Republican Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio accused the Biden administration of censoring “First Amendment speech” Thursday, citing new documents obtained by the House Judiciary Committee.
Jordan earlier tweeted about revelations from documents Facebook provided to the House Judiciary Committee that revealed new details about pressure from the White House to censor so-called “misinformation.” The White House asked Facebook to censor Fox News host Tucker Carlson over Carlson saying that COVID-19 vaccines did not work, according to documents released by Republican Attorney General Jeff Landry of Louisiana in January. (RELATED: Fox News Legal Analyst Says ‘Incriminating Evidence’ Of Biden Admin Censorship Was ‘Compelling’)
“They knew it was wrong. One of those Facebook executives said ‘This is a significant incursion into the boundaries of free expression.’ That is a fancy way of saying this violates the First Amendment for goodness sake,” Jordan told Fox News host Laura Ingraham. “But, because they were – the White House was outraged, because Jen Psaki stood there at the podium what you played, in the White House and demanded this happen because the White House was demanding it and they wanted to keep their cozy relationship with the Biden Administration, they censored First Amendment speech.”
WATCH:
Jordan noted that one of the posts the Biden administration wanted censored was a meme that was a parody of commercials from law firms who handle class-action lawsuits.
“We had that great federal court decision on July 4th in the Western District of Louisiana, great decision. So, I don’t think it’s going on now. But we got make sure it doesn’t go on in the future, it doesn’t happen because we have this amazing thing in greatest country ever called the First Amendment,” Jordan said.
What did the Biden White House want removed?
A meme.
That’s right, even memes weren’t spared from the Biden White House’s censorship efforts. pic.twitter.com/6BhDxTHsUi
— Rep. Jim Jordan (@Jim_Jordan) July 27, 2023
United States District Judge Terry A. Doughty of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana issued an injunction Tuesday prohibiting Biden administration officials with multiple agencies, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Health and Human Services, from contacting social media companies to push for “the removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content containing protected free speech.”
“Rand Paul and I have introduced legislation, Senator Paul, which would say if you are in the government and doing what was happening there, you get fired, you don’t get your pension benefits, there could be civil liability that you are subject to, you lose any security clearance you may have,” Jordan said. “We want real penalties for people in the government engaging what Professor [Jonathan] Turley called this censorship by surrogate.”
All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.