Home GOP might attempt to maintain Mark Zuckerberg in contempt of Congress

Republicans on the Home Judiciary Committee might vote to carry Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg in contempt later this week, in keeping with a new report from Punchbowl News Monday.

The potential contempt vote hinges on a February subpoena from the committee demanding Meta produce paperwork and communications associated to content material moderation discussions it has had with govt department officers. Members of the committee have accused Meta of failing to cooperate with the investigation by withholding paperwork. 

Sources instructed Punchbowl the vote plans to carry the vote on Thursday.

Responding to the potential vote, Meta spokesperson Andy Stone directed The Verge to a statement the company gave to Fox Business saying that Meta had “shared over 50,000 pages of paperwork” and “made practically a dozen present and former workers obtainable to debate exterior and inside points” in response to the committee’s subpoena. 

That clearly hasn’t been sufficient for Republicans, who’ve used their newfound Home majority to analyze coordination between the White Home and tech corporations to censor content material because the 2020 election. Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, and Microsoft all received similar subpoenas in February to the one despatched to Meta. 

“Meta has essential data that it has not turned over to the committee concerning federal authorities efforts to censor speech on-line and the way Meta responded to these efforts,” Russell Dye, spokesperson for Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), chairman of the committee, instructed Punchbowl. 

Democrats have identified that there is no such thing as a legislation forbidding tech corporations from collaborating with the federal government to seek out and take away dangerous content material, specifically content material falsely claiming that the 2020 presidential election was rigged or downplaying covid.

The GOP-led committee left Twitter out of the investigation, as a substitute opting to assist its new proprietor, Elon Musk, and the accusations he’s helped increase in a sequence of experiences referred to as the “Twitter Information.” Shortly after buying the corporate final 12 months, Musk gave a restricted group of journalists entry to pick out inside firm paperwork describing moderation selections associated to Hunter Biden’s laptop computer, “shadowbanning,” and former president Donald Trump’s 2021 suspension.

Whereas the committee’s subsequent hearings haven’t amounted to greater than saber-rattling, a federal choose recently issued a preliminary injunction banning Biden administration officers from making moderation requests of platforms.

The committee already escalated its combat with Meta final week in a letter to Zuckerberg suggesting that the corporate’s new Threads platform “raises critical, particular considerations as a result of it has been marketed as a rival of Elon Musk’s Twitter, which has confronted political persecution from the Biden administration following Musk’s dedication to free speech.”

The letter appears to be addressing an ongoing Federal Trade Commission investigation into Musk’s acquisition of the corporate. Earlier this month, the committee introduced FTC Chair Lina Khan in for a listening to that principally centered on that probe and doc requests it manufactured from the corporate concerning its privateness and safety practices.

Up till the Trump administration, Congress hardly ever voted to carry contempt votes. Lately, Trump White Home advisers, like Mark Meadows, have been held in contempt, however the Justice Division has declined to prosecute them. 

It’s unclear if the Justice Division would act on any committee contempt vote towards Zuckerberg. Punchbowl referred to as the vote a “principally symbolic step” for the committee.