According to a House Judiciary report provided exclusively to the Daily Caller, the Chair of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) weaponized the agency against Elon Muskโs Twitter, now called X.
Biden’s Chair Resuscitated a Consent Decree
According to the report, Biden-appointed FTC Chair Lina Khan introduced a consent decree against the platform due to Muskโs acquisition, although Khan denied that was the reason. However, the FTC was considering potentially enforcing the consent decree in the years preceding Muskโs acquisitionโbut Khan โcalled for an immediate voteโ days after the deal was announced, documents show.
According to Cornell Law School, a consent decree is a court-approved settlement agreement.
The decree was ongoing for three years. They reached an agreement in 2021, but when Lina Khan took over, she restarted negotiations. In March 2022, they agreed to an almost identical consent decree.
The report noted that Khan did not demand an โimmediate vote to finalize the settlement ” until Twitter announced Musk’s intention to acquire the company. The Committee alleges in its report that the FTC โweaponized its regulatory authorityโ against Twitter and Musk.
Since Elon Musk Bought :
-SEC sues Musk over the purchase
-FTC demands internal documents
-Biden DOJ sues SpaceX for not hiring refugees for secret rocket technology
-Biden DOJ and SEC open investigations against Tesla over a literal glass house
-Biden DOJ opens criminalโฆ pic.twitter.com/L6va2tmdkaโ End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) December 6, 2023
Biden’s Chair Demanded an Immediate Settlement & All Communications
Khan demanded an immediate settlement without commissioners reviewing it.
Republican Commissioner Christine Wilsonโs attorney advisor echoed Phillipsโ concerns, noting that Wilson desired โsufficient timeโ to go over the material.
โThe urgency is due to Elon Muskโs purchase of the company this week,โ Khanโs advisor replied in a group email.
The report asserts that Khanโs FTC began โharassingโ Twitter once the consent decree was approved.
Khan reportedly refused to meet with Musk until Twitter adhered to all of the agencyโs demands. According to the report, Twitter’s attorneys noted that not all communications regarding Musk โcould reasonably contain information about Twitterโs data security and privacy program.โ
They were required to produce all communications. Lina Khan referred Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan to a letter she sent to Twitter.
According to the report, the FTC failed to explain why Twitter was required to produce these communications.
Harassment Over Free Speech
โThe only reasonable explanation, then, for requiring all communications remotely related to Musk would be as a tool for the FTC to harass Musk,โ the Committee said.
The Biden-Harris FTC also demanded information that was outside the consent decreeโs purview, the Committee claimed. Despite protests from Twitterโs attorneys, the FTC continued requiring the company to produce all communications pertaining to Elon Musk.
According to the report, the FTC reportedly refused to โclarifyโ why the requested information was relevant.
Additionally, the FTC considered using Twitterโs divulgence of information to journalists to circumvent Twitterโs โprivilege claimโ for keeping documents from the agency.
In 2023, Twitter Files journalists Michael Shellenberger and Matt Taibbiย testifiedย to the House Select Subcommittee on Weaponization about how the federal government pressured tech companies to censor speechย โย and how that censorship was election interference.
Unelected bureaucrats and Big Tech companies NEVER should collude to dictate what Americans can say or read online.
But here we are.@RepStefanik blasts the Censorship Industrial Complex pic.twitter.com/uXNzLlW2dg
โ Weaponization Committee (@Weaponization) November 30, 2023
Khan said the FTC needed to investigate Twitterโs compliance with the decree because the information Musk provided to the journalists involved in exposing the Twitter Files โtriggered legal scrutiny,โ the report states.
However, the FTC eventually discovered that the company had taken measures to protect consumer privacy, so the FTCโs investigation was no longer necessary. The report shows that the agency seemingly closed its investigation into the company this early in 2024.
The Committee also claims that Khan was uncooperative and โrefused to produce key documents.โ
The report concluded that the Biden-Harris FTC, under the leadership of Chair Khan, expedited the consent decree to โpunishโ Musk and his company for revealing the administrationโs censorship.
The Daily Caller previouslyย reported how the Twitter Files exposed the FBIโs efforts to work with Big Tech to crack down on speech during the 2020 presidential election.
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