House Judiciary Committee to consider recommending Congress hold Zuckerberg in contempt

The House Judiciary Committee on Thursday will consider recommending Congress hold Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg in contempt for failing to comply with a subpoena seeking internal company documents involving online censorship.

Meta said it has complied with congressional requests and turned over tens of thousands of pages of documents, but federal lawmakers believe the Big Tech company has withheld info about its interactions with the Biden administration to coordinate censorship.

The judiciary committee will meet on Thursday afternoon to consider a contempt report urging the House to find Mr. Zuckerberg willfully refused to comply with Congress.  

A finding of contempt represents a misdemeanor criminal offense for failing to comply with a valid congressional subpoena for documents or testimony, according to the Congressional Research Service.  

“Meta and its Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg have willfully refused to comply in full with a congressional subpoena directed to Mr. Zuckerberg stemming from an investigation conducted by the House Committee on the Judiciary and the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government into the executive branch’s coordination with social media companies and other third parties to censor free speech on digital platforms,” the judiciary committee’s contempt report said. “This censorship by proxy is a serious threat to fundamental American civil liberties.”

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan issued a subpoena to Meta on Feb. 15 in pursuit of information on the company’s interaction with the Biden administration.

The judiciary committee’s contempt report said that since the subpoena Meta has handed over “fewer than 40 pages of internal documents” and communications between Meta and external entities.

“Despite clear instructions in the committee’s subpoena and repeated requests from committee staff, Meta has thus far failed to produce nearly all of the requested internal communications related to its executive branch interactions,” the committee report said.

Meta spokesman Andy Stone said the company has “operated in good faith with this committee’s sweeping requests for information” and would comply in the future too.

“We began sharing documents before the committee’s February subpoena and have continued to do so,” Mr. Stone said in a statement. “To date we have delivered over 53,000 pages of documents — both internal and external — and have made nearly a dozen current and former employees available to discuss external and internal matters, including some scheduled this very week.”

The legal and political fallout facing Mr. Zuckerberg from the House approving a contempt citation is yet to be determined. Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon was convicted of contempt of Congress last year and sentenced to four months in jail and to pay a fine of $6,500.

Contempt of Congress violations are punishable by a fine of up to $100,000 and a month to a year in jail, according to a June 2023 Congressional Research Service report. Political fallout often also ensues for those refusing overtures from Congress.

The House Judiciary Committee’s requests for information from Meta are not likely to stop anytime soon. Last week, Mr. Jordan set a July 31 deadline for Meta to answer questions about Threads, Mr. Zuckerberg’s new microblogging alternative to Twitter.