An FBI agent has provided sworn testimony that the bureau’s leadership was directly involved in colluding with Big Tech companies to censor certain political information during the 2020 presidential election.
As reported by Just The News, Elvis Chan, the assistant special agent in charge of the FBI’s Cyber Branch in San Francisco, provided the information to lawyers for the Attorneys General of Missouri and Louisiana, as part of a lawsuit filed by those two states regarding government coordination with Big Tech to censor alleged COVID-19 “misinformation.” Chan testified that he was in charge of a “command post” in San Francisco that played a crucial role in a nationwide censorship operation.
Chan said that his office would sometimes enlist the help of other federal officials, including federal prosecutors, lawyers for the FBI and Department of Justice (DOJ), as well as FBI field offices all across the country, before making direct requests to social media companies to censor any content that the office determined to be “misinformation.”
“We would receive some responses from the social media companies,” Chan revealed. “I remember in some cases they would relay that they had taken down the posts. In other cases, they would say that this did not violate their terms of service.”
Chan’s testimony raised new concerns among Republican lawmakers, as it further revealed the true extent of the FBI’s direct role in censoring conservative political statements in the weeks and months leading up to the 2020 election.
“Should be very concerning to everyone who cares about the First Amendment, who cares about civil liberties,” said Congressman James Comer (R-Ky.), who is likely to be the next Chairman of the House Oversight Committee. “This is wrong.”
“This should be a violation of the Hatch Act,” Comer continued. “Apparently, there’s a loophole in the Hatch Act that doesn’t impact social media. We’re going to change that legislation next year.”