The House Judiciary Committee is suing FBI Agent Elvis Chan for dodging testimony about his apparent role in pressuring social media companies to censor speech online.
Chan dodged two congressional subpoenas from the Judiciary Committee related to its investigation into the extent to which government agencies are working with third parties to censor certain viewpoints online, the committee said in a complaint filed Tuesday. (RELATED: FBI Agent Who Won’t Testify Before Jim Jordan Had ‘Mandate’ To Pressure Platforms Into Censorship, House Report Finds)
READ THE COMPLAINT:
“Publicly available information indicated, and information uncovered during the Committee’s investigation to date has confirmed, that Chan was at the heart of the FBI’s interactions with technology companies, including Facebook and Twitter,” the complaint asserts.
Chan initially failed to appear at his scheduled testimony because the Department of Justice (DOJ) directed him not to show up to the deposition due to a procedural dispute. He proceeded to defy two subpoenas at the DOJ’s direction, the complaint outlines.
“After Chan failed to voluntarily appear before the Committee, it subpoenaed him to testify at a deposition. But Chan defied the Subpoena. Chan’s employer, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), instructed him not to appear, and he complied with that directive. By refusing to comply with the Subpoena, Chan is frustrating the Committee’s ability to conduct oversight — a critical part of the legislative power that the Constitution vests in Congress,” the complaint states, referring to both subpoenas. The complaint goes into further detail about Chan’s role in the FBI’s coordination with social media companies and the dispute between the committee and the DOJ.
THE FACEBOOK FILES PART 4. FBI LIED ABOUT MEETING WITH BIG TECH REGARDING NY POST’S HUNTER BIDEN LAPTOP STORY
Internal FB docs reveal that an FBI Special Agent made false statements in testimony about the FBI’s role in the suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story
🧵 Thread:
— Rep. Jim Jordan (@Jim_Jordan) August 7, 2023
House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan previously accused Chan of lying under oath about his role in the FBI’s communications with Facebook over the Hunter Biden laptop story, based on internal Facebook documents Jordan obtained during the social media censorship investigation.
The committee’s investigation and the “Twitter Files” documents appear to show Chan was a central liaison between the FBI and social media platforms. He was allegedly involved with the FBI’s effort to pressure Twitter and Facebook into censoring the New York Post’s reporting on the Hunter Biden laptop archive leading up to the 2020 election.
“Today, after an FBI employee traveled across the country to voluntarily participate in a scheduled interview, he was denied the right to have his chosen legal counsel accompany him,” the FBI told the Caller at the time of the dispute.
“Upon arrival at the Capitol, Committee staff directed agency counsel to leave the premises, and the interview was unable to proceed,” the FBI added. The FBI declined to comment further on the matter.
Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop archive was verified by federal investigators in late 2019, special counsel David Weiss’ team said in a January court filing, confirming the testimony of IRS whistleblower Gary Shapley. Numerous media outlets have independently verified the laptop archive since the New York Post’s initial reporting.
The House Judiciary Committee released a report in November on how the federal government worked with universities to target political speech online. One of the report’s exhibits was an email Chan sent to Alex Stamos, an executive at the Stanford Internet Observatory (SIO), describing the mandate of the FBI’s San Fransisco outpost to coordinate with social media companies.
“The FBI [San Francisco] mandate is to be the conduit to/from the social media companies for all election-related threats, whether foreign or domestic. We’ve been receiving mostly domestic voter suppression-related accounts to flag for social media companies as each state had its primaries,” Chan said.
The committee’s censorship investigation is ongoing.