Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), the chair of the House Judiciary Select Subcommittee on weaponization of government, released new information Thursday showing government efforts to censor COVID conversations on YouTube. The revelations come after the committee proved in August hearings that the administration had pressured Facebook to censor conservative-leaning media outlets like the New York Post, the Daily Wire, and others to remove what it considered "vaccine negative" posts.
"We knew the Biden White House was pushing Facebook and Twitter to censor more," Jordan wrote on the social media platform X Thursday. "Now we know the White House was repeatedly pressuring Google to censor content on YouTube."
Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, shared his group's findings on Washington Watch Thursday afternoon.
"… Judicial Watch is finding this too in our separate and independent investigations," he explained. "You have a massive push by the agencies and the White House specifically to censor information or dissent on COVID and the vaccines, whether it be YouTube, Twitter, you name it, really a whole government approach to censorship," Fitton said.
The goal of the administration, according to Fitton, isn't just to remove posts but to study them and learn about the posts' authors. And while that detailed plan did not begin with the Biden administration, Fitton argues the current White House has taken censorship to new heights – and that Biden himself has "embraced the censorship ethic directly and personally."
"It began really under the [Donald] Trump administration through these 'deep state' actors trying to mess with the elections by suppressing content about Joe Biden and questions about the administration of the election. It metastasized under Biden – and Biden has embraced the censorship ethic directly and personally. We see this in document after document," Fitton told show host Jody Hice.
The Judicial Watch leader said documents have revealed the Big Tech companies basically pleading with the White House to ease up on its demands to remove certain posts.
"Top officials of these Big Tech companies, these social media companies, are in direct communication with the White House. Basically, you can tell in these emails that they're afraid [and asking] 'What can we do to get you off our backs?'" Fitton said.
Of course, Trump was targeted. A recently disclosed Twitter subpoena shows the Biden Justice Department working through Jack Smith, the special counsel assigned to oversee two criminal investigations into Trump, to access material about Trump's Twitter account.
Tens of millions come under watch of Biden administration
The DOJ didn't stop there, explained Fitton. It also sought to learn about everyone who followed Trump's account, liked his posts or mentioned him on Twitter.
"That's potentially tens of millions of people," Fitton offered. "This is a massive effort not only to censor but to intimidate and track Americans who [support] Trump or just had curiosity about what Trump was saying. So, Democrats [and] maybe Nancy Pelosi was caught up in this, who knows?"
While censorship began before Biden took the oath of office, he hasn't deterred it. In fact, he's mashed on the gas. As Fitton pointed out, in Thursday's hearing Rep. Dan Goldman (D-New York) talked about the Hunter Biden laptop potentially being fake.
"They're completely out to lunch, purposely, when it comes to the censorship they encouraged in order to disrupt and interfere with the 2020 election," Fitton stated.
Administration's censorship touches all agencies
Fitton warned that the censorship strategy touches virtually all governmental agencies and is crowned by the multi-district prosecutions of Trump.
"You have the attack on our First Amendment freedoms, the efforts to suppress and censor. The CIA is involved, the State Department is involved, the FBI is involved, the Department of Homeland Security is involved, Health and Human Services and the White House are involved," he charged.
"On top of that, you have prosecutions of those who were disputing the elections in 2020, the abusive prosecutions of Trump in four different jurisdictions – all by Democratic politicians or their appointees. He did something that is protected by the First Amendment and his rights as president, and they're trying to jail him for it."
