U.S. House Judiciary Subpoenas Big Tech CEOs Over Free Speech
|:WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan on Wednesday subpoenaed the CEOs of Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Facebook and their parent platforms. “Instagram and Microsoft for documents and communications related to freedom of expression.
Jordan and other conservatives accused the companies of stifling conservative speech during the Trump administration, a charge that expanded to include working with the Biden administration when he won the White House. The White House and major tech companies have denied the claim.
© Thomson Reuters File photo. Facebook Chairman and CEO Zuckerberg testifies at a House Financial Services Committee hearing in Washington."These subpoenas are the first step in holding Big Tech accountable," Jordan's office said in a statement.
"Microsoft" stated in an e-mail that it "started to prepare the documents, submitted to the committee and committed to act in good faith." None of the other four companies immediately responded to requests for comment.
Alphabet's Sundar Pichai, Amazon.com's Andy Jassy, Apple's Tim Cook, Matt Mark Zuckerberg and Microsoft chairman Satya Nadella have all been subpoenaed on charges of government and corporate treason. They have requested documents and communications related to solidarity in violation of freedom of speech.
© Thomson Reuters File photo. Google CEO Pichai testifies at a House Judiciary Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC.Jordan has set the deadline for submission of documents on March 23.
Republicans, who took control of the House in January after winning control in November's election, prioritized big tech issues and created a select subcommittee on the militarization of the federal government.
Last week, the Justice Department and the FBI held their first grand jury hearings on charges of anti-conservative bias against Republicans, a decision that came after the FBI discovered hundreds of documents stored at the former Republican president's Florida vacation home. Donald Trump is qualified. .
In December, Jordan wrote a similar letter to businesses with similar demands, but the House was in Democratic hands and before he became president. Jordan's office said the companies did not comply properly.
(Reporting by Diane Bartz, Susan Heavey, David Shepardson and Doina Chiaku; Additional reporting by Jeffrey Dustin; Editing by Jonathan Otis and Nick Ziminski)
