House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan subpoenaed Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan on Wednesday for information related to the agency’s probing Twitter’s release of information to journalists.
Mr. Jordan, Ohio Republican, said the FTC has been unresponsive to requests since his panel disclosed the commission’s demands that Twitter identify all journalists who were involved in the release of the “Twitter Files” among a wide-ranging list of demands issued in the wake of Elon Musk’s takeover of the platform.
“The Committee on the Judiciary is conducting oversight of the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) abuse of its statutory authorities in investigating Twitter,” Mr. Jordan wrote in a letter accompanying the subpoena.
“To date, your voluntary compliance has been woefully insufficient. Accordingly, the Committee is issuing a subpoena to compel the production of documents necessary to inform our oversight,” he wrote.
Mr. Jordan said the committee issued multiple requests for FTC cooperation after the panel issued unveiled a list of more than 350 specific demands the agency had made of Twitter in 12 separate letters dating back to last November.
According to a 113-page report issued by the panel last month, the FTC not only requested journalists’ names but also asked that Mr. Musk hand over his reasons for terminating former FBI official Jim Baker, any internal communication “relating to Elon Musk,” and details behind the newly instated account subscription model.
The commission has also requested details behind the company’s layoffs, citing concerns that the downsizing could infringe on the company’s ability to protect users’ private data.
The lawmakers behind the report say the demands have “no basis in the FTC’s statutory mission and appear to be the result of partisan pressure to target Twitter and silence Musk.”
Ms. Khan previously pledged expansive oversight of the company after Twitter agreed to a $150 million penalty in 2022 to settle a federal privacy suit arising before Mr. Musk’s takeover.
The FTC said in November that the order accompanying the settlement provided the agency with “new tools to ensure compliance.”
Mr. Jordan said in Wednesday’s letter that FTC officials responded to lawmakers’ requests for details into the probe in a March 27 letter justifying the FTC’s inquiry into Twitter.
The committee later pressed FTC officials in a March 29 hearing during which an FTC official testified that she was unaware of any progress the agency had made in responding to the committee’s request, according to Mr. Jordan.
“Based on this information, the Committee has good reason to believe that the FTC will not voluntarily produce the documents requested in our March 10 letter,” Mr. Jordan wrote on Wednesday. “The FTC’s refusal to provide this material is unacceptable.”
An FTC spokesperson told The Washington Times that the agency has made multiple offers to brief Mr. Jordan’s staff on its probe into Twitter but that the committee had yet to take the agency up on the offer.
“The FTC respects the important role of Congressional oversight. We have made multiple offers to brief Chairman Jordan’s staff on our investigation into Twitter. Those are standing offers made prior to this entirely unnecessary subpoena,” FTC spokesperson Douglas Farrar said.
The committee issued its report on the FTC’s probe days before Twitter Files journalists Matt Taibbi and Michael Shellenberger warned of a sprawling “censorship industrial complex” in testimony before the subcommittee on the weaponization of the federal government.
In December, the two journalists began exposing the extent to which the FBI worked with Twitter company executives to moderate content on the platform.
Those efforts included weekly meetings with Twitter executives before the company suppressed the New York Post’s 2020 report on Hunter Biden’s infamous laptop computer.
During those meetings, which included officials from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Department of Homeland Security, Twitter executives were cued to rumors that Hunter Biden would be the target of a “hack and leak operation.”
The steady drip of internal documents has also revealed Twitter’s left-wing bent that led to the censorship of conservative viewpoints and the unprecedented decision to ban a sitting president, Donald Trump, from the platform.
Mr. Taibbi and Mr. Shellenberger called the FTC’s demands “disturbing” during their testimony before the committee.
“This kind of thing, where the government is looking for information about reporters, it’s usually a canary in the coal mine that something worse is coming in terms of an effort to exercise control over the press,” Mr. Taibbi said.
• Joseph Clark can be reached at jclark@washingtontimes.com.
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