[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:]

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    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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