(TheProudRepublic.com) – In a hard-hitting congressional interrogation, GOP US Senator Rand Paul exposed the FBI and the DHS’s ongoing desire for censorship collusion with social media companies – forcing these agencies’ chiefs to admit that only a court order hinders them from the practice.
In a hearing of the Senate Homeland Security Committee on Tuesday, Paul (R-KY) vigorously questioned Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and FBI Director Christopher Wray on their agencies’ alleged collaboration with social media platforms to suppress American citizens’ speech.
Both officials encountered difficulty in responding to Senator Paul’s inquiries, particularly those regarding the censorship of discussions about the COVID-19 pandemic and vaccine efficacy, The Daily Caller reports.
Paul probed Mayorkas on whether DHS continues engaging with major social media companies on “content moderation.”
“We do not meet with social media companies for the purpose of instructing them to take down content,” President Joe Biden’s homeland security chief said.
This prompted the senator to inquire about past meetings.
“What we have done in the past, Ranking Member Paul, as I shared with you previously, is we, along with other federal agencies, have met with social media companies in a public-private partnership to speak of the threats to the homeland so that those companies are alert to them. We do not instruct them,” Mayorkas replied.
The Republican senator pointed out a court ruling from July, which prevented federal agencies and officials from direct communication with social media companies pending a final decision. The US Supreme Court has stayed the ruling while deliberating the case filed jointly by the states of Missouri and Louisiana.
The lawsuit by the two southern states claims that various Biden administration agencies, including the DHS and FBI, suppressed online speech on various contentious topics, such as the Hunter Biden laptop story, COVID-19’s lab-leak theory, mask and lockdown efficacy, and the integrity of the 2020 election.
When asked the same social media collusion questions by Paul, FBI Director Wray denied any involvement in discussions about “constitutionally protected speech” or vaccine efficacy.
“[We are] having some interaction with social-media companies, but all of those interactions have changed fundamentally in the wake of the court order,” Wray claimed.
He maintained that the FBI never directed social media companies to censor speech.
Just Now: Senator Rand Paul grills DHS Secretary Mayorkas & FBI Director Wray about whether or not they’re still colluding with social media companies to censor Americans pic.twitter.com/GvvRXnLwcX
— Te𝕏asLindsay™ (@TexasLindsay_) October 31, 2023
