The whole “Russia collusion” narrative ultimately didn’t really pan out. But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t legitimate collusion narratives out there.
Like, say, the narrative about the FBI (and therefore the DOJ) colluding with social media companies to censor content. Recall this scoop from late October:
Docs show Facebook and Twitter closely collaborating w/ Dept of Homeland Security, FBI to police “disinfo.” Plans to expand censorship on topics like withdrawal from Afghanistan, origins of COVID, info that undermines trust in financial institutions. https://t.co/Zb3zmI1dQF
— Lee Fang (@lhfang) October 31, 2022
Today, Missouri Attorney General and Senator-elect Eric Schmitt has some updates about that:
🚨BREAKING: In our deposition of FBI agent Elvis Chan on Tuesday, we found that the FBI plays a big role in working with social media companies to censor speech – from weekly meetings with social media companies ahead of the 2020 election to asks for account takedowns.
— Eric Schmitt (@Eric_Schmitt) December 2, 2022
Chan, the FBI's FITF, and senior CISA officials had meetings with social media companies in the lead-up to the 2020 election, in which Chan personally told the social media companies that there could potentially be a Russian “hack and leak” operation shortly before the election.
— Eric Schmitt (@Eric_Schmitt) December 2, 2022
Those meetings were initially quarterly, then monthly, then weekly heading into the 2020 election.
— Eric Schmitt (@Eric_Schmitt) December 2, 2022
So they really ramped up right before the 2020 election, huh?
Chan stated that the FBI regularly sent social media companies lists of URLs and social media accounts that should be taken down because they were disinformation from “malign foreign influence operations.” The FBI then inquired whether the platforms have taken down the content.
— Eric Schmitt (@Eric_Schmitt) December 2, 2022
On many occasions, the platforms took down the accounts flagged by the FBI.
— Eric Schmitt (@Eric_Schmitt) December 2, 2022
Isn’t that interesting?
Read more here: https://t.co/YihowDz5p6
— Eric Schmitt (@Eric_Schmitt) December 2, 2022
“Since filing our lawsuit, we’ve uncovered troves of discovery that show a massive ‘censorship enterprise,’” Attorney General Eric Schmitt told Fox News Digital. “Now, we’re deposing top government officials, and we’re one of the first to get a look under the hood – the information we’ve uncovered through those depositions has been shocking to say the least. It’s clear from Tuesday’s deposition that the FBI has an extremely close role in working to censor freedom of speech.”
“Americans should be angered that during the 2020 election cycle, federal agencies peddled information that has since been disproven,” Attorney General Jeff Landry told Fox News Digital.
“No American should be censored by the government,” he added.
We wholeheartedly agree with that.
And someone had sure as hell better answer for it.
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Related:
Aaron Rupar weighs in on Twitter and Facebook collaborating with DHS and the FBI
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