House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan on Thursday scrapped his panel’s plans to hold an afternoon vote that would recommend holding the CEO of Facebook’s parent company, Mark Zuckerberg, in contempt of Congress for failing to supply documents for an investigation.
“Based on Facebook’s newfound commitment to fully cooperate with the Committee’s investigation, the Committee has decided to hold contempt in abeyance. For now. To be clear, contempt is still on the table and WILL be used if Facebook fails to cooperate in FULL,” Jordan tweeted.
Jordan, an Ohio Republican, subpoenaed Zuckerberg and other tech CEOs in February for documents over what he called the federal government’s “reported collusion with Big Tech to suppress free speech.” Republicans have long claimed that tech companies such as Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc.
META,
limit conservative views, especially over COVID-19 — a charge the companies deny.
If the House Judiciary Committee were to recommend holding Zuckerberg in contempt of Congress, the next step would be for the entire GOP-controlled House of Representatives to hold a vote on the matter. After that, Democratic President Joe Biden’s Justice Department would decide whether or not to prosecute Zuckerberg, according to a Congressional Research Service report.
A Meta spokesman earlier in the week said the company has “operated in good faith with this committee’s sweeping requests for information,” delivering more than 50,000 pages of internal and external documents to the committee since February and making current and former employees available for interviews.
Jordan also tweeted Thursday that the company had “just produced” a number of documents to the committee, and he shared some materials in a Twitter thread and dubbed them “The Facebook Files, Part 1.”
“Only after the Committee announced its intention to hold Mark Zuckerberg in contempt did Facebook produce ANY internal documents to the Committee, including these documents, which PROVE that government pressure was directly responsible for censorship on Facebook,” the Ohio Republican said.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters Thursday that the Biden administration has “promoted responsible actions to protect public health, safety and security when confronted by challenges like a deadly pandemic and foreign attacks on our elections, and we have consistently made clear that we believe social-media companies have a critical responsibility.”
But she also noted recent legal wrangling over executive branch officials’ communications with social-media companies, so she referred questions to the Justice Department.
Meta’s stock was trading sharply higher Thursday following better-than-expected earnings late Wednesday. Over the past 12 months, shares have gained 85% while the S&P 500 index
SPX,
is up 13%.
This post was originally published on Market Watch
