Chair Jordan. No, I am not going to do that.
I am going to follow the rules of the Committee. The motion
to table--
Ms. Plaskett. You don't follow the rules of the Committee
when it is your--
Chair Jordan. All those in favor of tabling the motion from
the gentlelady--
Ms. Plaskett. --colleagues over there but you are going to
treat us this way?
Chair Jordan. --from Florida will say aye?
Ms. Plaskett. Is that how we are going to do this?
Chair Jordan. Those opposed, no?
Ms. Plaskett. Is that how we are going to do this for the
rest of the year?
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Mr. Chair, I ask for a recorded
vote.
Ms. Plaskett. You have no respect for your colleagues.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Mr. Chair, I ask for a recorded vote
on the motion to table.
Ms. Plaskett. This is ridiculous.
Chair Jordan. Well, hold on 1 second. I haven't even said
the--according to the--I think the ayes had it. The gentlelady
has asked for a recorded vote.
We will have the clerk come out and call the roll.
Ms. Bidelman. Mr. Jordan?
Ms. Plaskett. Are you going to address the point of order
that is still outstanding?
Mr. Lynch. There is a vote been called, right?
Ms. Plaskett. Yes.
Mr. Lynch. So, if we are going to operate--
Chair Jordan. The vote is the motion to table.
Mr. Lynch. Right.
Ms. Bidelman. Mr. Jordan?
Chair Jordan. Yes.
Ms. Bidelman. Mr. Jordan votes yes.
Mr. Issa?
Mr. Issa. Aye.
Ms. Bidelman. Mr. Issa votes aye.
Mr. Massie?
Ms. Stefanik?
Mr. Gaetz?
Mr. Gaetz. Aye.
Ms. Bidelman. Mr. Gaetz votes aye.
Mr. Armstrong?
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. Aye.
Ms. Bidelman. Ms. Cammack votes aye.
Ms. Hageman?
Ms. Hageman. Yes.
Ms. Bidelman. Ms. Hageman votes yes.
Mr. Davidson?
Mr. Davidson. Aye.
Ms. Bidelman. Mr. Davidson votes aye.
Mr. Fry?
Mr. Fry. Aye.
Ms. Bidelman. Mr. Fry votes aye.
Ms. Plaskett?
Ms. Plaskett. No.
Ms. Bidelman. Ms. Plaskett votes no.
Mr. Lynch?
Mr. Lynch. No.
Ms. Bidelman. Mr. Lynch votes no.
Ms. Sanchez?
Ms. Sanchez. Hell no.
Ms. Bidelman. Ms. Sanchez votes no.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz?
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. The irony of not allowing
introduction of information into the record which is a typical
action for--
Mr. Issa. Objection.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. --a hearing that is based on--
Mr. Issa. Objection. Chair, there is a roll call in--
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Their objection to information being
squelched is not lost one me, and I vote no.
Ms. Bidelman. Ms. Wasserman Schultz votes no.
Mr. Connolly?
Mr. Garamendi?
[Inaudible.]
Mr. Garamendi. I am trying to understand the question
before us is--the committee wants to suppress information.
Chair Jordan. The question is on the motion to table.
Mr. Garamendi. Oh, table the information so that we don't
have the information available to us or their public and we are
going round and round berating--
Chair Jordan. Does the gentleman wish to be recorded on the
vote or not?
Mr. Garamendi. I am at a loss to understand, Mr. Chair,
what in the world you are doing?
Chair Jordan. No, it is--
Mr. Garamendi. Mr. Chair--
Chair Jordan. --a yes or no question. It seems like you are
at a loss to know what you are supposed to do here to vote. Yes
or no?
Mr. Garamendi. Oh, in other words to be obedient to--
Chair Jordan. No. Yes or no. You can vote any way you want.
Mr. Bishop. Mr. Chair, this is a dilatory tactic and the
vote should--roll call should continue. The clerk should be
instructed to continue calling the roll if the gentleman
doesn't wish to record.
Ms. Bidelman. Ms. Garcia?
Mr. Garamendi. Oh, once again suppressing information.
Chair Jordan. No, we are just waiting for an answer. If you
won't give it to us, we are going to move on.
Mr. Bishop. Procedure.
Ms. Bidelman. Ms. Garcia?
Mr. Garamendi. Garamendi votes no.
Ms. Bidelman. Mr. Garamendi votes no.
Ms. Garcia?
Ms. Garcia. Well, talk about coercion. I vote no.
Ms. Bidelman. Ms. Garcia votes no.
Mr. Goldman?
Mr. Goldman. No.
Ms. Bidelman. Mr. Goldman votes no.
Ms. Crockett. No.
Ms. Bidelman. Ms. Crockett votes no.
Mr. Armstrong?
Mr. Armstrong. Yes.
Ms. Bidelman. Mr. Armstrong votes yes.
Chair Jordan. The clerk will report.
Ms. Bidelman. Mr. Chair, there are 10 ayes and 8 noes.
Chair Jordan. Motion is tabled.
The Chair now recognizes for five minutes of questioning
the gentleman from Massachusetts.
Mr. Lynch. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I know that we have
referred to several quotes by Mark Zuckerberg already this
morning. One of his famous lines is the question--this is Mark
Zuckerberg. The question that I ask myself every day is, quote,
``Is this the most important thing I could be doing?'' I think
this Committee should ask itself the same question.
When we opened this Select Committee--Subcommittee on so-
called Weaponization of the Federal Government we had great
fanfare. This room was packed. This room was packed. We had all
kinds of news cameras and extra security. Jam packed,
reporters, a line out the door. Those extra tables that you see
on the side there are 60 or so extra chairs for the press that
didn't show today. Even half of the Republican Members didn't
show up until we had a roll call. We should ask ourselves, is
this the most important thing we could be doing today?
Mr. Seligman, I want to ask you about election denial and
its impact on the integrity of our electoral system. What is
the impact of President Trump and Chair Jordan's lies that the
election was stolen? What is the impact of that on the
integrity of our electoral process?
Mr. Seligman. Well, there have been pervasive impacts, the
most dramatic of which obviously were the tragic events of
January 6, 2021. The impacts have persisted.
One of the things that I am most worried about is that
election workers throughout the country have been subject to
threats and intimidation. One of the consequences of that is
that these election officials, both elected officials and civil
servants, have been leaving service and that leaves the
election administration system in the United States dangerously
understaffed with experienced election workers. There is a
direct tie between the threats that these election workers have
experienced, their decisions to leave, and the misinformation
about the 2020 election. There is a direct link there.
Mr. Lynch. So, we had more than 60 State and Federal
lawsuits brought by President Trump and Rudy Giuliani and other
associates, which all failed. All those cases failed primarily
because they lacked evidence. From the State courts to the
Supreme Court judges from across the political spectrum have
reviewed those rigged election claims made by Chair Jordan and
made by Donald Trump and outright rejected those.
In one opinion a Trump-appointed Federal judge, Stephanos
Bibas, wrote, quote,
Calling an election unfair does not make it so. Charges require
specific allegations and then evidence, and we have neither
here.
Again, in throwing out Rudy Giuliani's attempt to discard
millions of legally cast votes in Pennsylvania Federal District
Court Judge and former State Republican Party official, Matthew
Brann, ruled that, quote,
This court has been presented with strained legal arguments
without merit and speculative accusations unsupported by
evidence.
He also found the case made by Giuliani to have been
``haphazardly stitched together like a Frankenstein's
monster.''
Mr. Seligman, what steps can we take to curb disinformation
and return the American people to a shared reality about our
electoral process?
Mr. Seligman. Well, I think both government and media,
including social media platforms, have a role to play here. So,
one of the most important governmental roles to play here is to
provide accurate information. So, the Cybersecurity and
Infrastructure Security Agency plays an enormously important
role in doing so. It provides information to the public and to
media organizations including social media platforms about
accurate information to counteract misinformation.
It also at times flags misinformation, false information
about the mechanics of voting, who is eligible to vote, on what
day they may vote, the manner they vote. Is it by mail or is it
by text message? So, this is a governmental function that is
indisputably consistent with the First Amendment and is
critically important to the integrity of our elections.
Now, the private sector also has an important role.
Mr. Lynch. I need to reclaim my time, sir. I am sorry.
Thank you. Thank you for your answer.
Mr. Chair, we have 38 transcripts of witnesses that have
been all before this Committee and had to testify under oath in
response to claims of censorship of the media. I move to have
these 38 transcripts placed on the record. Whether or not they
are disclosed or made available to the public is another
question for the Committee, but I ask that these 38 transcripts
be admitted into the record.
Mr. Issa. Move to table.
Chair Jordan. A motion to table the motion made by the
gentleman from Massachusetts. All those in favor of the tabling
motion, will say aye?
Those opposed, no?
In the opinion of the Chair, the ayes have it and--
Mr. Wasserman Schultz. Mr. Chair, I ask for a recorded
vote.
Chair Jordan. A recorded vote being requested, the clerk
will call the roll.
Mr. Wasserman Schultz. This is outrageous. We are not able
to answer--put anything into the record now? Are you kidding
me?
Ms. Bidelman. Mr. Jordan?
Chair Jordan. Yes.
Ms. Bidelman. Mr. Jordan votes yes.
Mr. Issa?
Mr. Issa. Yes.
Ms. Bidelman. Mr. Issa vote yes.
Mr. Massie?
Mr. Massie. Yes.
Ms. Bidelman. Mr. Massie votes yes.
Ms. Stefanik?
Mr. Gaetz?
Mr. Armstrong?
Mr. Steube?
Mr. Bishop?
Mr. Bishop. Yes.
Ms. Bidelman. Mr. Bishop votes yes.
Ms. Cammack?
Ms. Cammack. Aye.
Ms. Bidelman. Ms. Cammack votes aye.
Ms. Hageman?
Ms. Hageman. Yes.
Ms. Bidelman. Ms. Hageman votes yes.
Mr. Davidson?
Mr. Davidson. Aye.
Ms. Bidelman. Mr. Davidson votes aye.
Mr. Fry?
Mr. Fry. Aye.
Ms. Bidelman. Mr. Fry votes aye.
Ms. Plaskett?
Ms. Plaskett. Talk about censorship. No.
Ms. Bidelman. Ms. Plaskett votes no.
Mr. Lynch?
Mr. Lynch. This is a hearing of censorship by the media.
These transcripts are transcripts of media official who were
all before the Committee.
Chair Jordan. The question--
Mr. Lynch. I vote no.
Ms. Bidelman. Mr. Lynch votes no.
Ms. Sanchez?
Ms. Sanchez. If you are not afraid of what is in the
transcripts, I don't understand why they can't be entered into
the record, and my vote is no.
Ms. Bidelman. Ms. Sanchez votes no.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz?
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Twenty years of Committee hearings
in Congress I have never seen a denial of being allowed to
insert information into the record, ever. Mr. Chair, you have
to fix this. This cannot be how we proceed going forward, and I
vote no.
Ms. Bidelman. Ms. Wasserman Schultz votes no.
Mr. Connolly?
Mr. Garamendi?
Mr. Garamendi. Why are we censoring the information?
Chair Jordan. We are not. We will release the transcripts.
We will talk to the person who was deposed and when we talk
with their counsel and they are comfortable with the
transcripts, we will release--we plan on releasing them all. We
are not going to--
Mr. Garamendi. The transcripts have been available since
last April, Mr. Chair. Last April. It has been over a year.
Chair Jordan. We are working on it.
Mr. Garamendi. Over a year.
Chair Jordan. We are working on that. The question is to
Mr. Garamendi how does he vote on the motion to table?
Mr. Garamendi. No.
Ms. Bidelman. Mr. Garamendi votes no.
Ms. Garcia?
Ms. Garcia. No.
Ms. Bidelman. Ms. Garcia votes no.
Mr. Goldman?
Mr. Goldman. Speech is free as long as I agree. No.
Ms. Bidelman. Mr. Goldman votes no.
Ms. Crockett?
Ms. Crockett. That was poetic. No.
Ms. Bidelman. Ms. Crockett votes no.
Mr. Gaetz. Mr. Gaetz votes aye.
Ms. Bidelman. Mr. Gaetz votes aye.
Mr. Armstrong. Armstrong votes yes.
Ms. Bidelman. Mr. Armstrong votes yes.
Chair Jordan. The clerk will report.
Ms. Bidelman. Mr. Chair, there are 10 ayes and 8 noes.
Chair Jordan. The motion is tabled.
The gentleman--
Mr. Issa. Mr. Chair, I would ask unanimous consent that
items asked for--
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. I object.
Ms. Plaskett. Object.
[Laughter.]
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Object.
Mr. Issa. I am asking unanimous consent--
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Objection.
Ms. Plaskett. An objection has already been made.
Mr. Issa. I have to get to you knowing what it is before
you object.
Ms. Plaskett. We don't--
Ms. Sanchez. We don't get to explain what we are asking.
Mr. Issa. That the material previously asked for by
unanimous consent--
Ms. Plaskett. Objection.
Mr. Issa. --to the extent that it does not violate the
rules of the Committee be admitted. If you want to object to
your own information being put in, go ahead. Is there an
objection?
Mr. Goldman. It is the Committee's information. It is not
our own information.
Ms. Garcia. You are placing conditions. We don't want to
admit it with conditions.
Ms. Plaskett. Who determines that?
Chair Jordan. The Democrats have objected to the unanimous
consent request.
I now recognize the gentleman from California for the five-
minutes of questions.
Mr. Issa. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I share with my gentlelady
on the other side of the aisle. I have never seen unanimous
consent for appropriate outside information to be objected to
and I don't believe it was here today.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. You are the one that made the
objection.
Mr. Issa. I made the objection--
Ms. Garcia. You did it yourself.
Mr. Issa. --for material previously not released, which is
pursuant to the Committee to be released by agreement with the
Chair.
Having said that, I came here for a hearing.
Mr. Flaherty, where did you work during your time in the
Administration?
Mr. Flaherty. Congressman, sorry, can you clarify?
Mr. Issa. What building?
Mr. Flaherty. For a portion I was in the EEOB and for a
portion I was in the West Wing.
Mr. Issa. You were in the White House for your entire time?
The EEOB is considered the White House, correct?
Mr. Flaherty. Yes. Sorry. I apologize.
Mr. Issa. Mr. Slavitt, same thing there? You worked--
Mr. Slavitt. Yes.
Mr. Issa. --in the White House?
Mr. Slavitt. Yes.
Mr. Issa. OK. When you had conversations with YouTube or
with Facebook, did they believe they were talking to somebody
in the White House?
Mr. Flaherty. Congressman, my understanding would be that
they would understand--
Mr. Issa. Yes, you would say you are calling from the White
House, you are calling on behalf of the President, you are--
that is the role that each of you had.
Mr. Zywicki, would you agree that when you say you're
calling from the White House that is inherently a statement of
amazingly high power? Any doubt about that?
Mr. Zywicki. I have no doubt about that.
Mr. Issa. When you are a few feet from, as Mr. Flaherty
was--a few feet from the Oval Office are you few feet away from
the--literally the center of power of the world?
Mr. Zywicki. Yes, I would say so.
Mr. Issa. So, when Mr. Seligman said the court's going to
rule, the court's going to rule, this--he was saying because
you would fail to show potentially a level of intimidation or
use of power, is that correct? That is somewhat what he was
referring to when--the court's comments?
Mr. Zywicki. Yes, that seems to have been the thrust of his
comments.
Mr. Issa. OK. Well, so for our audience here today, the
world, is there any question you say that you are calling from
the White House, that you are calling from a place of immense
power, whether you are a doctor, you know anything about
vaccines or not, but you are questioning whether a publicly
traded company should be doing what it is doing, that there is
inherently a level of potential coercion?
Mr. Zywicki. I cannot imagine a single American other than
people sitting at this table or taking their side who would not
recognize what it means to get a call from the White House.
Mr. Issa. Mr. Flaherty, in my time I have gotten a couple
of calls from the White House, and it generally causes me to
panic even if it is my own party. I have gotten calls where
someone recognizes they are from the FBI, and it causes me to
begin moving every possible scenario before I find out what it
is all about.
Did you have any doubt that you were speaking with a level
of authority when you made suggestions or question things?
Mr. Flaherty. Congressman, again I can't speak to how--
Mr. Issa. Oh, come on. You are a smart guy. You said you
were from the White House. You are speaking on behalf of the
Administration. Did you have any doubt that what you said might
be seen as more than a passing suggestion?
Mr. Flaherty. Well, Congressman, first, the White House
definitely has a vested interest in public health and the
health of--
Mr. Issa. OK. Well, let me ask it a different way. When
YouTube offers to change their policy and ultimately does
change their policy, did you see a cause and effect that you
might have had something to do with an entity literally
changing how it stifles what gets onto its platform?
Mr. Flaherty. Congressman, I don't recall specific--
Mr. Issa. So, you put out information, but you don't ingest
any of the results is what you are telling us here today?
Mr. Flaherty. Congressman, I can't recall a specific policy
change.
Mr. Issa. OK. You don't recall. That is fine.
Mr. Slavitt, I am going to ask you substantially the same
thing. You were calling from the White House; you were calling
from the most powerful place pretty much on earth. Did it ever
occur to you that a benign suggestion might, in fact, look like
an order that could lead to huge ramifications? Did it at least
cross your mind that you had to tread softly?
Mr. Slavitt. Yes, Mr. Congressman, I did expect that they
would take my call. I did not expect that they would do
anything they didn't agree with. In particular, in the course
of a pandemic I hoped that they would take my call seriously
since we were talking about a serious matter.
Mr. Issa. OK. I just want to followup on one thing the
Chair got to. He asked it one way; I will ask it another way.
Many of the things that you were causing to be changed,
suggesting being changed turned out not to be true, is that
correct, such as the--getting a vaccine, stopping the
transmittal of the disease? It just turned out not to be true.
Is that a fair statement?
Mr. Slavitt. If what you are suggesting is that the facts
changed on the ground quite frequently during COVID, I would
agree with that.
Mr. Issa. The facts never changed. The understanding of
what the truth was changed.
Mr. Slavitt. Well, actually as we saw new variants with--
particularly the Delta variant, some of the things that had
occurred before Delta did, in fact, change because the fact
(inaudible)--
Mr. Issa. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I reluctantly yield
back even though Mr. Zywicki had something else to say.
Chair Jordan. The gentleman yields back.
The gentleman from California is recognized.
Ms. Sanchez. Thank you. It is kind of ironic--oh, I'm
sorry. Mr. Garamendi.
Chair Jordan. I will go to California, whoever you want,
but I was told the gentleman from California.
Mr. Garamendi. Thank you, Mr. Chair. If my colleague from
California would like to go first--
Ms. Sanchez. No.
Mr. Garamendi. OK. I guess I am perplexed. I have a line of
questions for Mr. Seligman, but before I get there my
understanding is that the Committee staff did a series of
interviews under oath with witnesses, 25 witnesses from the
various media companies that are being discussed here today and
that of those 25, 12 were from Meta, that is Facebook; 11 from
Google, YouTube; one from Amazon; one from Twitter. When asked,
every single witness confirmed that nobody from the government
ever coerced or threatened their respective companies into
taking down content.
Presumably those interviews were recorded and, in most
cases, videotaped. It would seem to me important that those
recordings and those videos be on the record and available to
the Committee Members and to the public because if in fact they
do exist, and if in fact I am correct that every person
interviewed said that they were coerced, then that would seem
to be critical information for the content of this hearing.
However, it appears as though we may not have those interviews
available to us, although I am a little--I am not at all sure
what the current Chair intended with his motion.
Mr. Issa. [Presiding.] Is that a question for the Chair?
Mr. Garamendi. Did your motion make those interviews
available and part of the record?
Mr. Issa. As long as they were not prohibited by the
Committee Rules on release. Anything that has become publicly
available would be available. These, of course, that are
sitting here at a minimum are available to you at any time. All
the transcripts are available. As a matter of fact, we're all
invited to be in those interviews.
Mr. Garamendi. Are they now a formal part of the hearing
record?
Mr. Issa. At this time, they have not been admitted. The
Chair explained that among others there are at least some that
are depositions which require a formal vote to release the
others. Some of the material has been released. Some have not.
Mr. Garamendi. If it is correct to say that of those 25
interviews, all which answered the question of coercion by
saying they were not coerced, it would seem to be critical that
this information be not only available to the Committee, but
since the Committee Chair and others are accusing the
government--well, the witnesses, and therefore the government
at that time, of coercion, and those people that received those
messages said that they were not coerced, it would seem to be
important that information be not only a formal part of the
record, or a part of the formal record, but also be available
to the public since it would seem to counter the fundamental
point that the Chair is trying to make, that there was
coercion. Am I right or wrong here?
Mr. Issa. If the gentleman would yield. I absolutely share
with the gentleman that we need to release these as soon as
they can be approved as valid transcripts. I share with him
more information rather than less. I would ask that the
gentleman remember that when there is an ongoing investigation,
whether it's the FBI or this Committee, we often do not want to
have the information released in its entirety until all
individuals have been interviewed, lest there be a fact, a
circular, ``I know what the other guy said.''
Mr. Garamendi. I appreciate that. However, it appears as
though the Committee is proceeding hell-bent on trying to prove
something that is disproved by 25 witnesses. Apparently, the
Chair and the Committee are trying to prove there is coercion
when those people that were--the Committee says we're coerced
in their testimony say they were not. Wouldn't it be wise for
us in the context of where we are in the accusation that
there's a counterpoint that is right there on the table and
that should be part of the formal record, should be available
to prove or disprove the accusations that the Chair is making.
Mr. Issa. If the gentleman would yield further, what I
would say is that the emails that have been released say
otherwise. If the gentleman would like an additional minute for
question of the witnesses, I would be glad to ask that he have
that additional minute.
Mr. Garamendi. Otherwise, I'm out of time?
Mr. Issa. Without objection, the gentleman is granted an
additional minute.
Mr. Garamendi. For all you--I'm going to start with Mr.
Seligman--if an accusation has been made of coercion and there
is evidence from those who were contacted by the government
that they were not coerced, shouldn't that be part of the
formal record?
Mr. Seligman. Yes, those are relevant facts.
Mr. Garamendi. Anybody disagree with that? So, it appears
as though the witnesses would say let the information be out
there. Make it available to the public, and certainly make it
part of the formal record. I suppose my minute is up. I yield.
Mr. Issa. I thank the gentleman for yielding. We now go to
the gentleman from Florida, Mr. Gaetz, for five minutes.
Mr. Gaetz. Mr. Flaherty, as you were put in the heat on
social media companies, did you make the decisions which posts
were most egregious to highlight or flag? Or were there other
people telling you which posts to go and express concern about?
Mr. Flaherty. Congressman, I'll say, in general, we were
lifting up examples of content that we felt were--
Mr. Gaetz. When you say ``we,'' I just want to know which
human beings were involved in deciding, like, this Leonardo
DiCaprio meme had to go?
Mr. Flaherty. In general, we were discussing specific
pieces of content when we were discussing--
Mr. Gaetz. Again, I know you guys love pronouns. We is not
what I'm looking for. I'm looking for the names of the people.
Mr. Flaherty. Congressman, I'm not authorized to--
Mr. Gaetz. Well, you wrote an email on April 21, 2021,
We remain concerned that YouTube is funneling people into
vaccine hesitancy. This concern is shared at the highest, and I
mean highest, levels of the White House. So, we'd like to
continue in good faith dialog here. I'm on the hook for
reporting out.
Who were you on the hook for reporting out to?
Mr. Flaherty. Congressman, I can't recall who specifically
I was referencing in that document.
Mr. Gaetz. Because you just strike me as a functionary. I
don't really think you are making these decisions. I think that
these people that you say the highest levels of the White--when
you say, the highest, and I mean the levels of the White House,
who are you referring to without using the word, we?
Mr. Flaherty. Congressman, I can't recall specifically who
I'm referencing--
Mr. Gaetz. When you say the--are you talking about
President Biden?
Mr. Flaherty. Congressman, I don't think it should be a
surprise that the Administration was focused on the issue
presenting authoritative information about the vaccine.
Mr. Gaetz. By the way, I find your testimony terrifying but
incredibly intellectually honest because you've come here and
you've taken the position, look, in the White House, people are
always trying to shape how information is received. They do it
with The New York Times. You've seen it on The West Wing.
I think a lot of Americans see a distinction between
powerful White House officials trying to shape a news story in
The Washington Post and then trying to shape what all American
and the world can see in the digital information space. You say
there's no distinction there. I think that's honest. Scares the
hell out of me. That seems to be your testimony, right?
Mr. Flaherty. Congressman, these platforms are making
hundreds of millions of algorithmic editorial decisions a
second. Those algorithmic decisions--
Mr. Gaetz. I get it. I just don't want the White House
participating in them. I get that to have social media
companies, there are all these decisions that get made about
what content rises and falls.
What we have a problem with is when the U.S. Government is
putting their thumb on the scale. Now, you said there were no
threats and there were no consequences. Was there pressure? Did
you put pressure on social media companies?
Mr. Flaherty. Congressman, we certainly raised areas where
we had questions about their policies or concerns about their
enforcement--
Mr. Gaetz. Would you categorize that as pressure, yes or
no?
Mr. Flaherty. Congressman, I can't speak to how they
interpreted my conversation--
Mr. Gaetz. Well, I can, because there's an email about it.
Nick Clegg sends an email. The title is Andy Slavitt Podcast.
He asks people at Facebook,
Can someone quickly remind me why we are removing rather than
demoting or labeling claims that COVID is manmade before May?
The reply to that email is, and I quote,
Because we were under pressure from the Administration. We
shouldn't have done it.
So, were you part of that pressure campaign?
Mr. Flaherty. Congressman, again, having not seen the
document, I can't speak to who they're referencing or what
they're referencing. All I can say is our--
Mr. Gaetz. Well, Mr. Slavitt, were you a part of that
pressure campaign?
Mr. Slavitt. I don't believe we were applying any undue
pressure on social media companies. I don't think they
interpreted it that way.
Mr. Gaetz. Well, in writing, they have. Mr. Chair, I seek
to enter into the record the email where the people at
Facebook--
Ms. Plaskett. Objection.
Mr. Gaetz. --are saying--OK, well--
Ms. Plaskett. Objection.
Mr. Gaetz. Fine. It exists. It's out there. Mr. Slavitt,
there's another email, which I'm sure the Democrats would
object to having considered, where a Facebook employee says,
Just got off an hour-long call with Andy Slavitt. He was
outraged. Not too strong a word to describe his reaction that
we did not remove this post, which was the third most highly
ranked in the data we sent him.
That was a Leonardo DiCaprio meme that was a joke. Were you
guys trying to get jokes removed?
Mr. Slavitt. Mr. Congressman, thanks for asking. I'll
trying to explain, but, really briefly, if Facebook, by their
own policy, had put something on their website which said
250,000 people are dying every year from the vaccine, that
would undoubtedly have violated their policy.
Mr. Gaetz. OK. Well, let's go to--hold on. Let's go to true
information, then, because in another Facebook document, they
say, quote,
The Surgeon General wants us to remove true information about
side effects.'
Mr. Flaherty, should true information be removed?
Mr. Flaherty. Congressman, I can't speak to what they're--
Mr. Gaetz. Can't even speak to whether or not we should
censor the truth, because they don't like where it leads. I see
I'm out of time, Mr. Chair. I yield back.
Chair Jordan. [Presiding.] The gentleman yields back. The
gentlelady from California is recognized, Ms. Sanchez.
Ms. Sanchez. Thank you, Mr. Chair. It has not escaped my
notice that there's information that is specifically being
excluded from the record because it's inconvenient to the
narrative that one side is trying to sell. They're trying to
say that there was all this coercion, and that the government
was forcing people to do things when the witness testimony is
contained in the transcripts that you will not allow to be
entered into the record.
Mr. Flaherty was asked about the emails, and he said, ``I
can't testify as to how the emails were interpreted.'' The
evidence of how they were interpreted are in the transcripts
that you won't allow into the record. Why will you not allow
the witness testimony?
These are all the people that received the email because
you want to pick and choose certain things that were said and
not allow the full context in which they were stated to be
entered into the record which I think is incredibly
disingenuous and it's misleading. It's purposefully misleading
because you want it to fit the narrative that you are trying to
sell. Of course, the government isn't allowed to threaten
Americans from engaging in First Amendment rights.
Today, Republicans are saying that the government can't
even express an opinion unless that opinion is one that MAGA
adherents agree with which is completely a ridiculous
proposition. There is a difference between expressing an
opinion and threatening somebody to believe it. The only
threats that I see today are coming from across the aisle
against our government's ability to protect its people. Mr.
Seligman, the government is entitled to speak for itself,
correct?
Mr. Seligman. Correct.
Ms. Sanchez. The government is entitled to inform, to
persuade, and even to criticize private speakers, correct?
Mr. Seligman. Correct.
Ms. Sanchez. So, government actors like the White House,
they're allowed to express opinions because they have a First
Amendment right as well. They can encourage Americans to take
steps to protect their health and safety, for example?
Mr. Seligman. Correct.
Ms. Sanchez. Isn't it true that throughout our history,
Presidents have expressed their opinions about the welfare and
the safety of the American people?
Mr. Seligman. Yes.
Ms. Sanchez. I want to walk through a few examples of the
government expressing an opinion or encouraging Americans to
take certain actions because according to the Republicans,
those moves are somehow an affront to conservatives. Mr.
Seligman, is it a First Amendment violation for the government
to encourage healthy young people to serve in the military or
to go into some other public service like the Peace Corps or
AmeriCorps?
Mr. Seligman. No, it is not.
Ms. Sanchez. Is it a First Amendment violation for the
government to start an awareness campaign telling adolescents
that they shouldn't eat Tide laundry detergent pods as part of
a social media challenge?
Mr. Seligman. No, it is not.
Ms. Sanchez. Is it a First Amendment violation for the
government to encourage medical professionals to receiving
training on signs of sex trafficking?
Mr. Seligman. No, it is not.
Ms. Sanchez. The government can share those opinions and
encouragements with social media companies or other companies
for that matter to promote its ideas of wellness and safety.
Isn't that right?
Mr. Seligman. That is correct.
Ms. Sanchez. So, for example, if the government was aware
of content spreading online promoting child sex trafficking,
the government could tell Facebook about this content,
especially since promoting sex trafficking on these sites is
against the company's own policies. Isn't that right?
Mr. Seligman. That is correct.
Ms. Sanchez. The government could flag for YouTube that
kids are facing life threatening complications after watching
videos of teens eating Tide detergent pods and deciding to
ingest those pods themself?
Mr. Seligman. That is correct.
Ms. Sanchez. Would such conversations between government
and private companies constitute coercing these companies to
take specific actions?
Mr. Seligman. Not unless any adverse consequences were
attached to it.
Ms. Sanchez. OK. To date, have any of these--to your
knowledge, have any of these companies sued the government for
coercion--
Mr. Seligman. Not to my knowledge.
Ms. Sanchez. --or for retaliation--
Mr. Seligman. Not to my knowledge.
Ms. Sanchez. --for failing to do something that the
government suggested?
Mr. Seligman. Not to my knowledge.
Ms. Sanchez. The First Amendment also allows Members of
Congress to speak out about their own opinions, correct?
Mr. Seligman. Correct.
Ms. Sanchez. Even if other individuals might find their
opinions rude or offensive?
Mr. Seligman. Correct.
Ms. Sanchez. Members of Congress frequently exercise that
right in things like press interviews, correct?
Mr. Seligman. Correct.
Ms. Sanchez. If anyone is trying to silence speech, it's
congressional Republicans who are fearmongering. They're
threatening social media companies not to collaborate with the
Democratic White House and trying to prevent the White House
from saving lives. What we are doing here today--no, what you
are doing here today is dangerous manipulative.
It's trying to convince the American people of falsehoods
and conspiracy theories that have no basis in fact. Make no
mistake about this one thing, allowing these wide conspiracy
theories to spread unchecked, it's only because you guys are
seeking to strengthen Donald Trump's reelection bid. Let's just
call it what it is. With that, I yield back my time.
Chair Jordan. The gentlelady yields back. The gentleman
from Ohio is recognized.
Mr. Davidson. I thank the Chair and I thank or witnesses
for being here today. Mr. Slavitt, in your book,
``Preventable,'' you wrote that, quote,
But accounting for Trump, other deep-seated issues that are
part of our culture and national identity emerge to haunt us,
our obsession with individual liberties, even at the expense of
others lives and health.
Is it a bad thing that Americans feel strongly about individual
liberties?
Mr. Slavitt. Certainly not.
Mr. Davidson. How then did individual liberties become a
barrier to--what are you talking about there?
Mr. Slavitt. I didn't suggest that they're a barrier.
Mr. Davidson. What's the tradeoff there? You feel like that
some liberties should be curtailed?
Mr. Slavitt. I feel like--first, what I wrote as a private
citizen. I want to emphasize that I think it's important to
have dialogs about all these issues. That's what we were trying
to do with social media companies.
(Simultaneous speaking.]
Mr. Davidson. You were actively curtailing liberty which is
what you were doing.
Mr. Slavitt. No. No, I don't believe--
Mr. Davidson. Are you proud of the work that you did?
Mr. Slavitt. Certainly, yes.
Mr. Davidson. Why? What did you accomplish?
Mr. Slavitt. Well, by most estimations, three million
American lives were saved, not just by my work, by the work of
two administrations, a bunch of scientists, and the military.
Mr. Davidson. That was because you exerted influence to be
able to get what you believe saved those lives out?
Mr. Slavitt. Because the country pulled together in quite a
pretty responsible way during a pretty tough time.
Mr. Davidson. No remorse? No regrets over asking social
media to censor Americans?
Mr. Slavitt. I'm self-critical, but I never asked--I never
asked social media companies to censor anything.
Mr. Davidson. Right, just take it down or just don't sell
the books. We don't really want you to keep selling these books
that you're selling.
Mr. Slavitt. No, that's not what I said with due respect,
Mr. Congressman. What I said was, I want to understand how your
policies to promote these books, not to sell them, but to put
them on the equivalent of the end cap of the aisle and say
these are the most important books to read.
Mr. Davidson. So, it's OK if they had them somewhere, just
not online.
[Crosstalk.]
Mr. Slavitt. Do whatever they wanted.
Mr. Davidson. Mr. Flaherty, are you proud of the work you
did?
Mr. Flaherty. Yes, Congressman. I am.
Mr. Davidson. Why? Do you feel like you exerted some
influence over people?
Mr. Flaherty. Congressman, I'm proud of the
Administration's efforts to save lives and--
Mr. Davidson. I didn't ask about the Administration. I
asked about you. Are you happy? You feel like you did a good
thing?
Mr. Flaherty. Congressman, I'm very proud of the work we
did in the Administration to save lives.
Mr. Davidson. So, the means did justify the ends, right?
So, it's OK that we curtailed freedom because the outcome was
desirable? Is that what the First Amendment says?
Mr. Flaherty. Congressman, I want to dispute the
characterization of our work.
Mr. Davidson. Is that what it says?
Mr. Flaherty. We certainly were not censoring, threatening,
or providing consequences to companies we were raising up.
Mr. Davidson. I think the American people will conclude
that you were, in fact, doing that. I think once we get to
share all the transcripts with the public, I think the
unredacted versions will make it very clear that's exactly what
you were doing. That's what the social media companies knew you
were doing and why they conformed.
Recently, the House gave the Executive Branch, even in the
Senate, now it's a law. We gave the Administration, the
Executive Branch even more authority. Recently, the House voted
to ban TikTok. While Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party
are a threat, I voted against this ban because I have serious
concerns that banning social media platforms is more harmful to
free speech in America than to China.
We have a White House that is engaging in coercive activity
so they can activity control the narrative on social media and
frankly on an online bookstore, the most ubiquitous one in the
world. This is the same kind of stuff that Chinese Communist
Party does.
They heavily regulate media and online speech. I'm
extremely worried that a platform ban provides another point of
leverage for the Executive Branch for government to exercise
coercion over private companies to effectively censor Americans
and their First Amendment protected right to speech. We will
not counter China by becoming more like China, yet that's
exactly what we've done with this TikTok Trojan horse.
Congress effectively granted a rogue White House the same
control over internet activity that the Chinese Communist Party
exercises in China. It is a grave mistake and I hope we correct
it because we can see here today that we already have an
administration that tried to launch a disinformation governance
board. Were either of you part of those discussions?
Mr. Slavitt. I was not part of anything like that, no.
Mr. Flaherty. Congressman, I was not part of--
Mr. Davidson. It's heavily related to the activity that you
guys were engaged in. So, when you say we at the very highest
levels, would that include the President? The highest level at
the White House is President Biden, right?
Mr. Flaherty. Congressman, again, it shouldn't surprise
anybody that we were, as an administration, focused intently on
getting the American public vaccinated. This is a thing that
everyone at every level of the Administration--
Mr. Davidson. So, again, the means justify the ends. We can
cancel speech and violate it. I think it's a shame that this
has happened, and I hope we criminalize it because you should
not be able to violate the First Amendment rights of American
citizens and not have consequences for it. My time has expired,
and I yield.
Chair Jordan. The gentleman yields back. The gentlelady
from Florida is recognized.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Thank you, Mr. Chair. It's
breathtaking that now we're suggesting that we arrest people
who are trying to make sure that they can save lives and
prevent them from dying of a novel virus that killed millions
of people. As we heard today, there's a lawsuit against the
U.S. Government for allegedly colluding with social media
companies to censor conservative speech online, a case that has
now reached the Supreme Court.
My colleagues across the aisle favor the position that the
government must be forbidden from communicating and
collaborating with social media companies. While I disagree,
holding that opinion is acceptable. Yet, clearly, we're here so
Republicans can influence the justices, as the Ranking Member
said, before this upcoming case. That's what's unacceptable.
To wage an inappropriate court influence scheme under the
cover of oversight and impugn men who did their job and did it
well is not just improper, it's actual weaponization of the
Federal Government. So, this begs the question. Are we going to
be launching an investigation into our own shame Subcommittee?
Because that's the weaponization of the Federal Government.
Here we are attacking civil servants who work to keep
America safe. That's clear based on the Chair's question line
that was designed to bully rather than seek actual information
directed at a public servant who was communicating the best
scientific information available at the time. We all have comms
directors.
We know they're not experts. They're communicators. Instead
of using their public megaphone to suggest people put bleach in
their bodies to fit COVID, Mr. Slavitt and Mr. Flaherty clearly
tried to save actual lives amid a global pandemic using sound
medical and scientific methods. They did just that.
Numerous studies show that millions of lives were saved
because of their work. We're not hearing one Republican say
that today, but it doesn't make it any less true. Another thing
we haven't been hearing today is that there are other
legitimate interests for government to engage social medial
companies and barring such communications could leave us
vulnerable if our election systems are attacked, for example.
In Florida, voter suppression is a real concern. Citizens
in my State overwhelmingly, for example, said in 2018 that they
wanted to restore voting rights to felons. Sadly, over the next
four years rather than help our citizens understand Florida's
complicated voter eligibility rules, Republicans instead
resorted to intimidation and antidemocratic prosecutions.
My fear is social media platforms could be used to confuse
or intimidate voters. In those cases, why would we stop
governments from sharing these legitimate concerns with such
powerful wholly unregulated companies. So, Mr. Seligman, could
prohibiting communications between government officials and
social media platforms further disenfranchise voters whose
communities already face voter suppression briefly?
Mr. Seligman. Yes.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Thank you. We've seen the power of
one individual like Rudy Giuliani encourage intimidation and
violence against election workers. What would happen if social
media platforms were amplifying those threats or triggering
them?
Mr. Seligman. They would become more severe.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Could you see a ban on such
communication between government and social media platforms
leading to increased violence against election workers, for
example?
Mr. Seligman. Absolutely.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. The bottom line here is this is a
Hail Mary of a hearing designed to improperly influence the
Supreme Court. It puts two good men who save many lives through
a blizzard of baseless and distorted accusations and innuendo.
Witnesses from the social media companies repeatedly confirm
that nobody in the government ever coerced or threatened them
to take action.
Chair Jordan refuses to let the public see the transcripts
or videos of their interviews. He's covering it up which has
been repeatedly obvious during this hearing because for the
first time in my 20-year career in Congress, I have never seen
the majority not allow introduction by unanimous consent of
information into the record for a Committee hearing. That's
what we should be investigating here today.
Mr. Chair, I ask unanimous consent to enter into the record
the full email chain dated March 4, 2021 re: following up
between Amazon employees and White House employees which shows
that Mr. Slavitt and Mr. Flaherty only asked for a meeting with
Amazon to understand Amazon's policies, not make specific
requests about content or--
Chair Jordan. Without objection.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. I also ask unanimous consent to
enter experts from the Committee's April 16, 2024, interview
with the Amazon employee who received this email in which the
employee explains that he had been working--Amazon had been
working on policies regarding vaccine-related books on Amazon
for weeks before Mr. Slavitt's email.
Mr. Massie. Object.
Chair Jordan. Objection being raised at the second. Again,
I want to give a roadmap to other witnesses we plan on calling.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. OK. I'm trying to explain.
Chair Jordan. We will release all that when we've completed
our investigation.
Ms. Sanchez. It's the gentlelady's time.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. OK.
Ms. Sanchez. It's the gentlelady's time.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Right.
Chair Jordan. I'll give you an extra 10 seconds.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. OK. What we're trying to do is
introduce into the record the email that ensures that we have
an opportunity to--
Chair Jordan. We said fine to that.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. OK. Then the interview with the
Amazon employee who received this email--
Chair Jordan. I'm not going to release the transcripts
until we complete the investigation.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. --in which the employee explains
that Amazon had been working on policies regarding vaccine-
related books on Amazon for weeks before Mr. Slavitt's email.
Those are connected. Those two things are important information
to highlight--
Chair Jordan. We'll release the email.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. --the obvious evidence that the two
gentleman--
Chair Jordan. The time for the gentlelady has expired. The
Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Kentucky for his five
minutes.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. I yield back.
Mr. Massie. I yield to the gentleman from Ohio.
Chair Jordan. I appreciate the gentleman yielding.
Professor, earlier, about an hour ago, Mr. Slavitt in his--I'm
reading from his written testimony. I believe he said it in his
oral testimony as well. He had this statement, to my knowledge,
no one within the Administration ever saw to make decisions for
Facebook or any other social media company over their content
moderation. Is that an accurate statement made by Mr. Slavitt?
Mr. Zywicki. That is not what I've seen in all the
correspondence that I've reviewed.
Chair Jordan. Do you stand by that statement, Mr. Slavitt?
Mr. Slavitt. Yes, I do, Mr. Chair.
Chair Jordan. So, the Administration never saw to make
decisions for Facebook or any other social media platform over
their content moderation?
Mr. Slavitt. To the best of my knowledge--
Chair Jordan. To the best of your knowledge, the third day.
Clarke Humphrey who worked with you all, right? Ms. Humphrey
worked with you guys? Ms. Humphrey worked--
Mr. Slavitt. Yes, that's accurate.
Chair Jordan. She sent an email,
Wanted to flag the below tweet. Wondering if we can get moving
on the process of having it removed ASAP.
That's not trying to influence a social media company over
their content moderation?
Mr. Slavitt. I think the statement that I said was that
they didn't--we didn't choose to make decisions for social
media companies. I didn't say that there wasn't correspondence,
there weren't occasions when they weren't trying to influence
social medial companies. Social media companies did an
admirable job telling us when they disagreed. I think those
were important--
Chair Jordan. What is ``take down this tweet ASAP''? If
that's not trying to make a decision for the social media
company, what is it?
Mr. Slavitt. I don't think she was ordering them to take
anything down. I don't know. I don't know the context of the
entire conversation. If you have documents to share--
Chair Jordan. You keep an eye out for tweets in this same
genre. What was that?
Mr. Slavitt. I wasn't a party to that email. So, I don't
know--
Chair Jordan. Is that trying to impact the content
moderation decisions at Facebook, at Twitter, or any other
social media platform?
Mr. Slavitt. I'm sorry. Did you say--can I see the full
email, please?
Chair Jordan. I'll read it to you. ``Wanted to flag the
below tweet. Wondering if we can get moving on the process for
having it removed ASAP.''
Mr. Slavitt. I'm not sure of the context. I wasn't a party
to the email.
Chair Jordan. I just don't see how your statement squares
with the actions that--
[Crosstalk.]
Chair Jordan. --the Administration is up on day three with
someone who worked in your--
[Crosstalk.]
Chair Jordan. How about this one?
Mr. Slavitt. OK.
Chair Jordan. How about this one?
Our YouTube trust and safety team is working to finalize a new
policy to remove content that could mislead people on the
safety and efficacy of vaccines. We would like to preview our
policy proposal for you and get any feedback you have?
So, now they're asking on the front end, are you OK with the
policy? Is that trying to impact and make decisions for social
media companies about content moderation?
Mr. Slavitt. To make decisions? No.
Chair Jordan. They're trying to get an OK from you on the
front end, and you're not having an impact on their social
media platform content decisions?
Mr. Slavitt. As I interpret it, this was an interaction
where--a dialog and I don't know the entire context of the
dialog. It sounds like--
Chair Jordan. They're asking permission.
Mr. Slavitt. --the social media company--
Chair Jordan. They want your feedback and you've said--
Mr. Slavitt. It sounds like part of a dialog about what
constituted consistency with their policy. That's far
different, in my opinion, Mr. Chair, from someone making a
decision on their behalf.
Chair Jordan. OK.
Mr. Slavitt. I don't know--
Chair Jordan. Mr. Flaherty, in your opening statement, you
said something that I just found astounding. Twitter's new
owner abandoned all its prior policies related to COVID
misinformation over a year and a half ago. That decision was
Twitter's to make, and I'm not aware of any adverse actions
against Twitter in response to it.
Mr. Flaherty. Congressman, I'm not aware of any adverse
government actions taken against Twitter in response to that
change.
Chair Jordan. Eight different Federal agencies have went
after Elon Musk and Twitter since that happened.
Mr. Flaherty. Congressman, I am no longer--
Chair Jordan. Department of Justice is looking into the
fact that he hired too many Americans at SpaceX, FEC, FCC, FAA,
NLRB; U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York; and
even the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service went after him. I
haven't even got to the big one. FTC sent 12 letters, the first
letter asking right after the Twitter files, Mr. Musk, who are
the journalists you're talking to?
You said in your opening--you said in your testimony that
Twitter's new owner, ``I'm not aware of any adverse actions
against Twitter in response to it.'' One of the most ridiculous
things I've heard. Every agency you can imagine went after this
guy because he's advocating for free speech and the first
amendment. You stand by your statement?
Mr. Flaherty. Congressman, I do stand by the statement.
Chair Jordan. You weren't aware of any of that? You weren't
aware that the FTC sent 12 letters and the first letter said,
``we know you're talking to four journalists.'' Two of them
testified in front of this Committee twice, and we want to know
who else you're talking to.
Asking someone, ``who are the journalists you're talking
to,'' direct attack on the First Amendment. You say nothing has
happened. No adverse actions against Twitter in response to
what he's done.
Mr. Flaherty. Congressman, again, I'm here to speak about
my experience in government and interacting with social media
companies. I left the government in June 2023. I can't speak to
this, and I certainly--
Chair Jordan. This happened before that.
Mr. Massie. Reclaiming my time. These sound like mafia
tactics when we send every three-letter agency known to the
U.S. Government after Elon Musk when he comes out for free
speech. With that, I yield back.
Chair Jordan. The gentleman yields back. The Chair now
recognizes the gentlelady from Texas.
Ms. Garcia. Thank you, Mr. Chair. It's been a very
interesting hearing to say the least. It's important that I
repeat again that what others have already said. The
transcripts that are not being allowed by unanimous consent
clearly confirm that nobody from the government ever coerced or
threatened anyone from the social media companies into taking
action.
It is a cover up. That's what the bottom line here is that
we are looking at what may have been misinformation, bad
information, and flat out lies. We saw it happened, all over
during this time period. So, Mr. Slavitt, I'm just going to ask
you bluntly, did you ever try to force, coerce, or threaten any
private company into taking specific action related to false
information about vaccines or COVID at large during this time
period?
Mr. Slavitt. No.
Ms. Garcia. Mr. Flaherty, same question.
Mr. Flaherty. I can't recall.
Ms. Garcia. You can't recall?
Mr. Flaherty. Yes.
Ms. Garcia. OK. So, did you ever try to force a
nongovernment entity to work with you through threats or
coercion?
Mr. Flaherty. Certainly not, Congresswoman.
Ms. Garcia. So, was it your impression that anyone or any
company who worked with you did so voluntarily to try to do
their part to address the pandemic?
Mr. Flaherty. Congresswoman, it is absolutely true that
these companies get to make their own decisions. That is
certainly not at the expense of folks in government, civil
society, elsewhere to have an opinion about those decisions.
It's their policies and their enforcement.
Ms. Garcia. Do you know if there was ever any followup to
see what they did or didn't do and whether there was any
adverse action they didn't do of cleaning up the false or
misleading information?
Mr. Flaherty. Congresswoman, when you say followup, by--
Ms. Garcia. Well, they keep saying that there was adverse
action. Adverse action means that they did or didn't do what
you all asked them to do if you did ask. So, then an action was
taken against them.
So, someone would've had to followup to know because as the
other witness testified, he's not aware of any lawsuit. He's
not aware of any fines. He's not aware of any adverse action
that happened on the part of any of these companies.
Mr. Flaherty. Congresswoman, I'm certainly not aware of
adverse action that was taken.
Ms. Garcia. All right. Mr. Slavitt, same for you. Did you
ever try to force a nongovernment actor to work with you
through threats or coercion?
Mr. Slavitt. No.
Ms. Garcia. So, was it your impression did anyone or any
company who worked with you did so voluntarily to try to do
their part to address the pandemic?
Mr. Slavitt. Yes.
Ms. Garcia. Of course, both of you were doing all this to
save lives, weren't you?
Mr. Slavitt. Yes, yes.
Ms. Garcia. I can tell you that in my community, there was
a lot of misinformation, some of them just flat out lies. I
remember once visiting with some Spanish speaking members of my
community, and they had seen YouTube video that someone put out
there telling Spanish speaking women not to take the vaccine--
not to get the shots because they would become sterile and
would not be able to have children. That's false, isn't it?
Mr. Slavitt. Yes.
Ms. Garcia. It is false because this was once in a century
the horror of a pandemic unlike any other in our generation. As
one ICU doctor put it, it was a war without bullets. You all
were fighting a war, and this was especially felt in the
communities of color where Black and Latino individuals
disproportionately became sick or hospitalized and died from
this awful virus.
In fact, Dr. Peter Hotez of Houston from the Baylor Collect
of Medicine said to us and read from a board where they watched
the deaths in Harris County, my home county. He read, Hispanic
male, Hispanic male, Hispanic male, Black male, Hispanic male,
Black male, Hispanic male, Hispanic female, Black female, Black
male, Hispanic, Hispanic, Hispanic, Hispanic, Hispanic,
Hispanic. All the deaths that were occurring, over half were
directly impacting our minority communities.
He told us in a meeting that this virus has taken away a
whole generation of mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, who
are young kids, and teenage kids. It occurred to me that what
we're seeing really is a historic decimation among the Hispanic
community by the virus. So, it was important to get the right
information. Mr. Chair, I do have a unanimous consent request
for admission of this document, ``Coronavirus is causing the
`historic decimation' of Latinos, medical expert says.''
Chair Jordan. Without objection. The time of the gentlelady
has expired.
Ms. Garcia. Thank you.
Chair Jordan. The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from
North Carolina.
Mr. Bishop. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So, Mr. Slavitt, in this
partisan free for all, I just want to say that I credit you.
You've had some candidness in your responses so far. I just
want to explore that for a minute.
I think maybe the first one the Chair started with was the
first claim. It's a claim that vaccinations would prevent COVID
infection. I think it's fair to say you acknowledge in
hindsight that turned out not to have been true. I know it's
been said over and over, Mr. Flaherty most often, that it was
based on the best knowledge at the time. Am I fair--you've
acknowledged as much, correct?
Mr. Slavitt. So, I believe it was true up until June 2021.
Then the Delta virus came, and that caused reinfections.
Mr. Bishop. OK.
Mr. Slavitt. It was taken care of differently.
Mr. Bishop. So, I would summarize that by saying that it
was an evolving set of circumstances. I'm not even sure if it
was true in the inception. So, I might have that difference
with you. Was the fact that situation was fluid and you might
be wrong and it's evolving quickly, doesn't that tend to prove
to you that it's important for officials who are in power to
give the First Amendment a wide birth, not to go out and impose
an orthodoxy and try to cutoff what other people are saying
that might be different from that claim?
Mr. Slavitt. Yes.
Mr. Bishop. Well, I appreciate that concession. I submit
that you started off with some principles, that you said you
were guided by, like, three principles. First, that the
judgments of the platforms were strictly their domain. They
said--in No. 2, you say, but their policies were not enough.
You questioned them about how they were exercising those
policies. I would submit to you that I think those are
hopefully contradictory. It's either their decision or it's
yours.
I certainly don't think there's any problem for the White
House to go out in public and say, ``what you think is the most
important information.'' If a reporter asks you, well, you say
taking the vaccine is going to prevent getting COVID. Is that
the case? Yes.
Some people say otherwise. Well, we think they're wrong. I
don't have a problem with that. I am troubled that a person who
seems to be relatively fair minded would look at all the
correspondence about where the Facebook people say we're under
pressure from the White House and say, well, we weren't trying
to pressure anybody.
Or we don't look back in hindsight and feel like we don't
understand how they could've perceived any pressure. Is that
the position you're in? You don't think they could've perceived
pressure from what was happening from the White House?
Mr. Slavitt. So, I think a good characterization on my
second principle to keep it simple is trust but verify. If we
are told that there are policies that are in place and we get
reports that the evidence is otherwise, when we did receive
third-party reports which caused us to question some of the
claims that they made, I thought it was fair to ask them, hey,
your policy is X. We're getting reports of Y. Can you explain
it to us?
Mr. Bishop. Yes. I don't think they need to account to the
White House for how they're operating their businesses,
especially when their business is hosting a conversation of the
American people. The problem that's most disturbing to me about
even the partisan warfare around this is that all these
principles have been well established for a long time. Justice
Brandeis in 1927 said, ``the remedy for false speech or bad
speech is more speech.'' It became famous. Even his concurrence
then was in a case in which the Supreme Court, liberals, the
liberals went further in Brandenburg in the late 1960s and
said, ``they overruled that case because it was too
restrictive.''
We've got Republicans banning TikTok because the Chinese
government is involved communication. Well, in 1965 in Lamont
v. Postmaster General, the same Supreme Court established that
Americans have a First Amendment right of access, Mr. Seligman,
to information even if it's foreign propaganda. How have we
come to the point 40-50 years later where we're fighting over
these same issues? Aren't they--do you not think those are
principles that I've talked about, Mr. Slavitt, are they
important to you?
Mr. Slavitt. Those principles--
Mr. Bishop. That I just made reference to, those establish
things. Don't you credit them to liberals? There are liberals
in the Supreme Court.
Mr. Slavitt. I don't know where I credit them. I do agree.
I agree with your characterization that the social media
companies did not need to account to the White House. I do
think, though, during the pandemic, lots of us were trying to
pull together, problem solve, and understand--
Mr. Bishop. I understand that. That doesn't really justify
it just because circumstances are pressing. That's always the
case with somebody in authority.
Mr. Flaherty, I was listening. You're always anxious to
credit what the other side has asked you, but you say you just
don't know or you can't say. I'm just curious. What have you
gone on to now? You're at the White House. What do you do now?
Mr. Flaherty. Congressman, I'm the Deputy Campaign Manager
for President Biden's reelection campaign.
Mr. Bishop. I yield back.
Chair Jordan. The gentleman yields back. The Chair now
recognizes the gentlelady from the Virgin Islands. The Ranking
Member is recognized.
Ms. Plaskett. Thank you. Mr. Seligman, the government has
the right to engage with private speakers to inform, advocate,
persuade, criticize as long as government officials do not
actually coerce those private speakers or threaten to take
action against them if they don't do what the government wants.
Is that a fair summation of the law on this point?
Mr. Seligman. That's correct.
Ms. Plaskett. Are you aware that 45 Republican House
Members submitted an amicus brief in Murthy v. Missouri?
Mr. Seligman. I am.
Ms. Plaskett. Are you aware that this brief repeatedly
alleges that the Federal Government, quote, ``coerced social
medial companies into taking certain action''?
Mr. Seligman. I am, and I believe the brief does not
substantiate that claim.
Ms. Plaskett. I've looked at the actual transcripts of
interviews with social media companies. The transcripts that
the majority has refused to not--never mind release but
actually just allow into the record also does not substantiate
the claim by those individuals that signed onto this amicus
brief. I don't know. Are any of our witnesses' lawyers? Mr.
Zywicki, are you familiar with the rules of professional
responsibility, right, that all of us as members of bars must
take an oath, correct?
Mr. Zywicki. Yes.
Ms. Plaskett. One of the rules of the professional
responsibility is the rule of candor to a tribunal. Is that
correct?
Mr. Zywicki. Yes.
Ms. Plaskett. OK. Broadly speaking, that rule requires
attorneys who present information to a court to disclose all
relevant, factual evidence. Is that correct?
Mr. Zywicki. Yes.
Ms. Plaskett. OK. Even if the evidence is contrary to their
argument?
Mr. Zywicki. That's my understanding, yes.
Ms. Plaskett. Right. You also cannot use false evidence.
That's correct. Anyway, the witnesses after witness has
straightforwardly said that the coercion--the witnesses in
these transcripts that are not being released repeatedly say
that coercion did not happen. Let's take a look at what they
actually said.
In the June 16, 2023, interview, the Committee asked a
YouTube employee, at any point when you were doing these
collaborations with government agencies, was the government
agency coercing YouTube in any way to participate in those
relationships? The witness' unqualified one-word answer, no.
The witness then said that YouTube's actions were voluntary and
in line with YouTube's priorities. Mr. Seligman, do you agree
that this is evidence that the government's engagement with
YouTube was voluntary and not coercive?
Mr. Seligman. Yes.
Ms. Plaskett. Are you aware that this testimony was not in
the Republicans' brief?
Mr. Seligman. Yes.
Ms. Plaskett. In June 22, 2023, interview, the Committee
asked a Google employee whether any U.S. Government official
ever threatened any Google employee with adverse actions if
Google refused to take any particular action. The witness
plainly stated that he was not aware of any such request. Do
you agree that this is evidence, sir, that the government did
not threaten Google into taking any actions?
Mr. Seligman. Yes.
Ms. Plaskett. Are you aware that this testimony was not in
the Republicans' brief?
Mr. Seligman. I am.
Ms. Plaskett. Another Google employee was asked in a June
26, 2023, interview whether they had any information about
collusion between the Federal Government and Google to censor
speech. The witness replied, in my experience, Google across
its range of services through the years has consistently made
its own independent decisions with regard to what polices,
practices, or product development it designs. Mr. Seligman, do
you agree that this is evidence that Google makes its own
independent decisions without coercion by the government?
Mr. Seligman. Yes, I do.
Ms. Plaskett. Are you aware that this testimony was not in
the Republicans' brief?
Mr. Seligman. Yes.
Ms. Plaskett. I can do this as well with Meta Vice
Presidents in June 2023 interview which wasn't in the brief, a
May 16th interview with another Meta employee. When asked, to
your knowledge, was anyone in the FBI, State Department, or any
other government agency ordered Meta to take down an account
page or content? His response to both was not to my knowledge.
What I just read was just a small number of the universe of
statements made by witness after witness stating that the
allegations made by the majority does not hold water.
Yet, we are only hearing sometimes a portion of a sentence,
not even the complete sentence which would include the
question, the can, as well as the punctuation point at the end
to recognize that it was a question and not a statement. When a
party is made aware of evidence that is contrary to what they
presented in court, do you think that's something that they
should share?
Chair Jordan. The gentleman will respond.
Mr. Seligman. Yes.
Ms. Plaskett. I yield back.
Chair Jordan. Time of the gentlelady has expired. The
gentlelady from Florida is recognized for five minutes.
Ms. Cammack. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Flaherty, what was
your official title during your time at the Biden White House?
Mr. Flaherty. Congresswoman, when I was at the White House,
I was assistant to the President and Director of Digital
Strategy.
Ms. Cammack. That is an appointed position, correct?
Mr. Flaherty. It is, Congresswoman.
Ms. Cammack. Now, did you take an oath to the United States
Constitution when you assumed this appointment?
Mr. Flaherty. Yes, Congresswoman.
Ms. Cammack. Perfect. You're familiar with the First
Amendment?
Mr. Flaherty. I am.
Ms. Cammack. Can you please outline the five tenets of the
First Amendment for me?
Mr. Flaherty. Congresswoman, I'm not going to be able to do
it off the top of my head. Generally, the First Amendment
relates to freedom of speech,--
Ms. Cammack. No, wait, wait. So,--
Mr. Flaherty. --freedom of religion, and freedom of
assembly. Again, off the top of my head, I'm not able to recall
all the points.
Ms. Cammack. Oh, well, that's disappointing and a little
embarrassing but not surprising considering what we're dealing
with here today. Now, I certainly wouldn't expect that someone
who cannot outline the basic tenets of the First Amendment to
uphold the Constitution of which you took an oath to defend.
Here we are today. Now, you said multiple times here that you
cannot recall certainly conversations and communications,
correct?
Mr. Flaherty. Congresswoman, I left the White House almost
a year ago. These discussions happened more than two years ago.
Certainly, there are a number of discussions related to this
that I'm not able to recall.
Ms. Cammack. OK. So, you agree that you have said multiple
times here you cannot recall?
Mr. Flaherty. Congresswoman, yes.
Ms. Cammack. OK. Just want to make sure. I'm so glad that
we have receipts because we have come with receipts, in fact
all your emails from that time. So, we're going to help you
recall some of these conversations.
On February 6, 2021, at 9:45 p.m., we love our time stamps,
you emailed Twitter to demand immediate removal of a parity or
imposter account linked to Biden's adult daughter. You stated,
quote, ``Please remove this account immediately.'' Then you
went on to say,
I have tried using your form three times and it won't work. It
is also ridiculous that I need to upload my ID to a form to
prove that I am an authorized representative of Finnegan Biden.
Now, two minutes later 9:47 p.m., Twitter responded right
back to you. ``Thanks for sending this over. We'll escalate for
further review from here.'' Mr. Flaherty, do you recall this
exchange?
Mr. Flaherty. Congresswoman, I do recall that exchange.
Ms. Cammack. OK. So, you still stand by how you have
handled this situation in making it clear that you needed
action immediately from a social media company?
Mr. Flaherty. Congresswoman, the White House Office of
Digital Strategy absolutely has an equity in protecting the
President's grandchild from online harassment and
impersonation.
Ms. Cammack. Sure. I would expect nothing less. I'm just
saying there's a common theme here, right? So, you then
escalate it a little bit more.
Within that same minute, so literally 60 seconds, ``cannot
stress the degree to which this needs to be resolved
immediately.'' Forty-five minutes later at 10:32, Twitter
responded, ``Here's an update. The account is now suspended.''
Now, the next day, February 9th, you followed up with an
email to Facebook with a demand for more information and an
accusation that Facebook's failure to, quote, ``censor speech
on its platform is causing political violence.'' Those are your
words, ``causing political violence.'' Do you believe that the
failure to censor American's First Amendment constitutionally
protected speech is considered political violence?
Mr. Flaherty. Congresswoman, I don't remember the specific
email in question. I'm happy to take a look at it and observe
the context. I don't recall what you're referencing.
Ms. Cammack. Well, and I will say I am disappointed because
we have presented receipts here today. We have also shown how
timely you have been in engaging at all hours of the night with
social media companies during your tenure as a representative
to the highest levels of the White House. Again, your words,
despite the fact that earlier my colleague, Representative
Gaetz, was trying to clarify who it is we that you speak of.
You say in your emails that you represent the highest
levels of government in the White House. I find it ridiculous
that it took us over a year for you to appear before this
Committee. In fact, it was after you actually missed your
deposition and refused to show up.
We had you scheduled for January and then again in February
of this year. You chose not to appear. Now, is it safe to
assume that in your role as the Deputy Campaign Manager for the
Joe Biden reelection campaign that you speak on behalf of the
campaign or the President of the United States?
Mr. Flaherty. Congresswoman, I'm here to discuss my
interactions with social media companies when I worked at the
White House from January 2021-June 2023. I'm not here to
discuss the campaign.
Ms. Cammack. You're basically saying that you don't speak
for President Joe Biden or his campaign. You didn't speak for
him during your time at the White House. So, either you have
completely misrepresented your role, or you are trying
everything possible to make sure that your correspondence with
social media companies directly threatening, coercing these
companies to silence Americans who disagreed with the political
agenda of the Biden Administration happened.
Mr. Flaherty. Congresswoman, I'm here voluntarily to
discuss my discussions with social media companies while I was
in the White House.
Ms. Cammack. Certainly.
Mr. Flaherty. I'm happy to answer any questions.
Ms. Cammack. A year late and a dollar short. So, with that,
Mr. Chair, I yield back.
Chair Jordan. The gentlelady yields back. The Chair now
recognizes--
Ms. Plaskett. Mr. Chair, I just wanted to be clear that the
witness did appear to testify on the date that my colleague
stated he did not come to testify. He was here, and the White
House and this Committee staff did not work out the terms of
that interview. So, I don't want it to appear that he has
shirked his willingness to be a part of any hearing or any
testimony or any interview by this--
Chair Jordan. Chair recognizes the gentleman from New York.
Mr. Goldman. Thank you, Mr. Chair. We are seeing a pattern
here now a year and a half into this Congress. We see it with
the impeachment investigation. We are seeing it starkly here.
Let's make a lot of really bold allegations and then try to
weave in and mislead some evidence to justify them. It
certainly happened in the impeachment, and it is happening here
again because to, quote, ``coerce or censor,'' then that means
(A) whoever the private company that receives the communication
from the government must feel coerced and act on that
information. (B) They would not have done that but for the
government intervention.
The problem that we continue to have with my Republican
colleagues is they can get the first thing, but they never get
the second. That is why evidence is important and that's why we
rely on evidence. So, when colleagues over on the other side of
the aisle talk about a TikTok ban, they are misrepresenting
what the bill did.
The bill required ByteDance to divest from TikTok, not to
ban TikTok. That is so consistent with all the cherry picking
of these emails that we have seen here today. I want to bring
up another example which was actually the focus of an entire
hearing on this topic but has not been mentioned once today.
That is the email from Clarke Humphrey to Twitter related
to Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.'s tweet about blaming Hank Aaron's
death on the COVID vaccine. This was the center of the
Republican case up until today. Now we're moving on.
I want to just stress why. Clarke Humphrey wrote,
Wanted to flag the below tweet and I'm wondering if we can get
moving on the process for having it removed ASAP.
Oh, my goodness, coercion. That is censorship. It's some
industrial complex.
Well, you know what the problem was? It wasn't taken down.
It wasn't taken down. Twitter received that email from the
White House and did not act on it. Mr. Seligman, is it possible
to have coercion when someone does not do what the other person
asks?
Mr. Seligman. No.
Mr. Goldman. Now, we've heard a lot on the other side of
the aisle. I think, Mr. Steube, talked so much about March 2nd,
all the emails to Amazon and trying to ban books. Well, we were
not allowed to enter into the record some of the testimony from
the employee who receives those emails at Amazon.
I'm going to go through this transcript because this
employee was asked about that email. Even though you
anticipated that you might be asked to remove content when you
had a live conversation with Mr. Flaherty. You, in fact, were
not asked to remove any content, question. Answer, that's my
recollection, yes.
So, I just want to be clear. To your knowledge, did anyone
from the U.S. Government, including Mr. Flaherty or Mr.
Slavitt, both of whom are witnesses here, ever coerce Amazon
into removing content from its platforms? No.
The answer as the Ranking Member pointed out with so many
other companies was that they made their independent decisions
what to do with the content based on information provided from
public health experts like Mr. Slavitt and the CDC and how that
applies to their own policies. So, you cannot have a First
Amendment violation when a private company is making its own
independent decisions as every single company as part of this
investigation did. So, what is this all about?
It's not actually about proving a first amendment
violation. What the Republicans want to do with this Committee
because we've had hearing after hearing about some bogus First
Amendment violation by private companies is they want to chill
the government from actually interacting with the private
companies as we come on an election in November 2024. Russia
interfered through social media in 2016.
Russia tried to interfere in 2020. You can bet Russia is
trying to interfere in our election in 2024. The only way that
these social media companies can know that is by being provided
with information from the U.S. Government and their law
enforcement investigations.
If that can't happen, then Donald Trump and these
Republicans benefit because Russia will help them. That is why
we're here and that is why this is bogus. I yield back.
Chair Jordan. The time of the gentleman has expired. The
gentleman from North Dakota is recognized.
Mr. Armstrong. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I yield.
[inaudible].
Chair Jordan. I appreciate the gentleman yielding. Chill
the government? Oh, my. That's almost as crazy as what Justice
Ketanji Brown Jackson said in the arguments in front of the
Supreme Court when she said to the solicitor general from
Louisiana, ``Counselor, your position has the First Amendment
hamstringing the government.'' This is not about--I know the
gentleman from New York is sharper than that. I know. Professor
Zywicki--
Mr. Goldman. Excuse me, Mr. Chair. You can only--as a point
of order, time can only be yielded to you if the individual
remains here in person.
[Crosstalk.]
Chair Jordan. You have got to cite a rule. We can also get
Mr. Armstrong back if you're going to do that.
Ms. Plaskett. Then you should do that.
Chair Jordan. OK. You need to cite the rule. If not, we'll
proceed when he comes back. We'll make sure he gets back.
Mr. Goldman. Mr. Chair, would you just yield quickly for a
brief response.
Chair Jordan. It's my five minutes. It's my five minutes.
When I'm done with the five-minutes--
Mr. Goldman. OK. So, you're going to attack me and not let
me respond?
Chair Jordan. No, I said I know you're smarter than that.
Mr. Goldman. You said my name.
Chair Jordan. I was complimenting--
Mr. Goldman. You said my name. You said, ``I know you're
smarter than that because I did not say anything about the
First Amendment being used to chill the government.'' I said
you and this Committee are trying to chill government agencies.
That's very different.
Chair Jordan. We're trying to protect the First Amendment.
We're trying to protect the government from chilling American
speech. Let the record show the gentleman from North Dakota has
returned to his spot on the Committee.
Professor Zywicki, let's reference the email that Mr.
Goldman brought up. He said that the RFK, Jr.'s tweet wasn't
taken down. I think this whole chilling effect is proven by
this email because there were two sentences.
The first sentence said, ``wanted to flag the below tweet
and wondering if we can get moving on the process for having it
removed ASAP.'' So, these guys, actually, Ms. Humphrey who
works with them said to Twitter, take this thing down. We don't
like what RFK, Jr., our political opponent, subsequent
political opponent is saying. Take it down, right?
Mr. Goldman says, oh, no problem. They didn't take it down.
There's still a concern about chilling speech, right?
Mr. Zywicki. Exactly right, Mr. Chair. That's exactly what
the problem here is, there's an obsession with protecting the
government's free speech rights. We need to be worried about
protecting people's rights.
We need to be worried about protecting our rights. We need
to be worried about people's rights to speak and to hear
information that is relevant to their lives. So, if we're
concerned about chilling speech, we should be concerned about
chilling speech of private citizens through government
overreach.
Chair Jordan. Now, I want to ask you about this. The next
sentence, ``so take down this tweet ASAP.'' Mr. Goldman says,
``oh, they didn't take it down, so there's no problem.''
The next sentence says, and ``then if you can keep an eye
out for tweets that fall in this same genre, that would be
great.'' That's the real chilling impact. Oh, we caught you. We
don't like this tweet. We don't like what it conveys. Take it
down.
They don't take it down. Now, in the back of their mind,
they're saying, oh, you know what? I better be on the lookout
for anything else or I'm going to get another call, another
email. Mr. Flaherty is going to call me. Mr. Slavitt is going
to call me and say, what the heck are you doing?
He's going to be outraged. He's going to pressure us which
all happened. So, the second sentence is the chilling effect in
that email. Is that right?
Mr. Zywicki. Yes.
Chair Jordan. This is just ridiculous. Oh, and let's go to
the Am-
azon communications because this was speech that was changed.
This was content that was changed at the request of the guys in
the Biden Administration.
The impetus for this request is criticism from the Biden
Administration about sensitive books who were given prominent
placement to. So, we're going to create a new do not promote
class for anti-vax books. So, they demoted these books.
So, a direct result of the--they said it themselves. The
impetus, the catalyst for this is the guys at the White House.
That's not just chilling. That's actually action taking place
at the request of government, to limit speech and who gets to
see it.
Mr. Zywicki. I would add this isn't the government
providing public information about issues of health. This is
the government engaging in an ongoing secretive process that
we've only discovered through discovery in that case and
through the hard work of this Committee subpoenaing these
private actors a secretive scheme to target named individuals
for suppression for speech. We don't even know if it's going
on.
Chair Jordan. Yes.
Mr. Zywicki. That is a big difference between the
government expressing its opinion and targeting people secretly
to remove their speech from the public forum.
Chair Jordan. Take down this tweet ASAP, the White House.
Be on the lookout for any other thing in this genre.
Mr. Zywicki. Exactly.
Chair Jordan. That's a direct attack. That's as big a
chilling impact as you can have on speech coming from the
office of the President, the White House itself. I appreciate
the gentleman yielding and yield back.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Mr. Chair, point of order.
Chair Jordan. The gentlelady is recognized.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. I just want to clarify that it is
Rule 9(f) that requires a Member to be actually present to
possess a five-minute period of questioning.
Chair Jordan. Yes, appreciate it.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. So, in the future if we can ensure
that when Members yield that they remain in the room. That
would be helpful. Thank you.
Chair Jordan. The gentleman yields back. The Chair now
recognizes the gentlelady from Texas.
Ms. Crockett. Thank you so much. Boy, oh boy, what a
welcome to this Committee. OK. So, I want to start off with a
quick little level set of a few things because I believe in
facts and not fiction.
So, I'm going to ask each of the witnesses if you can
answer a simple question. Who won the 2020 election? Let's
start right here.
Mr. Seligman. Joe Biden.
Ms. Crockett. Thank you.
Mr. Zywicki. Joe Biden.
Ms. Crockett. Thank you.
Mr. Flaherty. Joe Biden.
Ms. Crockett. Thank you.
Mr. Slavitt. Joe Biden.
Ms. Crockett. Thank you. This is amazing, unanimous. Joe
Biden won in 2020. So, when people start posting things like
Joe Biden didn't win on social media. To the extent that as
we're talking so much about polling because we're heading into
the 2024 election, we have so many people that don't believe
that Joe Biden won the election and most of them tend to be on
the other side of the aisle.
It is because there was misinformation and disinformation
that was put out over and over on social media. Now, let me try
to see if I can ask you another question and see what kind of
answers we get. This one is a little trickier. Did the COVID
rate of deaths decrease after the vaccines were released or
increase after the vaccine was released?
Mr. Seligman. Decreased.
Ms. Crockett. Decreased.
Mr. Zywicki. I'd have to review the data. Are you just
talking about the COVID rate of deaths or all excess mortality?
Ms. Crockett. No, the COVID-related deaths.
Mr. Zywicki. I believe that the COVID related deaths
declined. In the Delta period, I'm not sure. That's why I'm
hesitating.
Ms. Crockett. Thank you so much.
Mr. Flaherty. They declined.
Mr. Slavitt. They declined by approximately 90 percent in
the first 6 months.
Ms. Crockett. I love that data right there. Thank you. OK.
All right. So, here's the deal. I'm annoyed by this hearing
because (1) it is Groundhog's Day all over again. We have had
some versions of these hearings.
We've talked about misinformation and disinformation. I do
want to make sure that we understand what it means to have
First Amendment protection. So, I am going to start over here.
When we talk about the Constitution for those that don't
understand how it works, is it limitless and there's no
restrictions to any of our constitutional rights?
Mr. Seligman. No.
Ms. Crockett. It's not limitless, is it?
Mr. Seligman. No.
Ms. Crockett. In fact, I know that my colleagues believe
there's no limits to the Second Amendment. It sounds like they
believe there's no limits to the First Amendment. I remember
when Trump got banned from Twitter, and that probably saved the
country.
Nevertheless, it at least would've saved him some money
because right now he just got called up in court for--never
mind. We're not going to talk about Truth Social right now.
There are limits on the First Amendment and what can be done.
So, (1) let's talk about who the actor has to be. The actor
when we're talking about the First Amendment has to be the
government, correct?
Mr. Seligman. Correct.
Ms. Crockett. All right. If we're talking about actions of
the government which there's allegations of some nefarious
thing that was going on behind the scenes where the government
is really co-opting social media. So, therefore, they are the
government actors. Can you talk about some of the things that
are limited? Are acts of violence OK to limit under the First
Amendment?
Mr. Seligman. In certain circumstances, yes.
Ms. Crockett. OK. What about libel or slander?
Mr. Seligman. Again, in certain circumstances, yes.
Ms. Crockett. OK. So flat-out falsities that can
potentially cause harm, they also could be limited, too, huh?
Mr. Seligman. That's correct.
Ms. Crockett. OK. All right. So, now we know even though
we're talking about social media which last time I checked is
not run by the government, we know that First Amendment rights
can be limited. What is so interesting about this hearing is
that basically what the Republicans are arguing for is carte
blanche, we should be allowing anybody to say whatever. That's
how we get so much Russian propaganda.
I was able to produce some that was spread by one of my
colleagues in another hearing. This is the problem. This is why
China is coming after America. This is why we see the Russians
coming after America because we have people that will continue
to spread their lies.
In spreading their lies, they're causing harm to Americans
instead of these people in this chamber doing what they are
supposed to do which is to protect the American people and use
the Constitution because not every country has a Constitution
that protects the people. So, I would like that this party stop
peddling Putin's lies and focus on making sure that we can put
forth truth that we can all respect and understand. With that,
I will yield.
Chair Jordan. The gentlelady yields. The gentlelady from
Wyoming is recognized for five minutes.
Ms. Hageman. Wow. I'd just like to read a headline from
today. The CDC lied about COVID vaccine deaths files show. So,
while I appreciate the hero complex of Mr. Flaherty and Mr.
Slavitt, the fact is that we know that a lot of the information
that was being peddled by this White House was untrue.
We know that CDC lied. We know that Anthony Fauci lied. We
know that Mr. Biden lied. You were pushing propaganda--
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Would the gentlelady yield for a
question?
Ms. Hageman. No, I will not.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. I would love to know the source of
your citation.
Ms. Hageman. This is my time.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Yes.
Ms. Hageman. Mr. Flaherty, when you served in the Executive
Office of the President, you were the assistant to the
President and Director of Digital Strategy. Is that correct?
Mr. Flaherty. Congresswoman, that's true at the end of my
service. I was promoted.
Ms. Hageman. OK. I think it's fair to say that the position
of President Biden was to get as many Americans to take the
COVID vaccine as possible. Is that also true?
Mr. Flaherty. Congresswoman, I would agree with that
characterization.
Ms. Hageman. Yes or no, was your routine dialog with social
media companies part of a strategy to achieve this goal of the
President?
Mr. Flaherty. Congresswoman, we engage with these social
media companies--
Ms. Hageman. Please answer the question yes or no.
Mr. Flaherty. They had stated--
Ms. Hageman. Was that the purpose of engaging with the
social media companies, yes or no?
Mr. Flaherty. Congresswoman, the engagement with social
media companies was certainly in the service of the work we
were doing.
Ms. Hageman. Thank you. The role of getting people
vaccinated, correct?
Mr. Flaherty. In the context of the President's efforts to
vaccinate.
Ms. Hageman. Yes. Was the strategy to engage with social
media companies something that you or Mr. Slavitt came up with
yourself? Or was this directed by other White House personnel?
Mr. Flaherty. Congresswoman, could you define what you mean
by the strategy?
Ms. Hageman. Well, we just described, engaging--you've been
testifying for several hours on the strategy of engaging with
social media companies in part to encourage the American people
to take the vaccine. Was that a strategy that you and Mr.
Slavitt came up with? Or were you working with other people
within the White House?
Mr. Flaherty. Congresswomen, certainly the effort to make
sure as many people in America were vaccinated should--
Ms. Hageman. My question is who came up with the strategy
to work with social media companies to further that agenda?
Mr. Flaherty. Congresswoman--
Ms. Hageman. Just you and Mr. Slavitt? Were you in an
office 1 day and you decided, you know what we can do? We're
going to come up with an idea that we'll work with social media
companies to try to further this vaccination agenda?
Mr. Flaherty. Congresswoman, our office worked with social
media companies to--
Ms. Hageman. I'm not asking about working with the social
media companies. Who else was involved in the White House
making that decision?
Mr. Flaherty. Congresswoman, there were certainly a number
of discussions about various elements of our plans.
Ms. Hageman. Did you make--was President Biden, White House
Chief of Staff Ron Klain, or other Senior White House Officials
aware of the fact that you were asking social media companies
to demote or remove vaccine-related content?
Mr. Flaherty. Congresswoman, again, we were--
Ms. Hageman. Were they aware of your activities--
Mr. Flaherty. Congresswoman--
Ms. Hageman. --as demonstrated by the emails? Were they
aware of your activities? It's a simple question.
Mr. Flaherty. Congresswoman, I'm not authorized to discuss
internal discussions within the White House.
Ms. Hageman. Did you ever inform the social media companies
that you were briefing President Biden, White House Chief of
Staff Ron Klain, or any other Senior White House officials?
Mr. Flaherty. Congresswoman, I don't recall specifics of
who I was briefing. It's been a couple of years.
Ms. Hageman. So, let's put up the--I have an email here.
I'd like to direct your attention to this email which
specifically states that you were referring to, quote,
It might help to consolidate this and the other recent
conversation or convo your higher ups had with Ron.
Do you see that in the email?
Mr. Flaherty. Yes, Congresswoman.
Ms. Hageman. Who is Ron?
Mr. Flaherty. At the time--well, Ron Klain was the Chief of
Staff at the White House.
Ms. Hageman. All right. So, there were conversations that
you had with Ron Klain about these activities that you were
engaging in with the social media companies?
Mr. Flaherty. Congresswoman, I don't recall having a
specific conversation with Ron about this.
Ms. Hageman. You realize you're under oath, don't you, Mr.
Flaherty?
Mr. Flaherty. Congresswoman, I--
Ms. Hageman. Do you realize you're under oath?
Mr. Flaherty. Congresswoman--
Ms. Hageman. Do you realize that you've sworn to tell the
truth?
Mr. Flaherty. Congresswoman, I agree.
Ms. Hageman. OK. My colleagues on the other side of the
aisle State that there is no government censorship because
these are private companies who can make their own decisions.
If this is the case, then why did you think that reaching out
to the companies about their content moderation policies was a
productive use of your time?
Mr. Flaherty. Congresswoman, sorry. Can you restate the
question?
Ms. Hageman. Yes. Why did you think that reaching out to
these social media companies was a productive use of your time
if you never had any influence with them?
Mr. Flaherty. Well, Congresswoman, certainly these social
media companies had a set of policies that they stated.
Ms. Hageman. Why did you care whether they enforced their
policies? What difference did that make to you? Are you part of
the contract? Is it your responsibility to enforce policies of
private companies?
Mr. Flaherty. Congresswoman, I think it's important to
remember the fact that this is--these kinds of engagements with
people who publish information are standard--
Ms. Hageman. So, you can try to gaslight us as much as you
want to and try to act like your activities didn't have any
influence. One of the things I notice, Mr. Flaherty, is that
you use the F-word an awful lot in your email correspondence
with the social media companies for emphasis. We all know why
you were doing it and why you use the F-word in your emails to
these companies. It was to emphasize the importance of them
doing exactly what you were telling them to do. You violated
the First Amendment rights of American citizens.
Chair Jordan. Time of the gentlelady--
Ms. Hageman. You know that and we know it too.
Chair Jordan. Time of the gentlelady--
Ms. Hageman. With that, I yield back.
Mr. Flaherty. I disagree with that characterization.
Chair Jordan. The time of the gentlelady has expired. The
Chair recognizes the gentleman from South Carolina.
Mr. Fry. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Professor, based on the
information obtained by this Committee, do you think that the
email communications between the Biden White House and social
media companies were coercive?
Mr. Zywicki. Absolutely, especially right in the context of
everything that was going on as I think was well described in
the findings of fact in the District Court in the Missouri v.
Biden case.
Mr. Fry. When a Senior White House official says through a
social media company that the White House, quote,
Intentionally or internally, we have been considering our
options on what to do about it.
What sorts of adverse actions within the Executive Branch do
you think that the social media companies was most concerned
about?
Mr. Zywicki. Well, it's pretty clear in some of the
announcements they make, amending Section 230, the
Communications Decency Act. They said in the same statement
where they said they're concerned about what the social media
companies are doing, they talked about changing antitrust
enforcement. We see this across the board.
We see this with the pressure that's been put on banks and
debanking operations. This is to debank people and silence
speech. This is a systematic scheme to suppress the rights of
individuals through government pressure.
Mr. Fry. Setting aside the obvious constitutional concerns
of what's been happening, what are the practical consequences
of this type of censorship or distorting the marketplace of
ideas?
Mr. Zywicki. Well, it has concrete effects on our lives.
How many parents would've changed their minds about the wisdom
of keeping their kids out of school for a year and a half if
they had understood what the Great Barrington Declaration said
which everybody says now that was a massive mistake? If people
had accurate information about it, they might've changed their
minds.
If people had accurate information about the COVID
vaccines, they might've changed their minds. A number of people
who I talked to said, ``I got vaccinated because I was told it
was one and done,'' and then only to get COVID shortly
thereafter. I want to make something very clear.
As I cite in Footnote 14 of my statement, the CDC knew in
March, the CDC already knew not only were people getting COVID,
but people were dying from COVID if they were vaccinated.
Hundreds of thousands of people were already getting COVID.
That was a CDC slide show.
Anthony Fauci published an article a week after he left
that we see cited in Footnote 8 where he said, ``we knew that
these intramuscular vaccines can't prevent infection and
transmission of COVID.'' I'll say one last thing. What I heard
today is silencing me was a triumph for these guys, not because
I said anything wrong but because all they cared about was
vaccine hesitancy. We heard them say we can suppress true
information about side effects if that promotes vaccine
hesitancy. It might not even matter whether or not I said
anything about the science.
[Crosstalk.]
Mr. Zywicki. Merely me saying that there was--you have a
constitutional right--
Mr. Fry. Professor, really quick. I've got limited time.
Mr. Zywicki. I apologize.
Mr. Fry. So, you, yourself, have been censored because of
the actions of what was happening within the White House. Does
it concern you that would've been censored under a content
moderation policy that YouTube wanted approved by the White
House?
Mr. Zywicki. Yes, extremely.
Mr. Fry. Why do you think it's important that Congress and
the American people know whether the White House was secretly
pressuring big tech to censor American speech?
Mr. Zywicki. Because people have a right to know whether
they're getting a true flow of information. Each of us have a
right to know whether we are being targeted by the Federal
Government for silencing and suppression.
Mr. Fry. Thank you. Mr. Flaherty and Mr. Slavitt, why won't
the White House turn over your documents to Congress?
Mr. Flaherty. Congressman, can you say that again?
Mr. Fry. Why won't the White House turn over your documents
to Congress? We've requested them.
Mr. Flaherty. Congressman, I would refer you to the White
House Counsel's Office on that particular matter.
Mr. Fry. Well, I'm presuming that they're probably watching
this hearing. So, would you have any objections to your emails
with the social media companies being released to this
Committee?
Mr. Flaherty. Congressman, I'd refer you to the White House
Counsel's Office on this particular matter.
Mr. Fry. Well, you say that you've done nothing wrong and
you've kind of come in here, like, the noble guy that has
helped save America. You have no regrets really about your
actions. Is that correct?
Mr. Flaherty. It is correct that I don't regret--
Mr. Fry. So, there would be--
Mr. Flaherty. --and I am proud of the actions--
Mr. Fry. Then there would be--logically, there would be no
objection on your part for those emails for your very
purposeful duty at the White House to be released to this
Committee. Is that a problem?
Mr. Flaherty. I'm certainly proud of the actions the
Administration took to save lives. I would refer you to the
White House Counsel's Office on that matter.
Mr. Fry. So, you say you did nothing wrong, but you don't
want anyone to see what you said or did. That's kind of where
we're at, I think.
Mr. Flaherty. Congressman, I'm here to answer questions.
Mr. Fry. I've got limited time. I've got 20 seconds. So,
here's the rub. The data had changed. Things changed. You have
decided that you were the arbiter of truth.
Now, you were working with some experts. Other experts had
different things. You wanted censorship on whether it was in a
lab or not. Well, we now know based on Director Wray's
testimony that this is actually kind of presumed. So, you're
assuming facts in reality, in real time. Things change. I'm
going to wrap up here in a second. You're not a medical expert.
You're not a medical expert. You are--
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. The gentleman's time has expired.
Mr. Fry. --asking social media companies to weigh in on
that. That's the problem is that you have--
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. The gentleman's time has expired.
Mr. Fry. --acted as the arbiter of truth in a country that
adheres to civil liberties.
Chair Jordan. The gentleman yields back. The gentleman may
respond if you'd like.
Mr. Flaherty. Congressman, I don't recall any incident in
which I was working on or said anything to social media
companies about the theory that you mentioned. Again, our work
in the White House was in service of understanding these
policies and engagement with these companies as they enforce
their own policies.
Chair Jordan. The gentleman yields back. I know you guys
have been sitting there for three hours. We appreciate it. We
just have two more to go and the Committee will adjourn. So,
I'll recognize the Ranking Member for a second round of
questions.
Ms. Plaskett. Thank you. I don't really have a round of
questioning. I thought we were going to do just two minutes,
yes. I just want to thank you all for being here, for saying
what your beliefs are, your recollections as you can recall
them were.
I think it's interesting that we are discussing free speech
and yet this Committee is censoring speech and giving the
American people only a slice of information that they want them
to see. They're trying to use the guise of we don't want our
other witnesses to know what we're going to be questioning
people on is the excuse to why they won't give the American
people the whole truth. They're going to say there's coercion,
but there's evidence of no coercion.
They don't want to put that forward. They don't think
that's a problem. They don't see there's an issue with that.
That's absolutely insane.
We've been doing this. You see some of these transcripts
that I had were from 2023. They haven't been able to talk to
the witnesses since then to be able to release that.
They've only released two of these transcripts at this
point. I've got a stack of them here that are still waiting to
be released. They don't want to release them because this is
all part of their scheme, to keep the truth that there was not
coercion going on with these social media companies.
They need these companies not to do their job now as we
start into the 2024 Presidential Election. When they talk about
the discussion of White House with these media companies, I've
got a transcript here from an interview with an Amazon employee
where the question is, so just to be clear, it was during the
Trump White House that Amazon and other tech companies were
first asked to work on the issue of rooting out COVID
misinformation? Yes, that's my recollection, because we were in
a pandemic.
It was incumbent on our government along with these social
media companies, along with health experts, along with cable
news, along with Members of Congress who if we can recall voted
for funding to support the vaccine, all working together to try
and stop the deaths of Americans and people around the world.
Did that information and what we knew about the vaccine change
over time? Of course it did.
I can recall when we were told you could only transmit it
by hand to hand or by touch. We didn't even know it was
airborne initially and that changed. The work of our government
is important, and we don't want these social media companies
chilled in their own rooting out of misinformation and
disinformation, particularly from our adversaries as we go into
this next election.
So, Mr. Chair, once again, for all things congressional,
can we move on to another hearing to discuss some weaponization
of other areas? I've given you two or three other topics that
we can talk about in other Committees. They will at least give
a Member of the Minority one hearing at least on a topic that
we can agree on that is weaponization. Let's not continue the
weaponization by Congress of social media companies. With that,
I yield back.
Chair Jordan. The gentlelady yields back. Professor, does
the First Amendment protect false speech?
Mr. Zywicki. Yes.
Chair Jordan. Yes, you can say--
Mr. Zywicki. Of course.
Chair Jordan. You're allowed to say stupid things, right?
Mr. Zywicki. Yes, we've heard stupid things said today.
Chair Jordan. Democrats said the--
Mr. Zywicki. Like, nobody got infected until the Delta
variant came.
Chair Jordan. Yes.
Mr. Zywicki. He's got an absolute right to say that--
Chair Jordan. In this case, they were trying to censor
things that were actually accurate and true.
Mr. Zywicki. Exactly. Toward the end of preventing vaccine
hesitancy, they were censoring true speech.
Chair Jordan. True which is even scarier. So, that is
complete disinformation.
Mr. Zywicki. That is scary.
Chair Jordan. We are doing something we know not to be
accurate. We're going to take that is disinformation from our
government, from the highest office in our government in the
Executive Branch and Presidency. That's the scary part.
As you rightly pointed out, your response to Mr. Fry, there
are real world consequences. Kids didn't go to school. People
didn't go--Americans weren't allowed to go to church at certain
times.
Didn't go to school. Didn't go to work. Didn't go to
church. The implications were huge. Again, the First Amendment
protects false speech. In this case, it was accurate speech,
and they were going after that. Now, there's some things that
were, OK, that's probably not accurate. OK. That's not what
happened here totally.
Mr. Zywicki. Right.
Chair Jordan. That's the scary part.
Mr. Zywicki. There were people who didn't get vaccinated
because the government told them if they wore a mask, they
wouldn't get infected. It's, just a parade of these things that
changed people's behavior--
Chair Jordan. We asked Dr. Fauci in a deposition where the
six-foot social distancing concept comes from, and said he
couldn't tell us. The smartest man in the world couldn't tell
us where the six-feet social distancing thing came from. Go
figure, right? Mr. Flaherty, is the White House still asking
for content to be taken down?
Mr. Flaherty. Congressman, I haven't worked in the White
House in quite some time. So, I can't speak to their current
practices.
Chair Jordan. Are you talking with social media now?
Mr. Flaherty. Congressman, in my current role, I have a
sort of wide set of responsibilities. So--
Chair Jordan. Is that a yes or no?
Mr. Flaherty. Congressman, my--
Ms. Plaskett. This is beyond the scope of the hearing and
the agreement that was reached between the White House and this
Committee.
Chair Jordan. Excuse me? It's my time.
[Crosstalk.]
Chair Jordan. Mr. Flaherty, are you currently talking with
social media companies?
Mr. Flaherty. Congressman, again--
Ms. Plaskett. This is outside of the scope of this hearing.
This was an agreement by his attorneys and your staff that he
would not be discussing the campaign.
Chair Jordan. OK. I'll go back to the other subject then.
All right. Well, I'll leave it there. I want to thank our
witnesses for coming.
Mr. Zywicki, we appreciate it, Professor. Mr. Flaherty, Mr.
Slavitt, we appreciate you all being here today and just, I
guess, underscore that the First Amendment, five liberties in
the First Amendment, your right to practice your faith, your
right to assemble, your right to petition the government, free
press, and free speech are the most important liberties we
have. The Biden White House was clearly trying to censor the
most important of those five.
The most important of those five is the last one, your
right to speak, your right to talk. Because if you can't speak
and you can't talk, you can't practice your faith, you can't
share your faith, you can't petition your government, and you
don't have a free press. That's what they were going after.
This is not--what was the statements earlier. I forget what
they said. The cost of this, First Amendment doesn't have a
price tag on it. I would argue it's the most important thing we
have, what distinguishes western culture from authoritarian
cultures.
We need to respect that, and that's what we're doing. So,
with that, we'll adjourn the hearing. We thank again our
witnesses for being here.
[Whereupon, at 1:08 p.m., the Subcommittee 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/By Event.aspx?EventID=117220.
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