the subcommittee will come to

order. without objection the chair is authorized to declare recess at any time. we welcome everyone to today's hearing on the weaponization of

the federal government. we, particularly, want to welcome back our friend and colleague, mr. steube from the great state of florida. great to see him healthy and strong and working with us. we would ask mr. steube to lead us in the plentifully gents. >> i pledge allegiance, to the flag, of the united states of america, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> thank you mister steube. the chair recognizes himself an opening statement. 22 days ago republicans on this committee released a report showing the federal trade commission sent 12 letters to twitter in a three month time span. and happened to be the three month time that mr. musk had purchased the company. in the first letter after the first twitter files the first question was who are the journalist you are talking to?

actually naming for journalists personally. two of those four journalist testified the very next day, three weeks ago today, they testified in front of that committee. -- in that room, democrats asked them to reveal their sources. there was another thing that happened during that hearing. while mr. thai e b was testifying, the internal revenue service paid a visit to his home. next to know on his door saying we will be back in touch with you next week. that all happen. that all happened we learned at the same time that it certainly appears that we do not have the answers from the irs about that unlikely coincidence. it certainly appears to be just the latest example of the weaponization of the federal government against the american people. it shows the need for the

subcommittee and its work to proceed, no matter how robust the opposition. today's hearing is so important, it builds on our prior work related to government induced censorship. it's interesting, the first hearing we had mr. turley. by the way, not a republican. a censorship by surrogate in our meeting a few weeks ago to journalists, again, not republicans talking about the censorship industrial complex. today senator schmidt, i read to the written testimony last night. they talk about the vast censorship enterprise. the key word in all three is censorship. that is exactly what is going on. today's hearing provides an opportunity to bring to light evidence from within the government which has driven much of the censorship this evidence comes from the litigation evidence of louisiana and -- against the federal government. the state lawyers in those cases are here to testify before us today.

within days of taking office the biden white house was already pressuring big tech to suppress free speech. the sensors goal is simple, limit what americans can see, limit what americans can say, which is a direct assault on the right to free speech that is protected by the first amendment. centers have bullied big tech with threats to get them to do government bidding. big tech has all too often agreed to collude with the government and facilitate the censorship agenda. in this country the government does not get the pick what viewpoints are right, what issues we discuss, or what we believe. that is exactly what the white house and the agencies as varied as the cdc and fbi have done. they are censorship as extended to speech uncritically important topics like how best to respond to covid-19, and even to the elections themselves. that kind of speeches at the heart of a free country and our republic. the amount of content censored

has been staggering one nonprofit that is part of the censorship industrial complex of both that 75% of the flagged pages were either labeled, removed, or soft blocked. perhaps even worse is the scope of the censorship. the government no longer pretends it simple censorship is limited phone disinformation or even domestic misinformation. instead, set the trip extends to the, so-called, now information. in other words true information that is supposedly misleading and conflicts with the sensors preferred narrative. that is the most dangerous, frankly the most frightening thing of all. censorship is not about truth, it is about power. the evidence from this litigation shows the need for the subcommittees work investigating the entirety of the censorship industrial complex. the federal government is at fault. but it should also be able to

weaponize -- it should not be able to weaponize non government actors to work on its behalf to advance censorship. this subcommittee must investigate the extent of what has happened here. we must protect the american people from it happening again. already this subcommittee has requested related documents from related agencies, big tech agencies, and the intermediaries that make up this complex. this vast censorship complex. this important work must continue so the american people learn what their government has done to them so that this congress can take action to ensure that it doesn't happen again. the chair now recognizes the ranking member, the gentlewoman from the virgin islands, miss plaskett, for her opening statement. thank you mister chairman good morning to everyone. on monday multiple people, including three children, lost their lives to violence gun violence in nashville tennessee.

this week, a federal grand jury and a judge, a federal judge, have had to force trump officials to testify concerning their possible involvement and what they knew regarding the violence and death in the insurrection attempt on our capital from january 6th 2021. the debt ceiling is looming over the american economy, speaker mccarthy in the republican conference are holding the debt hostage right now. we are holding a hearing on what? missouri versus biden. some alleged deep state effort to censor conservatives online. that allegation is nonsense, as we discussed extensively in the hearings, as the chairman, has said before social media companies deep pocket private

companies, social media companies actually amplify conservative voices. they do less to censor those voices. everyone here should be alarmed when that amplification pushes out false and dangerous narratives. false narrative such as january six being a deep state effort. false narrative such as covid vaccines, somehow, do harm. false narrative suggesting that president trump won the election. in fact, that is the real reason we are here. republicans know that these are false narratives. they know that the americans know the truth. they are grasping for a way to spin the truth. how do you do that? you tell an untruth, ally. misinformation. over and over and over and over and over again.

eventually, people believe it. some people right here in this audience believe it. mister chairman, thank you for calling this hearing because i am actually eager to speak to the witnesses that we have here. mr. -- an expert on election law and disinformation. i'm eager to hear from you on exactly how disinformation harms our democracy. part of the reason i'm interested in that is because of the other witnesses that are here senator eric schmitt, a u.s. senator. you've signed a statement defending trump's indefensible campaign to stop social media from fact checking election fraud falsehoods. when trump complained about censorship. serving as a vice chairman of the attorney -- while it's fundraising arm made

robocalls urging marches on the capitol the day before the deadly january 6th insurrection. you also signed a brief in response to the texas lawsuit seeking to invalidate electoral votes in the hopes of reversing the results of the presidential election. i don't even have the time. to go into some of the things that you did while you were attorney general. theories that you have with regard to the great replacement theory and other things of that nature. mr. sauer, you as well now serve as the missouri's deputy attorney general for special litigation. you have sought to silence people with disabilities to participate in legal cases with covid-19 mask mandates. you have oppose lgbtq rights on numerous occasions. as early -- as recently as 2015 you opposed same-sex marriages. in a brief in 2021 opposing the

president's executive order redefining sexual discrimination. mr. attorney general, mr. landry. congratulations on your bid for governor of louisiana. you refused to join 50 other attorney generals in condemning the insurrection of january 6th. in your own separate letter, tried to equate that insurrection, that one violent day with the black lives matter protests of 2020. 7750 demonstrations took place over the summer. 93% of those were peaceful. one day, january 6th, yes, yes, yes. 93% were peaceful. one day, on january 6th, was

devastating to our democracy. you have also denied climate change. i would like to speak to these individuals who are here, but maybe for a different reason. we are here to talk about the weaponization of the federal government. when the greatest weaponize there has been donald trump. yesterday, the new york times -- i know it's not everyone in here's favorite paper but i would like to submit -- i have a motion to submit this into the record. >> without objection. >> thank you. the article march 29th, 2023. it says, trump says the justice system has been weaponized. he would know. yes, he would. why would he know? in that article it lists instances of his attempts to weaponize the federal government when he was president. in the words of his own people, quote, he was always telling me what -- we need to use the fbi and irs

to go after people. it was constant and obsessive. it is just what he's claiming is being done to him now, said john f. kelly, mr. trump's white house chief of staff. quote, i would tell him why it was wrong. while i was there i did everything a could to steer him away from it. telling him why i was a bad idea, mr. kelly said. he would often ask a lot of people to do a lot of things that he did not want to do himself in the hopes that someone would do it and he can claim he did nothing wrong. that is the twice impeached former president donald trump chief of staff speaking. don't tell me that he didn't weaponize the government. i don't think we are going to be investigating that however. mister chairman i know that you and my republican polly believe that mr. trump is still the leader of the republican party. unfortunately you are following

his example and attempting to weaponize congress. last weekend president trump posted the message that is on the see right now. thank you. what kind of personn charge another person, in this case a former president of the united stat, who got more votes than anysitting president in history, a leading candidate byfrom the republican nomination, with a crime, when it is known by all of that and also known that the ial death andruction that such a false charge could betastrophic to our country. why? would do such a thing? on a degeneratehopath that truly hates the usa, exclamation point. he threatened death and destruction if an independent state level duly elected prosecutor took action against

him. now, mr. chairman was asked about this post previously. his response was he needed his glasses to read it. i hope that he and all of my colleagues can see it now up there on the screen. mister chairman, you and other members of this body have sent multiple letters in your capacity as chairman's to seek to interfere in the investigation of the president by a duly elected state representative. demanding the district attorney brag up here for a transcribed interview in a manner that is under criminal investigation. that is not appropriate. that is not what this congress is supposed to be about. that is an abuse of the power of this body, of this committee, and that is the weaponization of congress, plain and simple. the real question before us is,

why aren't the chairman, others, why are congressional republicans doing the presidents dirty work? that is what we should be investigating. not chasing politically motivated theories that have already been shown to be baseless. i yield back. >> the gentlelady yields back. without objection, all other opening statements will be included in the record. we will now introduce today's witnesses. we first have the honorable eric schmitt. representing the state of new jersey in the united states senate. before the election he served as missouri attorney general and the treasure that. state the honorable jeff landry, former colleague of war. jeff landry served as the attorney general louisiana. posey is out some 2016. prior to serving the attorney general he represented louisiana's or congressional district here in the united states house of representatives. mr. john sauer and in 2010 are for louisiana department of justice. he previously served as deputy attorney general for special

litigation with the missouri attorney generals office. solicitor general of missouri. he clerk for judge michael luttig and antonin scalia. matthew seligman, matthew seligman and nonresident fellow at the constitutional law fellow at stanford law school. focusing on election law, constitutional law, a federal court contracts and private law theory. he clerked for judge douglas ginsburg. we welcome our witnesses today. we thank them for appearing. we will begin with wearing you win. would you please rise and raise your right hand. do you swear and affirm under penalty of perjury that the testimony you're about to give is true and correct your best knowledge, belief, so help you god? will the record show the east of the witnesses answered in the affirmative. please know that your worker testimony will be entered into the record in your entirety. we will ask you to summarize your testimony to five minutes. we will give a few more minutes to schmidt and lynn, the custom of this committee. we will start with senator

schmitt. you know how it works with the lights, senator. like we said we will give you a little extra time there. we appreciate your service to our country and your state. we appreciate you being here today. you are now recognized, senator schmitt. >> thank you, chairman jordan. ranking member plaskett and members of the select subcommittee. thank you for the opportunity to be here today to discuss this important issue. the first amendment is the beating heart of our constitution. the first amendment is integral to report -- the republican former government and the belief that we are country of a free people not an oppressive government. the biden administration has led the largest speech censorship operation in recent american history. since taking office president biden's team have labored to suppress viewpoints with which they disagree. in doing so they have infringed upon the individual freedoms of millions of americans. no matter what your political affiliation is, government censorship should concern

everyone. the biden administration has coerced, cajoled, included with social media companies to censor disfavored speech. the biden team has publicly censored teams from removing -- with removing legal protection, blames social media problems for societal problems. blamed social media companies for killing people. some of the biggest companies in the history of the world willingly took part in this orwellian vast censorship enterprise. on multiple occasions, president biden and his team have threatened to punish social media companies that did not sufficiently censor biden's political opposition by revoking section 2:30. biden suggested facebook ceo mark zuckerberg should be subject to criminal liability and potential criminal liability for not censoring political speech. president biden also repeatedly accused social media companies by quote, killing people, but

not censoring enough disfavored speech. the biden administration has threatened and attacked social media companies so that those social media companies would censor speech that the biden administration disliked. until the missouri versus biden lawsuit, and later the twitter files, the biden administration's efforts to pressure include with social media companies behind the scenes. meetings, emails, it was unknown -- on behalf of missouri and louisiana, i was proud to join with general landry to see the bottom integration for a lighter reading the first amendment through this vast censorship enterprise. this lawsuit alleges, the biden administration including president biden himself a member than a team pressures and colluded with social media giants to censor free speech in the name of combatting, so-called, disinformation and misinformation, which led to the suppression and censorship of truth to information on a scale never seen before.

the lawsuit provides example after example of truthful information that was sincere by social media companies that were admitted at a later date to be truthful or credible, including the hunter biden laptop story, the lab leak story -- theory. and the efficacy of masks. discovery obtained by missouri in louisiana demonstrated the biden administration's coordination with social media companies in collusion with nonprofits to censor speech was far more pervasive and destructive than ever known. documents reveal multiple white house officials from the former press secretary to the digital delight are relentlessly pressuring social media companies to remove specific posts, or accounts, or expand censorship practices. the white house wanted post centers from fox news host tucker carlson, even though facebook from the content did not violated policies.

the white house also favorable news to be put, quote, in context with specific talking points along with amplification of biden administration messaging and faq's. missouri and louisiana also deposed doctor anthony fauci. this deposition showed that when dr. fauci spoke, big tech censored. for example, doctor fauci was aware early in the pandemic that his agency had funded dangerous game function research on the coronavirus at that wuhan lab -- the han institute of virology. he sought to discredit and suppress the theory that covid-19 leaked from a lab to deflect blame and avoid potential responsibility for the pandemic. in his deposition, dr. fauci claimed 174 times that he couldn't recall -- including about critical details including gain function

research another important issue associate with the lab leak theory in the government response of the pandemic. because of dr. fauci's influence social media platform stencilled the lab leak theory and other covid-19 viewpoints that dr. fauci and his cabal of experts disfavored. missouri in the region and also to pose the fai agent about the punter -- a laptop theory. this deposition in relevant found the fbi deliberately planted false information about hack and leak operations in advance of the hunter biden laptop story coming out in order to deceive social media platforms into censoring the hunter biden laptop story. the fbi also flag social media accounts for censorship on a monthly basis and a have and an estimated 50% success rate in getting reported disinformation removed or sensors. that missouri versus biden

lawsuit also obtain documents revealing that multiple federal agencies have pressured and colluded with social media companies to flag instance are large numbers of accounts and post, especially related to public health and elections. the federal government has even created private public partnerships to expand its censorship reach. without the misery versus biden lawsuit and the subsequent disclosures in the twitter files, americans would have never known about the biden administration's coordination, collusion, and coercion to censor speech. president biden and his administration may last for its own ministry of truth. i, along with millions of americans, will never stop fighting for the god given right to speak your mind. freedom of expression, freedom of speech, americans have enshrined the first amendment in our constitution more than

230 years ago, for good reason. four times such as these. we cannot allow the biden's ministration to infringe upon them freedoms that we cherish and a have been purchased by the sacrifice of millions of americans. freedom of speech is vital to our country and our people. in many ways it is our pressure release valve. we must stop the biden ministration's threat to free speech so america can remain the freest country in the history of the world. thank you, mister chairman. >> thank you, senator. i appreciate that. mr. attorney general, you are recognized for five minutes. >> good morning. thank you, chairman dorman. ranking member plaskett, and distinguished members of the select subcommittee. mister chairman, i would ask if i could correct the record, quickly, miss plaskett failed to recognize that i submitted a letter on my own condemning all violence, all political

violence, and urged my colleagues to do the same. i would remind everyone that violence throughout this past year had inflicted a lot of damage on other federal buildings, as well. i would like to submit that letter for the record. >> the gentlelady is out of order. >> that's not a correction. i said you refused to join the other -- >> lady has not been recognized. this time belongs to the attorney general from the state of louisiana. mr. landry, you can proceed. >> thank you mister chairman. i'm grateful for the opportunity to join congress today, along with my former colleague and now u.s. senator, schmidt, from missouri. and mr. sauer to find the federal government censorship case, louisiana and missouri versus biden. since i was sworn in as attorney general in 2016, i have been ringing alarm bells

about big tech. in fact, in 2018 i led a bipartisan discussion of attorney generals about the dangers that i saw regarding big tech. it was a bipartisan, multi state, coalition. back then the big story was the election of president trump. some were quick to blame social media platforms, especially facebook, for enabling fake news to spread. social media was actively used to tip the scales and president biden's favor in 2020 by censoring real news, such as the hunter biden laptop story, among others. despite all of this, federal agencies have been allowed to co-opt these private companies and use social media platforms

to infringe upon the first amendment rights of americans. let's look at the covid-19 pandemic. during that time, facebook close to three billion users worldwide, roughly 124 million in the u.s. alone. in 2021, 66% of u.s. adults used facebook while 23% used instagram. over 500 million tweets were posted daily during the pandemic. while more than 340 million users on twitter -- on youtube, roughly 500 hours of video content or uploaded every minute with more than four billion hours of video viewed each month. more than 72% of u.s. adults

used the platform. why is this important? because our lawsuit has uncovered a censorship enterprise that spans numerous government institutions. all major social media platforms. that censorship enterprise has been widely successful in achieving its goals. white have director of digital strategy, robber flattery, was impressed when youtube reported its success of watching time a borderline content by 70%. this is what we found in our case. the fbi claims a success rate of 50% in getting platforms to censor content flagged as

misinformation. the election integrity partnership, now known as the virology project, bragged that for major platforms that they worked with all had high response rates. 35% of url shared with facebook, instagram, twitter, and youtube were either labeled, removed, or soft blocked. as a result of this collusion between social media companies, the cdc, nih, and ideally, american citizens, scientists, journalists were shadow beard, then sued, silenced, and de-platform for their valid concerns about lockdowns, masks, covid vaccines, and more. robert kennedy junior, the

nephew of a president, the son of the former u.s. attorney general of this country. the nephew of a distinguish senator, who by the way was a democrat, was centered. tucker carlson, who hosted the top rated primetime television news was also censored. as so we're millions of americans while deceitful and manipulative of voices, like doctor anthony fauci, were elevated. this censorship enterprise knows no bounds. it is not limited in scope to covid-19 or elections. many of the committee members will sit here today and say, what can we do? i say bring the federal government to heal. no one in this chamber, no one in this chamber on both sides

of the aisle should be opposed to that. i applaud this bodies efforts in the chairman for passing the protected speech and government interference act. however, i would offer that it just does not go far enough. i would ask those on the left in joining to make it tougher. the time has come when we must hold federal employees, contractors, and federal actors accountable by terminating both their jobs and their retirement for violating the first amendment of american citizens. if they participate in violating american citizens first amendment rights, and that is when a court finds, than those other penalties that should be posed. this chamber should also draft legislation that will open a

pathway for legalized billet-y for such conduct so that american citizens have a right of action against their own government in protecting their i will repeat their first amendment rights. there must be a penalty or this problem will never be solved. if you would like to understand exactly how bad this problem has become i invite you to read a satirical pamphlet, the censorship enterprise. the future is now. which is basically the federal governments guide to limiting disfavored speech. if you are not disturbed by that document you are either complicit or contributing to the problem. know that the states of louisiana and missouri are fighting back against this vast government censorship in our federal courts today. thank you, mister chairman.

>> thank you attorney general landry. we appreciate you coming here to testify today. as well as mr. schmitt. we will allow you to get your responsibilities and -- >> point of order, mister. chairman >> here gentleman is running for point of order. >> mister chairman, these witnesses are being dismissed without the ability to cross examine their statements. they have made some outlandish allegations here. consistent with the work of this committee, especially this select committee -- and congressional hearings in general, we should have the ability to question their statements. >> it is a long-standing practice of the committee when we have colleagues on the other side of the aisle and other officials -- to less than testifying. >> no, no, mister chairman, these witnesses were direct witnesses as to the cases that they brought. when we bring in our colleagues from the senate and other colleagues from the house, we extend them a courtesy, many

times we do not even swear them -- we do not require them to take an oath. we allow their testimony in a ceremonial or non substantive way. these two witnesses have just presented evidence that, i think, in part, is false. i would like the opportunity to cross examine those witnesses. >> those witnesses aren't here. >> mister chairman, point of order. you will have a chance to -- >> i recognize that. >> isn't it true that even in recent days -- >> reclaiming my time. >> you are not recognized, sir. >> yes i am. i was recognized. he did recognize me. >> point of order, i am now recognizing mr. johnson because you are not sitting in point order any longer. your making speech. >> my point of order, mister chairman, it's a recall that isn't a true in recent days even colleagues like congressman jamie raskin which presented commentary which was pretty salacious and was

allowed to leave the room. we were not allowed cross examine him. >> mister chairman, point of order -- >> salaciousness has to do with sexual content. i do not think our colleague, mr. raskin, presented salacious comments. i would ask that that be -- >> let's call it outrageous then. and >> i protested that were be taken down. it is false, and inflammatory. >> the gentleman from louisiana -- the gentleman from louisiana said it was not salacious it was outrageous. >> mister chairman. debate on the point of order, please, that was just raised. >> the gentle lady from florida is recognized. >> thank you very much. the attorney general, mr. landry, is not a member of congress. he is not entitled to an extension of courtesy that we give to some of our colleagues, or even former colleagues. he is the attorney general -- >> i will add ask to the gentlelady of florida we extended the same courtesy to attorney general landry, former

member of the united states congress, that we extended to tulsi gabbard, former member of the united states congress. >> that was a member chairman -- mister chairman. this is not a member panel. >> we now recognize mr. sauer for his five minutes of testimony. >> on the point of order, at least, if we are not gonna have the ability to cross-examine our move that we move to strike the testimony provided by senator schmitt, and attorney general landry. >> you want to censor it? you want to censor their testimony? >> i want to strike it, i want to strike it. if we are not able to probe the veracity of their statements, the truthfulness of their statements -- you will be given near five minutes here. >> they are not here -- they are absent. >> i understand that. >> you scurried them away. they refused -- >> they were not scare it away. >> in a country of 330 million people, you couldn't find two

people to defend their testament -- that is produced graceful. >> allowing them to leave is not weaponization the non know what is, mister chair. >> oh yeah right. mr. sauer, you are recognized. >> the gentleman may proceed. >> mister chairman, ranking member plaskett -- >> mister chairman, i move to adjourn. i move to adjourn. this is a mockery. this is a mockery and a disgrace. it is shameful. >> the gentleman has not been recognized. the gentleman, mr. sauer, is recognized for five minutes of testimony. >> there is a motion on the floor to adjourn. it is not debatable. if you do not know the rules of the committee, talk to your parliamentarian. >> you are recognized for your motion, no army following the rules of the committee. you cannot speak out of order. >> what are you doing? what are you doing? you are out of order. >> mr. sauer, you can proceed. >> mister chairman, ranking member plaskett, members of the

subcommittee, imagine a world where white house officials emailed the new york times editorial board when the paper runs a story criticizing the president. they abused the paper in profane language and demand that it immediately pulls the offending story from its website while the white house publicly threatens devastating legal consequences if the paper doesn't comply and it does. imagine a world where the fbi, every month, sends all the major booksellers in the united states and encrypted list of the books that the fbi wants them to pull from themselves that month and burn. the booksellers can fly by burning at least half of those books. imagine a world where a federal national security agency teams up with a major research university to establish a mass surveillance program of ordinary american political

thoughts and opinions. they use swarms of analysts and cutting edge technology to monitor hundreds of millions of domestic political communication in realtime and covertly sensor millions of them. these three scenarios did not come from a hypothetical dystopian future. the first to a very similar to a federal officials are doing with social media platforms now. the third scenario is not hypothetical at all. that massive violence and mass censorship program started operating in 2020. last july, the plaintiffs in the louisiana and missouri against biden presented-limited discovery of communication about censorship between federal officials and social media platforms. what we obtained astonishing, staggering, and horrifying. a veritable army of federal officials, pressures, threatens, courses, collude with, demands, and deceive social media platform to censor online

speech. our evidence shows white house officials badgering white house officials to censor speech that contradicts the white houses -- while the white house accuses him of killing people by not centering enough of ordinary american speech. the president spokespeople raise the specter of crippling legal consequences if they do not comply. one major platform responds to white house demands by assuring them, we hear your call to do more. it scrambles to carry out more, quote, what the white house expects from us on more misinformation going forward. our evidence shows federal officials routinely flagging social media post by ordinary americans for censorship. it shows federal officials orchestrating elaborate plots of deception to do platforms into centering disfavored speech. it shows federal officials engaging in seemingly endless meetings in content operation officers of major platforms to discuss, disinformation and

censorship. it shows federal officials serving privilege fact-checked airs with affective authority to dictate what americans can and cannot say on matters of immense public importance on social media. it shows federal officials relentlessly pressuring social media platforms by threatening them with ruinous legal consequences if they do not cave to the federal demands of censorship truth is not the goal of this federal censorship enterprise. the centers have been proven wrong again and again including on politically seismic issues. each time the sensors are proven wrong, the censorship has continued unabated. it expands, that is because now, as in every other time in human history, but goal of censorship is not to promote truth, it is to obtain, preserve, and expand political power. censorship is not necessary to

protect americans line, security, or democracy. systematically violating the most basic civil rights of millions of americans does not make american safer or healthier. federal censorship is not democratic. it stifles the voices of ordinary americans and places the channels of public debate under the command and control of elites. censorship inflicts lasting harm on americans by impeding the pursuit of truth in a free marketplace of ideas. the supreme court described social media as the modern public square. for years, federal officials have been perpetrating a hostile takeover of that modern public square. this hostile takeover has largely succeeded. congress should take swift action to banish the federal centers and restore our freedom of speech to social media. i welcome the subcommittees questions. >> thank you mr. sauer, mr.

seligman, you are recognized for five minutes. >> mister chairman, ranking member plaskett, members of the committee. the focus of today's hearing is an allegation of censorship by social media platforms, purportedly at the direction of the federal government. once again it bears repeating, the first amendment applies to governmental restrictions a speech, not private conduct. the plaintiffs in missouri v. biden instead argue that the federal government courses platforms into censoring disfavored speech by the allocation of the platform's own content policies. by reasons i detail my written testimony, that contention lacks a regional basis in law in fact. in short, governmental officials offered their suggestions to platforms about disinformation, no threat of adverse governmental education is ever attached to whether the platforms took those suggestions or not. social media platform content moderation decisions have always rested, and remain, with the platforms and sell.

by attacking those platforms, and attempts to combat misinformation, the plaintiffs in cases like missouri cb biden do miss service to the principles of free speech they claim to support. they invite the grave consequences of misinformation that they seek to spread themselves, unchecked. it is perhaps not a coincidence that the proponents of measures that would handicap social media platforms efforts to combat misinformation or often prolific purveyors of misinformation themselves. senator schmidt and attorney general landry, who just testify, and before the supreme court supporting issued by the state of texas seeking to block the counting of electoral votes from four states that president biden won. over 100 members of congress, including members of this committee today, also filed briefs supporting that city. texas's complaint included the fantastical claim that the statistical likelihood that president biden barely won the 2020 election was less than one in a quadrillion.

that is false. members of this committee have claimed that dominion voting machines fraudulently flipped votes from trump to biden. that is false. members of this committee and claim that thousands of ballots were cast on dead and on qualified voters. that is false. members of this committee have claimed that election workers around the country counted fake or fraudulent votes. that is false. on october 19th, 2020, chairman jordan tweeted that democrats are trying to steal the election after the election. that is false. lines like these corrode americans faith in the integrity of elections and democracy. but those elections are, without question, fundamentally sound. these falsehoods form the foundation of an unprecedented effort to reverse the efforts of a presidential election. they are just a drop in the bucket, a drop in the ocean, on the flood of lines that flooded

social media in the weeks and months out of the 2020 presidential election. this is not idle political theory. across the country, election workers have been targeted by extremist with threats of horrific violence as retaliation for their alleged complicity in the stolen election. just over two years ago, a violent mob stormed the capitol building in an attempt to described congress account of electoral votes some in that mob erected a gallows on the steps of the capital not far from where we said today. after the vice president honorably confirmed he would abide by his constitutional duty, summoned the mob chanted, hang mike pence. they did so because someone told them the line that the election was stolen. they did so because someone told them the lie that vice president pence had the power to reverse the results. whether or not our constitution and our fidelity to the principles of the first amendment permits us to punish

our prosecutors who told those lies, surely we can recognize the damage done. surely we can recognize that the social media platforms that now service the main channels have been misinformation need all the help they can get in combatting them. it is both constitutional and in concert with the principles of the first amendment for government experts to help social media experts and identifying misinformation and to encourage those networks to stop spreading it and amplify. i welcome the committee's questions. >> i thank the gentleman for his testimony. the chair now recognizes the gentlelady from new york, miss stefanik. >> mr. seligman, isn't it true that democrats objected to president george w. bush's victory in 2000 on the house floor. >> yes it is isn't it true that democrats objected to president george w. bush's victory in 2004. >> i yield the remainder of my time. >> i think the lady. the irony is so thick in the room today that you can cut it with a nice. the democrats all witnesses

this democrat from the constitutional law center at stanford law school where, less than two weeks ago, the dean had ordered mandatory training in the first amendment to faculty in students after her apology for the debacle of them shouting down a fifth circuit appellate court judge. were you present for that event? >> no, i was not. >> you just told us that basically the media networks needed centerview point to disagree with it's unbelievable the other irony is our louisiana turning general jeff landry just explain to us in detail putting on a recent detail pointing out that there is literally a censorship enterprise now in the banister nation and not five minutes later our colleague over here wanted to be objective signed his testimony for being two gentlemen but we are illustrating the point right here is all of you talk many actors in the vitamin striations, many of them, have continued to harass and pressure social media companies to pressure social media content. that is one of the -- that's not align with their chosen aired it because when people talk about the origin or

effectiveness of lockdowns in the mask mandate, center. the benefits of natural immunity. they wanted to censor in silence that and they did. through the great work, mr. sauer of you and many others in the state of louisiana and missouri we now know that there is a corner campaign about public and private pressure against the social media platforms. who did it come from? as you pointed out, president biden. senior white house staff. surgeon general vivek murphy. doctor anthony fauci. the cdc. they targeted opposing covid viewpoints. they targeted the viewpoints, folks. if you are watching at home. they volume censored you. they turn you down in that case people off the platform because they said things that one of the administrations narrative. one piece of information that president biden label that misinformation is the belief that the virus originated in the lab in china. we now know that that is no longer a theory, it is likely true that some of the agency of the government had to admit now.

doctor fauci was contradicting the lab leak discourse from the very beginning the pandemic. listen, everyone needs to pay attention to this. he commissioned a research paper to discredit the theory. can you please share with us what his interest wasn't covering up the lab leak theory, mr. sauer. ? >> thank you congressman. the evidence in our case indicates that going back to 2011 dr. fauci have been a public advocate in favor of gain function research. starting at least in 2014, 98 under his direction had publicly funded gain function research on coronaviruses in the wuhan institute of virology. early 2020 when the virus was new, he became aware from briefings from his staff and emails from jeremy far of the welcome institute in the united kingdom that there was a grave risk that the virus had, in fact, leaked -- from that institution where 98 funded research on gain of function of viruses have been

conducted. you see an elaborate plot, a deceptive plot, to try to discredit that theory. >> 98 was that -- when he was asked at a white house briefing about this report that he commissioned. he claimed he was unfamiliar with the authors of the study even though he was instrumental in everything you'll step of his creations. i have a video. we can play that real quickly. we can see in his own words. -- all right, well, they are trying to fix that. what doctor fauci says they're in his own words as he has no idea anything about the authors of the study even though he is the one that orchestrated the whole thing. when he was asked in the deposition about his role in suppressing the lab leak origin

theory he said, i have another video that won't work, i'm sure. he said 300 times he doesn't recall, he doesn't remember. he is not the only bad actor. mr. sauer, please elaborate on the ripple effect that social biden said social media companies are killing people by failing to remove covid information -- >> our evidence indicates that that was a critical watershed in the biden's administration pressure campaign to attack facebook, in particular, but also social media campaigns in 2021. what you see is these amazing emails right after that july 16th 2021 comment from president biden that they're killing people from very senior facebook executives. desperately scrambling to get back in the white house's good graces and assuring them that we will do what you want. we will carry out, quote, what's white house expects of us on misinformation going forward. >> it has a incredible effective chilling speech in american. are you back. >> the dawn of time expired. the chair now recognizes the

gentleman from massachusetts, mr. lynch. >> thank you mister chairman. first of, all i want to correct the statement my colleague made. my objection were to the substance or content of the two witnesses that are now departed. my objection, as i stated before, was that if we are not going to observe the right to cross examine witnesses that are providing substantive testimony before this committee, then we should strike that. that is the practice in federal courts when much is at stake. it is a device that ensures that when people take a stand and offer evidence, that we can test the veracity of their statements. that is not the case in this hearing. the chair and the majority have

chosen to allow witnesses to offer substantive testimony here. they have allowed them to scurry away, not face cross-examination or the testing of the statements they have made. it is ironic that we begin this hearing with a pledge of allegiance. we all stood and put our hands on our hearts and looked at the flag. then turned around and we eviscerated the very process here that would protect rights, protect the integrity of this hearing to elicit the truth. to test the statements and testimony that are brought before us. this is such a departure, such a departure from regular order and the usual process of congressional hearings. i am compelled i'm compelled to

the strike to ask to strike that testimony. it is not worth anything if it cannot be tested. the american people should not be able to rely on the information if it is not tested, not truthful. mister chairman, i resume my motion to adjourn. iraq for a recorded vote. >> the gentlemen moves to adjourn. the committee will suspend lionel we prepared to have the clerk all the royal. >> mister chair, may the time be suspended, please? >> it is suspended. >> the clock is going down. >> now, we will have the time for mr. lynch. >> thank you. >> we will get the clerk out here and we will call the vote.

>> mr. jordan, point of inquiry. >> the gentleman from california is recognized. >> mister chairman, i have testified before committee, even during the two years i was out of congress. you and i have been here for more than a decade together. have we ever cross-examined a current u.s. senator who testified before any committee that you and i were on? >> no, we have not. >> this is debating the point of order. >> this is the point of inquiry. >> we will call the roll on the gentleman from massachusetts -- >> mr. jordan? >> mr. jordan when snow. mr. issa. mr. ax about snow. mr. massie? mr. massie with no. mrs. stewart? miss stephan? eric missed a final vote snow. mr. gates? mr. gates votes no.

mr. johnson louisiana. mr. johnson of louisiana votes now. mr. armstrong? mr. armstrong for snow. mr. steube. mr. steube votes no. mr. bishop? mr. bishop votes now. miss came? eric missed came up with snow? miss hageman? miss hageman votes no. miss palace get, mr. lynch? yes. >> mr. vintage votes yet. >> miss sanchez. miss sanchez votes i. and miss wasserman schultz? miss wasserman schultz to its eye. >> mr. connally? its economy both high. mr. garamendi? mr. allred? miss garcia? miss garcia votes i. mr. goldman? mr. goldman votes i? mister chair, how my recorded? >> miss plaskett, you are not reported. >> miss plaskett both i.

>> mr. stewart, you are not recorded? mr. stewart votes no. >> all members voting? >> kirk roll report. >> mister chair, there are seven eyes and 12 knows. >> the motion fails. the gentleman is recognized for the remainder of his five minutes. >> point of inquiry -- the gentlelady is recognize -- >> mister chairman, i think we need to and confuse the record. sometimes i hear you talk about mr. landry appearing as a former member of congress. sometimes and he saying he is the louisiana turning general. >> those are both true statements. >> but in what capacity was he testifying today? >> a former member or an elected state official? >> he was testifying as a

witness in front of the subcommittee of the weaponization of government. the gentleman from massachusetts is recognized for the two minutes and 17 seconds of his testimony. the gentleman from massachusetts is recognized. >> mister chairman, i should get a chairman of what capacity he was clear? >> the capacity as a witness in front of our committee. that was his capacity! >> attorney general -- >> the gentleman from massachusetts is recognized. >> any state official -- >> the gentleman from massachusetts is recognized for the remainder of his five minutes of questioning. >> mister chairman -- >> regular order. mr. seligman, in missouri versus biden campaign the witnesses today who have now departed claimed that a february in 2023 department of homeland security threat bulletin somehow harm to them by warning that online disinformation could lead to real physical threats. i ask unanimous consent to introduce this february 7th

2022 national terrorism advisory bolton -- >> without objection. >> mr. seligman, this warning obviously was not far fetched as evidence by the events of january 6th. members of extremist groups like proud boys, both keepers, and three percenters did not hesitate for calling for perpetrating violence on the purpose of false and misleading election fraud narratives. we need only remember the chants of hang mike pence outside of this u.s. capital. i would also underscore that more than 60 lawsuits brought by president trump and his supporters, especially rudy giuliani, following the president potential election failed by because they lacked evidence to support them. professor seligman, do you agree that false or misleading narratives about the substantive election fraud would lead to cause of violence around elections? >> yes, i do. >> professor seligman, would you -- the witnesses that were sitting

next to you seem to think that it is censorship to warn that online disinformation could lead to election violence. could you walk us through how disinformation could lead to the election violence? >> yes, mr. lynch. if 100 million people see a false claim about voter fraud, election interference, on the social media website some number of those 100 million people may become outrage to a degree that they are willing to commit acts of violence. that is exactly what we saw in the aftermath of the 2020 election. these false narratives, false statements of fact about the integrity of the election in 2020 were propagated. millions, hundreds of millions of people saw them. some saw them and took matters into their own hands and committed acts of violence at the members of this committee have seen. >> mister chairman, my time is expired. you. back >> the gentleman yields

back. i point out that last congress a democrat committee that congress for a year and a half again nobility the republicans to cross examine one single witness. we do believe the ability to cross-examine is important. we also believe in following the custom -- >> that is false. >> you couldn't question witnesses at a hearing? >> you are not allowed to question witnesses at a hearing? is that what you are saying? >> mr. sauer, you deposed dr. fauci. >> point of order, mister chairman could you clarify that statement? i have found incredibly hard to believe. >> point of order, that is not a point of order. >> what basis of fact -- of saying that assertion? are we just here to allege wild allegations that have no factual -- >> mr. sauer -- the gentlewoman has not been recognized. mr. sauer, you deposed doctor fauci last fall? in that deposition, you asked him the question, is it important for people to have access to both sides of the

debate so they can assess what is good information and what is bad information? do you remember that question you asked a doctor fauci? here was his response. dr. fauci said, well, you know, it depends. if information is clearly inadequate and statistically not sound, there can be a danger in people who did not have the ability or the experience to understand. mr. sauer do you forfeit your first amendment rights if you cannot to get information from bannon formation? >> no. >> that is not how the first amendment works is it. can you turn your mic on if you can, mister sauer. the first amendment only for those people who have the ability or experience to understand? >> no it is for all americans. all 330 million of us, is that right? >> that is correct. >> not just for the special people. not just for the supersmart people like dr. fauci who worked 40 years in our government. not just for them, it is for all of us, right? >> absolutely right. >> maybe you don't know the

difference, sometimes, between but it's good information you still have your first amendment liberty under our constitution. >> both to hear into speak, exactly right. >> when you depose dr. fauci, how many times did he happen to say he didn't know i didn't remember? >> i do not recall or variations there of 174 times. adding in variations of i don't remember at least 212 times. >> wow. smartest guy on the planet couldn't remember 212 times. >> he couldn't remember things, including things that he told the national media, quote, i remember very well. he would say 16 times i do not recall details of that meeting. you were at the top of your class at harvard rally school. rogue scholar is that right, mr. sauer? >> i submitted a biographical statement. >> i look at your biography, that's pretty impressive. that high? you did a lot of depositions, he depose a lot of people, is 212 times pretty high? >> i have taken dozens of depositions, i've never seen anything like.

including in this case for other federal government weaknesses frequently profess an inability to recall. >> a guy who told us all of these things, you know, the smartest man on the record, he has set a record. the highest you ever saw in couldn't recall, don't remember. >> i have never seen anything like it. >> page four of your testimony you talk about the censorship enterprise. you give a bunch of facts and numbers here. he said that twitter disclosure 84 government officials communicated with them -- or as mr. seligman said, gave them suggestions. 84 federal officials gave twitter suggestions on tweets and things to take down. 45 officials in the federal government told the same thing to facebook. is that right? >> they discussed disinformation in censorship with those officials. >> a handful of federal agencies handed over 20,000 pages of documents and the communications they would have with these big tech companies. again, just suggestions, according to mr. seligman. white house officials were involved in the suggestions to the social media platforms. >> that is conservative, it is

probably higher. >> fbi agent elvis chan testified the fbi sent encrypted list to social media accounts sometimes containing hundreds of accounts in your elves in each list to platforms for censorship. 1 to 5 times per month. 500 times -- 500 different email -- or websites and everything else that they are sending to their social media platforms. the fbi. mr. seligman says, that is not a problem with the first amendment. that is the suggestion. >> over the course of years that have been occurring. >> the censorship consortium thinks the government officials, social media platforms boasted -- 859 million tweets. 21,897,364 tweets on tickets as misinformation. that right? >> that is correct. >> you learn this in your discovery in your lawford, so. for >> the massive violence and censorship observation has done

6.7 million engagements on social media. now, let me just ask you this, where most of those targets towards conservatives? >> virtually everything we have seen in evidence, so far, or at least the vast majority we have seen so far is conservative, right leaning, speech. >> you'd be just that rage. i read your testimony. if you would be just as outraged if it was the other way around, right? >> same here. same here. the first amendment, again, is not just for some people. not just for one political persuasion. not just for the, so-called, smart people like dr. fauci. it is for 330 million americans. that is how our constitution works. is that right, mr. sour? >> every single american. >> i thank the gentleman for his answers. >> mister chairman, i have a unanimous consent requests. >> the gentleman from louisiana is recognized. >> seek unanimous consent for a letter dated 2021 by louisiana attorney general jeff landry where he described all political violence in calls for

an end to that. i asked respect for all political viewpoints. >> another thing we cannot examine because he is not here. >> you can examine it. it's a document. >> examine him for what he wrote in the intent behind what he said. >> i would just point out that that is unanimous consent for documents. we have the document right >> here mister chairman i would ask unanimous consent -- >> mister chairman mister chairman i have a unanimous consent request. i have a unanimous consent request. >> the gentlewoman is recognized for unanimous consent request. i have a unanimous consent request to enter into the record the miriam records definition of salacious. which says arousing or appealing to sexual desire or imagination, lecherous or lustful, so that my colleague from louisiana will not misuse that when describing the testimony of our colleagues here in congress. >> as senator schmidt said

earlier -- i would ask that it be entered into the record, mister chairman. it is the document. >> i said outrages, i will withdraw. >> i don't think the gentleman's objecting. the gentlewoman from florida, miss wasserman schulz. it is recognized for five minutes. >> thank you mister chairman. this is our third hearing. unlike the previous two i found it ironic that the -- mr. sauer, record request shows that you worked with the dark money political arm, the rule of law defense fund. they also indicate that you took part in this part, quote unquote, wargames on how to respond if trump lost the 2020 election. very quickly with a yes or no election is that correct? -- >> yes or no? >> the answer is yes? >> no? yes or no? you worked with the republican attorneys general also changed and it dark money political arm

defense funds, record requests show that you did. to confirm that i have an official state email that points your involvement in these political efforts. i ask unanimous consent to enter into the record. >> without objection. >> mr. sauer, please make sure your microphone is turned. on >> the answer to that question is yes, mr. zeller? >> that is not what i said. i said that you significantly miss characteristics. >> mr. cao remind you you are under oath i have just entered into the record, i have a copy of an official statement where he responded to a message on these board games. very specifically. okay, mr. sour, the rule of law about recruiting people to march in the cap on january 6th. to quote unquote, stop the steal. could you play that for us place? >> [inaudible] okay.

okay. it's also, you can see that recorded message by me. i must say, mr. sour, when you planned -- okay. let's move on past the audio. when you planned with these groups, it was certainly no game. but it definitely resembled the pictures. this is an excerpt of the audio call. the same dark money groups held at least 30 meetings for senior staffers, including you during the trump 2020 presidential campaign. even though i'm sure you know that missouri law bar state employees from using state resources for political activity. missouri lawmakers were wise enough to make it illegal to weaponize state government facilities for political purposes. or in this case, to subvert america's democracy. approximately how many of these political meetings did you attend while in your office and using state resources? before answering a little reminder that your fifth amendment protection against self incrimination do apply here if you need to use that. >> none of the meetings i attended were political.

i attended one meeting by zoom that discussed legal issues only. so everything you said about the character -- if i may. >> i am reclaiming my time. attorney general staff members also attended one of these wargames meetings on january 5th, 2021, on the very easily insurrection. mr. sour, did you attend or participate in this meeting on january 6th, 2021, and can you share with us what wargames you discussed? >> i was unaware of that meeting. i actually am not sure of the many referring to. >> more bluntly, mister sauer, did you violate statue 36 point 157 by using state resources unofficial time to collude with multiple groups to prevent americas peaceful transfer of power? >> absolutely not. >> thank you for finally bring it wouldn't be for us that has personally weaponize the government. mr. sauer, did participate in war game meetings with the dark money group, the republican attorneys generals organization. given what we know and just heard, clearly my republican

colleagues would support further investigation into this matter. we have evidence. this is a state email suffix. it was during the time of day during the work hours. so i move that the chair issues and subpoenas to mr. sauer, requesting any and all correspondence relating to their political involvement in the january 6th insurrection in dark money groups, while using state funded resources. that's my motion, mister chair. and we need to hold the time, please. >> yeah, all the time, just a second. you have to roll the time back by about six or seven seconds. >> okay. the gentlelady has moved issue a subpoena. we will have a roll call a vote on that, and the gentlelady will suspend while we get the clerk prepared for that vote.

>> i make a motion to table. >> the gentleman has made a motion to table. the motion to issue a subpoena. as the clerks are getting ready, let us sort this out. >> that's fine. >> i just want to point out there tabling the motion so that we can't get more information that shows that mr. sour weaponized the government and violated state law. >> we have a motion. >> by colluding with a motion. to overturn a presidential election. >> the motion to table is not debatable. the clerk will call the roll. >> mr. jordan, mr. issa, mr.

massie, mr. massie bushes. mr. stewart. mr. stewart votes yes. mr. fanatic? mr. gates? mr. gates votes yes. mr. dawson of louisiana? mr. johnson louisiana votes yes. mr. armstrong? mr. armstrong was yes. mr. steube votes yes. mr. bishop? mr. bishop both yes. miss candidate? miss hageman? miss hageman votes yes. miss muscat? >> no. >> this mosque about snow. mr. lynch? miss sanchez? >> no. >> miss wasserman schultz votes no. mr. connolly? >> nay. >> mr. connally for today. mr. garamendi votes no. mr. allred? miss garcia? >> name. >> miss garcia vote nay. >> mr. goldman? >> no. >> mr. goldman votes no.

>> the clerk will report. >> mister chair, there are ten eyes and seven nose. >> the motion carries into this table. >> reclaiming my time, mister chairman. >> the gentleman's reclaiming her time. >> i think we made it clear that the republican majority has no interest in investigating violations of regard for meant. they just tabled a motion inflation demonstrate that. i would ask with rain my time, i think he was ready so that we can play. thank you. mister chairman? can we play the video please? >> is that video ready? >> okay. i guess it's still not working. it would be nice if we get the audio visuals working here in the committee. this hearing is fixated on a

red herring. studies show conservative voices are more prevalent on social media. we need to make sure that we are getting to the bottom of the weaponization of the federal government. but this committee is only interested in selectively doing that. as evidenced by the fact that the republican majority on this committee squashed getting us more evidence. and what i have behind me, i've entered into the record to prove that this witness, mr., sour weaponized good the government and participated in violating missouri state law. >> the time is expired. >> in politicizing a trying to overturn an election. >> the gentlelady's time is expired. the gentleman from california is recognized. >> thank you, mister chairman. i'm going to try to return to the subject as much as i can, of this hearing. are you familiar with the case in california, disputing the governor's order for universal ballots?

>> no, congressman. >> okay. well it, oddly enough, i was the plaintiff. so oddly enough, the governor then went to legislature and got the authority to have universal ballots and the case was dismissed. isn't part of free speech, our first amendment, the right to redress? >> that is correct. to petition the government, exactly. >> and petitioning the government has been widely considered to be, including to make cases before the federal court. when you believe that the constitution is being violated, or your free speech is being violated. or due process is being violated. those are all consistent with what we would broadly say is the first amendment. >> correct. >> and for the record, the first amendment was incredibly short. and if you read it in its

purest since, you would say that congress shall make no laws respectively. and because it only says congress, that it doesn't appoint anyone else. has our courts, including our supreme court, under 200 plus years, have they ever considered it that narrow? >> no, congressman. >> so isn't it true that they basically consider censorship of free speech very broadly to include intimidation by federal, state, or local government authorities. and that right? >> yes. intimidation and retaliation, among many other things. >> so it was earlier called a suggestion by the federal government, the vast power of the federal government which could evening to the irs in this case. that kind of suggestion has historically been viewed as intimidation, consistent with this relatively short statement about the right of free speech. >> that's exactly right.

there is overwhelming evidence in our case it contradicts the notion that these were mere suggestions from federal officials. it's completely factually baseless to state that. >> so you earlier testified that the vast majority of this was one-sided, and came from government officials who wanted to take down things which disagreed with the government in the place at that time. which happen to be the government of joe biden, correct? >> who worked. >> so what we really have here is something similar to historically the irs, if you remember that era. that's not the actual case name. but what you have is the power of the executive branch being used to reduce the opposition or the redress, or the free speech, or the communication of people who might disagree with what was being put out by the executive branch, which happened to be a democrat president.

>> that's exactly right. we see not just interference with free speech, but interference with the attempts to organize for political advocacy. >> now, is this an opinion? where are these indisputable facts based on literally minions of events? >> the evidence is overwhelming. and we have submitted and extensive evidence to the subcommittee. >> so what we are dealing with here is tangible evidence that the other side of the aisle seems to want to talk around about the changing of what would have been public opinion if public opinion were freely allowed to occur without intervention by the federal government and candidly, agents on behalf of them, including private entities that were paid to be part of this program. >> that's correct. and you do see a concerted effort to change the subject. >> so i would like to use the remainder of my time to give you an opportunity to speak to

some of the personal attacks that were just made on you if i could. >> very briefly, i would note that all the questions that came from the other side there were misleading in the way they were characterized. they mislead my involvement. there is no suggestion anything i did was before the 2020 election was inappropriate or involved in misuse of state resources. i categorically deny that, that is false. it is misinformation. however, i recognize the numbers right to say misinformation, because you know what? that is protected by the first amendment. contrary to what mr. seligmann is suggesting. >> i very much appreciate it. and hopefully, we will return to the debate that allows both sides to speak without having personal attacks on their character. and i yield back. >> the gentleman from virginia? >> the truth hurts. the gentleman from virginia. >> thank you. you know, i've been through a lot of hearings in a lot of panels. and i must say. i find it disconcerting that we

are not able to ask questions of two of our witnesses. if they are here to simply prove and present their thoughts, and their idol opinions, so be it. but if they are presenting themselves as quasi-experts on censorship, i think we have a right to question them. but even if senator -- if they aren't here. i think it's important to know that every single witness of the majority took part in the effort to overturn the 2020 election. and all three of them have interconnecting relationships. very conveniently. the email sent to state attorney generals. >> just in the clock forming while we get that going.

>> i think the chair. >> i don't think that's it. it's email from mr. sauer. mister chairman, i don't understand our technical problems, but mr. sauer sent out an email to states attorney general. >> start the clock again, if you could. okay. gentlemen, continue. >> okay. and he asked for responses by 12 nine and 1:00. mr. seligmann, this email was signed by john sauer. isn't that the gentleman to your left? >> i believe so.

>> when donald trump lost a 2020 election, mr. sour was working for then missouri attorney general smith, who testified here this morning. and they work together to find 16 of the republican state attorneys general, including attorney general landry. who is running for governor. to join them in a micah to overturn the election. now, his team followed this case december 8th. and the supreme court rejected it three days later. why did the supreme court rejected it? >> the supreme court rejected it it, didn't issue an opinion explaining why it rejected that. so i can't speculate about what was going through the minds of the justices. but i can tell you about the legal flaws and the complaint, that rendered that decision correct. so the state of texas sued other states, including the pennsylvania, michigan,

wisconsin, and arizona, for allegations that there were flaws in the election in those states. and the state of texas claimed that it was injured as a state. because the alleged -- somehow undermined its own sovereign rights to the electoral college. and that is a radical and unprecedented claim that no court has ever accepted. >> including supreme court. >> including the supreme court. >> they kind of dismiss it with dispatch. three days later. >> yes. it was three or four days later. they dismissed it unanimously. a point of clarification about that, there was a concurrency in the dismissal by justice thomas, and i believe justice lead oh. explaining they would accept the bill of complained because they think, as a matter of supreme court procedure, the supreme court can't just refuse

jurisdiction. and they went out of their way to say they would reject the claim on the parents. >> the allegations on the lawsuit ranged from claims of illegal voting to accusations about dominion voting machines, now the subject of a civil defamation case with fox news. it is called claims in the lawsuit, dangerously insane. why might fox news call this kind of lawsuit dangerously insane? >> the factual allegations that they were referring to are demonstrably incorrect. and have no basis on reality, whatsoever. it was apparent at the time, as well. this was not something that just became apparent in months and years after those allegations came to light. >> well, it's certainly comforting to know that we have a panel that includes three

people who are involved in a lawsuit that has been declared dangerously insane by none other than fox news reporters. that is a comfort. i thank you, mr. seligmann, for your testimony. i yield back. >> the gentleman yields back. the gentleman from utah, we recognize -- >> i am curious, just as a sidebar, were you embarrassed by what happened at stanford law school a few weeks ago? >> sir, i'd like to clarify that i am -- >> in regards to the suppression of free speech. >> so i'd like to clarify that i am here on my own behalf not on behalf of stanford. >> i understand that. i'm just curious. i would imagine he would be embarrassed by that. are you embarrassed that you are here with the -- are you familiar with gdr, these german stops a secret police. >> generally, yes. we know they used censorship in order to maintain and control

power. they are one of the most impressive and powerful forces we've seen in our modern world. i would like to quote some of their objectives, and some of their tactics that they would use. the aim of the stopped saying it was to switch off the group or private citizens by hindering positive media, including pressuring newspapers and other media. would you be comfortable with the government easing those kinds of tactics and orders to suppress thoughts, views, and policies? >> if your question is whether i am comfortable with the american government using the tactics of the east german saucy, the answer is no. >> thank you. mr. sour, do you see any difference fancy replaced tactics and government suppression of the individual expression on social media? >> make sure your microphone is on. sorry. >> there is a very strong analogy to be drawn there and

it's based on overwhelming evidence. >> i see no difference at all. >> it's a very close comparison. >> i think it's an incredibly close fear comparison. i would reemphasize, including pressuring newspapers and other media. in order to hinder any public exposure to their thoughts, views, or policy positions. there's no difference at all. >> that's correct. >> let me give you another example. we are talking about the east german stop sea in the tactics they used. another one, conspicuous visits to homes workplaces to citizens would be aware of and intimidated by their presence and power. we had a journalist here, who was not a conservative journalist. he was here for a matter of a few hours, talking about the weaponization of the federal government, and during that time, the irs showed up at his house.

something that the secretary treasury admitted only happens, so far she knows, when someone is under investigation for fraud. and they needed a personal interview, that's the only time the issue they knew if someone visiting somebody's house. that happened while he was here testifying for our community. mr. seligmann, does that appear as an unlikely coincidence to you? >> i am not familiar with that. >> as i described it, does it seem unlikely to you? >> i am not familiar with this incident, so i can't comment. >> i've explained the incident to you. he was testifying before congress, and the irs went to his home. >> i have no idea whether it's a coincidence. >> mr. sauer, how does it appear to you? >> the timing is incredibly suspicious. >> it's incredibly suspicious. and i will quote again, from stopped st. secret police tactics, conspicuous visits to homes and workplaces so that citizens would be aware and intimidated by the presence of

power. i think my description to you is sufficient. you can make a judgment of that. >> again, i'm not familiar with the details. >> all right. i am surprised you wouldn't want to condemn that. i'm surprised you wouldn't want to say, you know what? as you've described to me, that makes me uncomfortable. that the irs would show up at someone's home while they are testifying before congress. >> as a matter of principle, government retaliation for the exercise of free speech is problematic, it's wrong. i have no idea whether that is the case. >> conceding that you don't know if that's what's happened, he would be unconfirmed that were the case. >> i am uncomfortable with violations the first amendment, yes. >> that is what we are talking about here. and i know you've seen on display, the emotion of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle. i am shocked that they don't want to condemn it. i am stunned that they don't ask the same questions we ask. how could they ask, you know

what, that's okay with. me the federal government is being used as contractors to go suppress free speech. they don't do it themselves, they instead pressure and intimidate and threaten individuals. there is no difference between that and with the stocks a secret police did. no difference at all. and if someone wants to stand and defend that, i will yield last seven sections of night time do you. i yield back. >> the gentleman's time has expired. votes have been called, the committee will stand in recess until a conclusion of this nine votes series.

>> welcome back to washington journal. as our spotlight on the podcast segment. my guest is adrienne ross, she's a host of democracy, a podcast she is the consortium for political process strengthening adviser. adrian, it will count. nice to have you. >> i'm so happy to be here. >> tell us about the podcast. and what it focuses on, and where the funding comes from. >> sure. the podcast has become a baby, a pet project if he will.

and it's an excellent opportunity for us, the consortium, to highlight what democratic strengthening is happening in 140 countries around the world. that is where the consortium works, in partnership with usaid. so the podcast is really an opportunity to give people a front row seat to history, to see how democratic strengthening happens on the ground, in these countries that are fighting for their freedom. in many cases, are standing up to tyranny. and they are doing extraordinary work. the podcast is an excellent venue to showcase what their work is. >> your funding comes from usaid. >> correct. from usaid, yes. it's a partnership the consortium has set up with an agreement with usaid. usaid in partnership with the consortium is able to work with local partners to strengthen democratic institutions. that takes on many forms. but i would be remiss without

mentioning that the consortium itself is made up of three equal partners. you probably are aware, it's the international republican institute, and the international foundation for electoral -- >> and i will remind our callers and our viewers that if you would like to call in and make a comment, or ask a question, you can do so on our lines of a party affiliation. democrats, 202 7 to 8000. republicans -- and independents, -- i know that your focus is international and overseeing these. but really, the elephant and when we talk about democracy strengthening is the attack on the capitol on january 6th. what are your comments on that? >> sure, absolutely. the consortium, depending on how you look at, it is not spending so much energy on democracy. we recognize democracy in united states is a work in progress, as democracies are everywhere. and sometimes, democracies have

a little bit of backsliding. i would say that is what we saw on january 6th. so while we don't work specifically in the united states, democracy is a worldwide, universal virtue that everybody really seems to be working towards. >> your second season of the podcast launched last month. you had a mini series, an in-depth mini series on ukraine. why? why the focus on ukraine, and what do you talk about? >> if you take a look at last season, we were able to do a tour of where the strengthening of teams is doing. some exemplary work. to do the second season of the podcast at this point, it really seems to be an opportunity to talk about ukraine and would've been a problem to continue talking about democracy and other nations are taking a break and taking an in-depth look at ukraine. >> and do you take a position on u.s. support for ukraine? and the weapons going, and is it enough? >> well, undoing take a position? we are here to strengthen ukraine's democracy and the

institutions that can sustain democracy and freedom. it's important to know that ukraine is already more than 30 years of freedom. the consortium is in partnership with ukraine and helping them maintain their institutions and sovereignty that they themselves have established. >> and one on the episodes in the first season was called democratic resilience. tell us about that. >> well, it's funny that you should pull that out. because that is our most listen to all the episodes we have live right now. it features the former ambassador of burma. and derek talks quite a bit of a democratic resilience. what is, what elements we look for when we talk about democratic resilience. how we get it, and also what the problems are that might hold us up to having democratic

resilience in this nation. >> i want to talk about an article in the economist. it says this, a new low for global democracy. more pandemic restrictions, damage democratic freedoms in 2021. talk about some of the issues that go into strengthening a democracy, what are the factors. >> sometimes the quality of a democracy is not always tangible but we know what are the initial factors indicate a democracy might be backsliding. and there are things that we hear about all the time here in washington. censorship, media transparency, transparency into our institutions. sometimes, democracies are on the backside before we even recognize they are backsliding. >> and what is the u.s.'s role in strengthening democracy overseas? and what is the benefits to americans for that funding or that effort going to other countries? >> sure. as you know, the united states

is a leader in democracy. we believe we are, and again, we know we have downfalls sometimes. our democracy struggles, as well. and so we offer a hand in hand support to partners and foreign governments when they're interested in working with us. to strengthen our institutions. well the state department ignored diplomacy role, diplomats and masters working side by side with governments. usa i.d.'d is more of the development work. and they are on the ground, with their sleeves rolled up, really digging into working with local partners. the consortium works alongside usaid in these nations to provide democratic strengthening. >> all right let's talk to colors. we have lauren in new york, new york. hey, lauren. >> yes, how are you doing? good morning, america. my idea was that i want to talk about --

basically the whole five weeks for that case. >> lawrence, how is that related to democracy overseas? >> so it has a lot to do with overseas. okay, we are going through the wars, back and forth. i was not even mindful of -- basis, or on the land. we are too busy to pay any attention to overseas. now we are on -- >> let's go to anthony and greenstown, pennsylvania. a republican. i, anthony. >> i, good morning ladies. i'm just trying to understand the role of media in other countries that are trying to promote democracy. i'm looking at our current situation in united states, where i think the media has a pretty significant bias towards

one side. and i think it's degrading our democracy here in united states, that we don't have a media that holds what they are supposed to hold as true to power. the hunter biden laptop story, for example. the russian dossier for donald trump, which was promoted heavily by the media. and other countries, the media must be the base of truth in order for democracy to flourish. i was wondering if one of you could give your opinion but what we are in our country, and our media? >> okay, sure. adrian, you actually had an episode called the power of the president, medias role in democracy. >> yes, we do. and before i address that episode, i just want to point out that c-span is an exemplary place to look at democracy in action. c-span, as you all are aware, i'm sure, was the first

organization and the only organization get cameras into the u.s. chamber in the 80s. we applaud the ability you all have here to have public discourse and criticize the government, and talk amongst yourselves. these are all hallmarks of a strong democracy. but you're absolutely right, and we do address media, and the power of media in the episode of the previous season. and i implore everyone to listen to it. i think he will really get something out of it, it will answer all your questions. i thought media abroad, that is. and you know, it's difficult. we have a long established media cooler here, particularly in washington. but in the united states. other countries are just sort of getting up to speed, and able to have a functioning media that can effectively criticize or look at what the government is doing. so again, the consortium can work in local areas with local partners, to help strengthen

that transparency and access that the reporters may have. in some cases, reporters are just learning how to effectively cover their governments. because they haven't had access to those institutions in many years. >> just to show people, this is from reporters without borders. this is a map they put out every year for global score on press freedom. adrian, can you talk about the trends of press freedom around the world? it's getting worse, is again better? >> it depends. it's a country to country basis. we know for a fact that in places like russia, access to true information in the media itself is a closing space. in ukraine, we will hear on the podcast, mayor klitschko, who is the mayor of kyiv, a former heavyweight boxing champ that many people are aware of who he is, and what he's done. what he says, true information, access to information is more valuable than tanks and weapons in the situation. and she talks about the trouble

that he has had to try to get your information out. reporters, every year, i think we have had an uptick in the number of murders that reporters are suffering. there is quite a crusade among reporters to try to get anchor information out in public's hands of many countries. >> let's talk to surge in new hampshire, independent line. >> what i said and -- he didn't the democrats they should have a visa to lead. the united states is neither of the whole world -- they are the vt -- the politicians, the haitian politicians they wanted to kill the president.

they didn't allow them to do are. the democratic administration, they didn't kill the president. each week they make a possible suspect, of the prime minister. the democratic rules better than the democratic rule. for you criticize to -- >> we have an episode on haiti. absolutely we do. again, i urge everyone to listen to it. the pocket estes reverie one. we are heard in 140 countries around the world. 42 cities and regions in real ukraine that are listening. in the case of haiti may have a couple local parties on the podcast.

they talk about what the situation has been on the ground in terms of security, democracy, what they're hoping to achieve in the nation. that features the president of the international -- eye veteran of the united nation. who has spent many years and small times of haiti. he is really able to give and eloquent cap on what the situation on the ground is in haiti. what we look looking at in terms of democracy and how haiti can move forward past the turmoil they have experienced the past few years. >> democrat, good morning. good morning, ladies. thank you for taking my call. a truly love watching your show on tv. i don't want to put the young lady on the spot but i had a question and a common. in the united states we have never established democracy overseas in any country we have established a lot of right-wing conservative dictatorships

around the world. one that i was wondering about -- the business boondoggle of domestic policy is israel. in my opinion, israel is not a democracy. it is an apartheid state. that is part of zionism that wanted a country only with jews. they do not want any non-jews. i would add that what they are doing to the palestinians that they occupy the country, they are a pressing them. no one is ever going to the gaza strip to see how they're living. they are totally locked in there is no communication with the outside world it is totally dependent on any aid they get from israel that we give to israel. >> let's get a response. >> i appreciate your opinion.

you are certainly entitled to that. again, this is a democracy. we are happy to have discourse and debate. i will say that the united states does not establish governments. i think that is something to point now. we strengthen democracies we only do in places where partners want that democracy, that freedom, and that establishment of independents themselves. we can't do it without our local partners. it is a hand-in-hand relationship united states is not sitting out governments in foreign lands. >> it is women's history month, it is march. can you talk a little bit about women in government and leadership positions? how that can strengthen democracy? >> i would love to. i would be remiss if i didn't mention that we had the late secretary madeleine albright on the first season. we were so lucky to have her! again, if anyone was interested in the subject and they want to cherry pick an episode that might be a good one to go and look at. she is, and everyone knows, was

a wonderful voice on equal rights for women. she has a pretty funny story to tell on the podcast, as well. we know that around the world women make up half of the population. in many cases they don't even represent a quarter of the political engagement. that is something that we have seen a push for among governments that are trying to make that evolution towards democracy. >> let's talk to david, who is in canyon lake, texas. independent. hi, david. >> hello. talking about democracy, i would like to speak about democracy in our country. we have to keep our principles? the president was voted in as president for a reason. to protect the people of the country. not countries 6000 miles away, you? now they have their problems. we have immigrants coming in.

homeless people are even taking care of. -- i think biden is not really doing his job. he is not taking care of the people in the country. >> what do you think, adrian. >> i think democracy is at work in progress. that may sound like a throwaway line but it is true. it's not a silver bullet. if you look at the democratic resilience episodes that we talk about, ambassador mitchell talks about if there was one thing i could say to everyone that would help you have stronger health care, and stronger economic systems, more equal rights, not perfect equal rights but we are striving towards trudeau writes -- i told you that one thing with democracy when you say that that was worth the struggle? again, in the work in progress. the greatest thing that the market offers us freedom. >> i want to ask you about misinformation, disinformation, and social media. what are your thoughts? i believe you did an episode on

that, as well. >> and we did. in fact, i know it sounds like we only have presidents on but it's not true. the president of the international republican institute is an extremely frivolous, lies man who talks about the trouble with disinformation. really we see it as a leverage the governments often used to manipulate and encourage people to do things that may not be in their best interest, or something that they are aware of. we talked a little bit about the situation in ukraine. i think ukrainians in particular are really struggling right now to get true access to information. in many cases they have turned to social media rather than mainstream media or broadcast media. another thing to point out has in ukraine the media channels are in alignment. they are all broadcasting the exact same information. they are not able to do independent programming right now. the important thing to know is that in the united states in

particular, that is what we are talking about, you might want to take a little extra time. if a headline looks a little strange. google the how headline. your prerogative find 20 other stories about it. you can cross check and see what you as a human thinking person who has a vote in this country what you think is true information or someone who may be trying to get inside your head in turn the truth around. >> let's talk to kevin in cabot, arkansas. democrat. hi kevin. >> hi, thanks for taking my call. i have a little bit of a critical question about democracy as a virtue, which is what you earlier stated. i am a philosophy professor, a history professor at a local community college. i teach american history survey courses where we cover classical liberalism pretty in-depth. the founding fathers of the

united states greatly influenced by john locke and other philosophers from europe, they were very critical of democracy. they considered the rule of the mom, would lead to tyranny. one of the head pocketful quotes from the founding fathers is 51% of people in a democratic society can vote away the rights of 100% of the people in that kind of society. not only gonna, but what do you think of the role of multinational corporations? and democratic societies across the world? how much influence can they get in the democratic system? i appreciate your time. >> thank you, professor. i will encourage your class to listen to the podcast, as well. i think there is a lot of meat there for discussions for your classroom. i will say the opposite of

democracy, if we are keeping it in basic terms, is autocracy. i think when one person horrors all the power, information, in money in many cases -- the alternative to that of the democracy. if you are looking at the two systems i don't think there's any competition. democracy will run out everything all-time. as far as multinational companies, i think it is an opportunity for countries to engage with multinationals. i want to point out that in the case of sudan, if you listen again to the first season you will hear the democratic strengthening of individuals in the harshest of conditions. they weren't able to work while we reported the podcaster several days because the rainfall was so heavy. sudan is just at the very beginning of establishing a democracy we hear this conversation from the democratic strengthening team which talks about offering

sedan a variety of options. things that other countries do, not necessarily the united states but what other countries do and how other companies operate. they help sudan with whatever sudan decides it's best for the sudanese. it's not necessarily about the united states putting u.s. virtues, values, and principles on other nations. it's really just about lending a hand. let's talk to donald in new york new york. donald, good morning. >> good morning. how are you doing. >> i'm good. >> i have a simple question, you're talking about democracy overseas? >> yes. >> that is a fascinating subject. my question is this though. how can you promote democracy overseas when you are losing it here? >> that your question? all right so i think we have already addressed this but i

will take another shot at it, democracy is very fragile. we recognize that. democracy is also working progress. we know around the world that democracy is backsliding. it's been a difficult ten years. the last couple of years you all experienced covid-19. you understand how many of your rights, if you will, have been infringed upon for the health of your fellow citizens. we recognize that there are factors that change. there are different variables that influence how strong a democracy is at a certain moment in time. again, it is a work in progress. >> k is in new york new york, democrat. good morning, che. >> i am going to address a similar issue about our own democracy. i have been following some indexes i think a track 60 factors. you mentioned a couple

education, health care. but the indexes that i've seen show that around number 37 on the challenge of democracy. top ten that are typically listed. i believe denmark is number one canada i believe is around number five. i think americans are into a state of two luge and thinking america is the greatest democracy in the world. we simply are. it's not true. i am a democrat. i believe the reason we are is four very different regions than the republican gentlemen who just called in. nelson he said we are co-leader. it's hard we are a leader we are now classified from democracy as autocracies as a challenge democracy. our poor educational system,

poor health care system, many other factors. i was just saying i feel like things are being skewed a little bit. i would like your comments on how we can be a leader for democracy. we in fact also challenge. >> the greatest thing you can do, i think you will hear this throughout the podcast, almost every democratic strengthening experts we speak with talks about doing something in your backyard. we have a guy in bosnia herzegovina who was inspired to participate in democracy causes father was murdered in the war. he talked about picking the garbage of off the street. just cleaning up your block of your neighborhood. democracies do not thrive on their own. this thrive when the citizens are participating in actively taking part in democracy. if you are concerned about the status of democracy within the united states the greatest thing to do is get involved in your neighborhood.

really, just on your street. >> william in chicago and why it. good morning. >> good morning ladies. how are you doing today? >> good. >> i wanted to go back and ask a question -- i think it gentleman earlier mentioned i guess he acquired the notion that you stated democracy did not remove leaders? i just wanted to get some clarification on that. >> you are talking about american policy overseas as far as creating democracies? is that what you're talking about, william? >> any narrative in which america does not supplant leaders or governments. >> removing world leaders? >> yes. the usaid is in implementing

partner on the ground. the best-case scenario is we are working towards, again, local partners make the best decisions for their nation. we cannot overstate how mature the democracy system is in the united states. it may be suffering some backsliding. we know that democracies are up and down. in places like sudan, haiti, they are really just starting at the bare minimum. their local partners are looking for guidance, information, how does this work? . how do you vote? how do you hold freeman for her elections? things we take for granted here in the united states because they have been in place for so long. again, i think there is a lot of opportunity in the podcast. if y'all are driving around need something to do i think there are things to learn that everyone can benefit from. >> you did a two part show called navigating the northern triangle. about navigating the root cause of migration.

can you tell us about those? >> it is impossible, again, to talk about democracy and freedom of that looking at hotspots if you will within the united states. sorry, abroad. we mentioned some of those we talked about ukraine but the northern triangle is another place that has experienced unbreakable's in democracy we see what the u.s. idea terms bright spots right now we see places like el salvador and guatemala. incremental and important ways to try to strengthen their own democracy which will strengthen their own economy in democracy. hopefully maintain more. giving them freedom is awkward to the -- something that has been air root drive of migration. >> scott is in cody wyoming. republican line.

scott? ? on >> i'm a longtime viewer. could you comment on the contribution that the commonwealth of nations has contributed to democracy? thank you? >> you know anything about the? the commonwealth of nations? >> no i don't. sorry. >> brad is in winthrop maine. democrat. good morning >> high i wanted to ask about the electoral system. what one is it that works the best? the one that i think we are missing out on a maturity beast a majority requirement which really does have frank choice voting which does require a majority. at least we do for a few elected offices, congress what

influence does that have on the outcome of democracy? that is my question, if you understand the question. >> i'm not sure i understand your question entirely. i will point out and countries like latin america as we discussed they use a different system instead of the electoral college and what we have in place here. they often do a general election and then a second runoff. it is literally number by number. in some countries number one number to become president vice president. i'm not sure that that is what you are asking. it is an interesting thing to look at. how different countries manage their election counts. >> the different types of election systems. do you have an opinion on how that impacts voters persist a patient and voter confidence in the results?

>> no not on individual systems, and fact. going back here original question about misinformation we know that better educated, better read individuals. people have access to organizations like c-span here make better decisions in the voting booth. in terms of voter confidence, the more transparency that's available, the more transparency on the candidates, the more accessibility that people have to those candidates to ask questions, to have their thoughts heard and filtered by the candidates. we know that there is better turnout we know -- i'm still here. i'm sorry, we already spoke with you, brand. to that answer your question? you have something furthered and? >> what about the difference between a plurality and a majority? and said of having elections

based on the most votes without a majority, would it make a difference? doesn't make a difference? in the case of ukraine they have a referendum vote. they themselves cannot change their federal law without voting on it as a nation. again more than 140 countries. i think that plurality versus majority just depends on what nation your in. nations have chosen their system and what they feel best about. >> let's talk to steven and san diego. independent line. hey, steven. >> what i want to discuss a is to democracy, the notion of democracy on your part can be a by's. there were two professors of

russian history in new york. i took a class under one of them. doctor paul average, years ago. for some nations, for some groups of people, democracy is just not a natural thing. and never seems to work now. that is a part of russia's history. and he will know they went from the czar to the soviet times and now they have putin. i just listened to someone in the philippines. a young man. who lost family members during the time of ferdinand marcos. yeah ferdinand marcos's grandson is in power now.

this young person, his grandson, it is x dole knowing the virtues of an autocratic leader who was backed by the previous autocratic leader of duarte. a lot of times we, as americans, interfere in other countries for the sake of democracy. and we mess the world up. >> i, stephen. let's get a response. >> i will point out that more than 70% of the world is living in an autocracy right now. we covered democratic backsliding quite a bit. i think we have talked about how places like the philippines ab inflow in terms of their democracy. generally speaking, the united states is not putting democracy on other nations.

we are in a democratic strengthening team. the consort him does this work with partners and we help them to execute the decisions that they are choosing for their nation. >> aurora, colorado. independent. good morning, ronald. >> miss ross, we cannot sweep january the 6th underneath the rug. we had an autocrat as a president. we had a coup. we cannot sweep january the 6th underneath the rug. please comment, thank you. i don't disagree with you. again, i realize i am repeating myself, democracy is a work in progress. the united states is not perfect. this is our message when we go abroad. our democracy is not perfect. we are here to partner with local partners and helping them achieve what they want for

their nations paul is next bergeron, michigan. hi paul >> according to article six of the house intuition we are republican form of government, can i cannot find democracy anywhere in the constitution. where there is a democracy anywhere in the world, including the united states. >> is there a democracy, an actual true democracy, not a republican form of democracy? >> democracy is defined as for the people by the people. as lions individuals are voting, as long as individuals are taking place they are supporting local officials. they're taking part in town halls that is what i would constitute a democracy. >> going back to the question

about immigration and migration, how is democracy or the lack of democracy impacting that around the world? >> i'm sorry, the northern triangle? >> not just the northern triangle but immigration and migration in general? >> immigration is a huge to stabilizer of a stable nation, right? we look at the case of ukraine for instance, we have a situation where immigration and migration was brought on by a war. we are also seeing destabilizing factors in things like economic disparity. people who are really struggling may leave their country to find greater opportunity. food instability is another driver of migration. i will point now in ukraine it is the largest refugee crisis we have seen since forward to. more than 90% of those refugees are women. >> let's talk to kevin in princeton, indiana. democrat. good morning.

>> adrian, i just have a question. my concern is that we need to be, in the united states, an example to the world rather than, sometimes, tearing down our system and that-ing our media tear down our system. trying to score political points, which they do every day. i think that we need to try to uplift the world and show them what democracy should look like. i think that january 6th in part was due to the feeling of integrity being lost in the election system that is what triggered it i think if we could somehow rebuild that integrity i think that would be a example for the world to follow and we can be electing people that were dead like what happened in pennsylvania -- or people who were incoherent and actually now are in mental hospitals because they weren't stable enough when they were elected and everybody knew it we just can't be doing things

like that. that shows that the system is flawed voting people in that are supposedly going to represent you but they are not capable mentally of doing so they know when they are elected or they are dead and that is craziness to me we have to get integrity back into the system. >> all right, kevin. any comment? >> kevin that sounds like an op-ed waiting to be written. we live in a democracy, fortunately, where we have freedom of speech. you are able to say that publicly without worry of repercussion from your government. i know being in a democracy takes a lot of work. having the ability to say that out loud and share that with your neighbors getting the neighborhood on board with your thoughts and aligning for more secure and free and fair elections in your state is the first step to take. >> adrian ross, host of democracy the pockets. thank you so much for joining

us.

joining us from miami florida, kimberly leonard of insider. one of their correspondence, one of the things she responds on is the governor of florida, ron desantis. kimberly, welcome back to the program. recent interview he's making the rounds with the book tour. what is the stage of his interest for future political office? >> governor rhonda santa fe certainly doing everything that candidates who are interested in running for the presidency should do. he has his book tour going on his spending a lot of time in a lot of these early voting

states. he's getting a lot of press and he is continuing to sign bills into law here in florida. all of the steps that you are supposed to take, he is taking. he is continuing to make his way to the top of the gop and still seen as trump's top rival at this point. although he hasn't formally declared what is the message he is selling at this point? >> desantis is getting people the chance to get to know him. more with the book he was saying what he's about, where he grew up, what he's interested in. he is fraught of introducing himself, introducing his family. even though he got a lot of press around covid and some other policies here, some of which are pretty controversial many people don't know a lot about him. this provides an opportunity for him. it also provides an opportunity for his rivals, as we have seen. >> how? so >> while you saw trump try

to define desantis before he has a chance to define himself. he hasn't officially announced he's running. he was not really expected to announce until probably even june. he has the luxury of time that many other entrance into the race might not have. you've seen some of those attacks from trump trying to portray him as a phony. someone who is hiding something there is no evidence for any those claims but you know trump, he is ready to get down in the dirt right away. >> is it fair to say that even before political ambitions came up that both the governor and trump at least on some level supported each other as far as what they were doing in their respective offices? >> to a certain extent. at insider we actually created a timeline of the two's relationship with interesting that trump actually endorsed desantis when he was running for the u.s. house back in 2012 at the time trump hadn't even entered politics themselves.

desantis was the one in office. when trump decided to run you didn't really see desantis offer any full-throated support for president trump. when president trump -- he saw desantis really get behind his agenda. you saw him get behind bill such as the drain the swamp act. following president trump's messaging at the time i would say that trump then endorsed him when he wanted to run for governor it helped a lot he ended up willing the governor c when trump was not reelected i would say that that was when things started to fall apart a little bit more. trump was not president anymore. desantis was governor. he had of foil in joe biden in the white house. we really saw him play that up. >> kimberly leonard is our guest to talk about rhonda sanchez and his political ambitions. if you want to ask questions

democrats it's 20274 8000. -- independents -- we have set aside a line for florida evidence if you want to give us your perspective 748 8003. also texas at that line. kimberly leonard, governor desantis winning reelection largely in florida. what is the mechanics as far as how he hopes to reproduce that on a nationwide scale should he decide to run? >> what's interesting about him deciding to run this time as he didn't seek trump's endorsement at all. they didn't purell ease he, was running on his own record. one of the main things that desantis did differently that a lot of republicans weren't doing during the midterms as he was running on a very specific list of accomplishes in voters had a list and they can the opportunity to say whether they agreed or -- not with many republicans running an anti-joe biden

campaign and anti-democratic campaign. he was able to put his record out there in florida he also tapped into a lot of communities that had turned away from the gop or might be becoming more conservative now. the latinos supported he supported to santa. counties in florida such as palm beach, miami-dade, that are typically democrat majority counties. they went for desantis this time. plan think there is a lot that is changing in florida because so many people moved here from states that dealt with covid policy differently. it seems that they moved here and then they supported what governor santos had done, especially as far as pandemic policies were concerned. >> the governor did a recent interview with peers morgan about a lot of different topics. one of the things he was asked about, wanting to describe differences between him and former president trump. i would like to play you a

little bit of that interview and talk to you about it afterwards. >> i think there are a few things. the approach to covid with different. i would've fired somebody like fauci. i think he got way too big for his britches. i think that he did a lot of damage. just in terms of my approach to leadership, i would get personnel in the government who have the agenda of the people, those who share our agenda. if you bring your own agent and, you are gone. we are just not gonna have that. no daily drama in the government. focusing on the big picture, put points on the board, i think that that is something very important. you have not been sucked into responding to any of the taunts. is that it delivered? strategy >> i'm not following it. i get talented and attacked every day. you've seen some of that. to me to just background noise. it is not important for me to be fighting with people on social media. it is not accomplishing anything for the people i represent. we focus on knocking out

victories day after day. if i got involved in the undertow i would not be able to be ineffective governor. i do not think it is something that makes sense for me. >> there is a bit of the compare and contrast. i want you to put your own reporting into that what the governor said. >> first of all i want to address one of the things he was talking about. he doesn't get caught up in the drama and so forth. that is definitely the case. they are very insular, the to santa circle. the keep things tie. they keep things from leaking. it is something that has worked for them so far. i will say that desantis has definitely been trying to get under trump skin ever since he won reelection in florida. he may not have been directly saying things like, well i have enough drama in my administration or i am a winner in your loser but he was doing things that already signaled a lot of the arguments that he made right there in that interview. for example, there was a press conference that did a roundtable about covid vaccine

skepticism. it was in palm beach. that is very close to where trump lives. he is in west palm beach at mar-a-lago. he was already working to contrast his covid policies with that of former president trump by just being present the subliminal message was there. the point was taken. certainly maga world recognize that. he held another press conference where it dominion lawyer representing a roundtable with him. he praised her abilities, so forth. that got under maga world and under the skin of president trump. there may not be these direct attacks similar to trump where he is making all these claims he definitely has been working to do two little taunts and i'm. is that something that i noticed because i'm in florida. a see how the govern operates. i see how he is -- he is someone who is always up

for a fire. whether it's against disney, liberal prosecutors, so forth. how he's gone about to fight until now has been a little different. it's only recently we have seen him become more vocal, which is really interesting. >> he also used the phrase, no dearly drama. i suppose that that was a quoted? >> absolutely. when trump was in the white house there was a lot of intrigue and so forth. i think that is probably going to be true for whoever is in the white house. it depends who you have surrounding you and what you do with the staff when they leaked information and so forth. the desantis operation is really tightly held. having said that there are still folks, over the course of governor desantis's career, he has been a politician for a long time. there are probably people who have. stories to tell about time with the governor. those are the kind of things that would be coming out in the primary which could be drama fodder. this is how it goes, right.

during alexa season. >> let's hear from brian he is in michigan. kimberly leonard with policy correspondent. brian, good morning. go ahead. >> good morning, pedro. good morning kimberly. all tie in real quick. i'll try to be short and sweet. i served under 16 captains. i had to look at. up i served at the highest level. i served under gentlemen captains, all types. by far the best captain of all that made the most right decisions on everything i don't know if ironically bring him home to meet my mom. he was hard-line. let me tie this interview about leadership. if we could name one policy, one legal legislation or anything like that that -- we keep bringing out former president trump. to santa's, who discussed, it does tie in.

i have asked a lot. i'm an independent an independent minded from the start from high school. i don't get on one side of the aisle or the other. never have. -- >> got a point, collar. what's the question? >> i'm gonna tie it in here. name one policy, he brought them up every morning. name one policy that, over author, trump advocated for in the united states that was so bad? i'm not talking about his style -- got, the point brian. kimberly, go ahead. and >> i think voters have different perspectives on what constitutes a good or bad policy. that's one of the nations so divided. on everything from the tax law to immigration policy and so forth. there is a lot of division on those types of issue news. those are the differences that

show up when you have another presidential election and voters get the opportunity to weigh in and decide how they want to future of the u.s. to be. >> jerry in palm bay, florida. a republican collar. go ahead. >> good morning, kimberly. how you guys doing? it really, you look good this morning. i just want to touch base and let everyone know that may as a florida voter i am a staunch trump supporter. the way i see that after everything trump has been through with the media and whatnot he supports deserves his other four years. i think desantis will be a great leader in the future. i wouldn't vote for desantis even though i want him to be my governor i would like him to be president in the future. >> this is something i hear a lot from florida voters.

i'm here in florida to, down to miami. they say, hang on a second. is it his turn? they feel like let's keep governor desantis here a little longer. as a reporter a cover a lot of trump rallies and voters and you are echoing something that i hear a lot. and one of the thing to hear more when i go to other states are there are concerns among republican voters that former president trump might not be electable because he lost in 2020. that is my ear governor desantis saying in that pierce morgan interview just call me whatever you want as long as you call me a winner. he was trying to draw that contrast there. having said that it is going to be a brutal primary. i think what we saw in the last week is just a fragment of how ugly it is going to get, frankly. can we talk about decisions to governors making as governor and how that could affect him either way if he decides to run for president? >> in terms of policy he is

supporting? >> in particular with the parents right bill proportion it is going to be expanded and other things, as well. there's a lot going on in florida. first of all the legislature just sent a voucher for all -- what people refer to as school choice to the governor. that is something he wanted to do. anyone in florida who has kids can send kids to a private or religious school instead of public school. there is an immigration measure. illegal immigration measure that is making its way to the governor. he will be trying to run a very similar vein as trump did pretty aggressive against immigration. you do have policies being considered in school. very controversial ones. formerly known as the parental rights and education act. that is what a lot of critics call, don't say gay. it limits discussions about gender identity and sexual

orientation in the classroom. in an environment where families are very different than they used to look a while ago more openly so with sane six parents, nonbinary teachers who might be gay. going into a classroom. some of them are very nervous about what that is going to mean in terms of how they talk about their limes, how they talk about -- you know, having regular conversations and so forth. that is something that has been more controversial. something they are looking to expand under this session. >> this is randall, from ohio. democrat lined. go ahead, please. >> i. i just wanted to say i disagree with what governor desantis's statement just a few minutes ago about anthony fauci. i think dr. fauci we was trying

to get the word out about the coronavirus other than that of natalie governor desantis. i think she makes a lot of sense i think you have a better choice for republicans or possibly nikki haley. because trump has been tainted by all of the things that happened, the attack on the capital, things like that i just wanted to say that i appreciate dr. fauci and all he did for u.s. citizens. >> randall in ohio. kimberly, anything from that? i -- the doctor fauci -- there are people that have different opinions on how he

did at a leader for this country. his role is traditionally bipartisan he was a big supporter of former president h.w. bush's hiv initiative across the globe. he had been a public servant for a really long time. there are some people who are so grateful for his service to our country and what he did to help inform people. there are others who see him as a bogeyman who kept the country shut down, one of lockdowns and all those are the things he is going to be a punching bag, certainly, when it comes -- we have seen that with house republicans. probably in this forthcoming election. two years from now, i do wonder, maybe a year and a have. one of the election? next year. how much people are still going to be thinking about covid policies versus how much they're thinking about things like inflation, banking crisis, recessions and layoffs and so forth. that is why it's really difficult to make predictions

now about where people's priorities are going to be just because so much can change. just in the course of a couple of months >> shelby in tennessee independent line, hi. >> hi, yes, i would like to say i hope americans do not forget all that trump did. you know from the beginning of thought he was -- he didn't have all his ducks in a row. i think there is something wrong with him, deeply wrong with him. he's a danger. i would like to see, hopefully, before my life is over, a strong woman come in president. it is time. it is way past time. give us a chance. we are strong, we are smart, we don't take noble.

what we are seeing from republicans, they have -- mccarthy was a big mistake. >> kyler, we will >> i was gonna ask, do you see yourself supporting nikki haley? >> she is no longer with us. i apologize. >> yeah, out one of the things looking at polling now, despite everything that has happened with former president trump, he is still the leader of the party. still surging in the polls. something that would destroy other politicians where they would never consider having a future in politics again you see the opposite with trump. you see a rounding around effect. that is probably one of the reasons he was surging in the polls last week. there was this expectation that he would be indicted. similar to what we saw with the documents at mar-a-lago you would think that people would step away and say, okay, this is too much. really we see the opposite

happening if that continues he's going to win the primary. we will see if it does continue. >> former president trump from his weekend rally, the rally that referenced iran desantis. here is a portion of that. >> florida has been successful for decades. in fact, probably add or more successful as it is now. when a man -- you know, you get elected, there is no quid pro quo. get rid of that word. remember those words? quid pro quo with the perfect call and made -- when you are getting a guys so he gets the nomination because of you. he wins the election because of you two years later the fake news is up there saying, well you run against the president? will you run? he says, i have no comment. i say, that's not supposed to happen. i have no comment? no. so i'm not a big fan.

>> probably knew that going in he was not a big fan. but those comments as to what he attributes rhonda santa's's success? >> if desantis runs, which, let's remind everyone he has not officially declared but he will see it as a betrayal. the thing, is usually if there wasn't so much baggage around former president trump you probably wouldn't have other republicans into the race the fact that we are looking at, potentially, seven different people in this primary shows that there are a lot of republicans who believe they have a shot. or trump has weekend in some way. to trump it sort of like, well, wait a minute. this is mine. typically you would be differential to the leader of the party. that is just what normally would happen he has some resentment about that he thinks, basically, he made governor desantis he is owed loyalty. i think you and i both know covering politics for a long

time that there is no such thing as loyalty in politics. we did a story recently at insider where we looked at jeb bush and marco rubio. they ran against each other in a primary. it was very much this interesting dynamic of this dude are becoming the master. folks who run against each other who our allies may have been friends. mentors who were close. this is how it goes must people assume, look, if you have someone ambitious, younger, they want to go for, you should not assume that it is yours for the taking. >> he wrote a recent story about governor desantis talking about the death of his sister at the age of 30 there was c-span footage of his sister appearing at then representative ron desantis's swearing in. talk a little bit about why that's important including what the governor revealed about himself. >> i live down him. florida used to be a correspondent in washington. i live down to florida for a year and a half. one of the things i noticed about the governor's he doesn't really talk about his personal life very much. he often appears publicly with

his family's children and his wife. but he doesn't really open up very much about here are lessons my dad taught me growing up, here's something my grandfather said. you know? the type of things you might see from joe biden. someone who really opens up and creates these personal stories. when i read his book, the courage to be free, i was eager to fill in a lot of the blanks of desantis's life. i knew he lost a sister when she was only 30 years old. he didn't mention that in his book. he mentioned that he had a sister but not that he lost her. he's she died of a sudden blood clot. it was very tragic. he ended up opening up about it to pierce morgan. as part of our story we included the clip. the his sister was in town for his swearing in when he was swearing into the u.s. house. these are the kinds of pieces when you are in a primary, running for president, people want to get snow you. they want to hear your personal story. they want to feel connected to

you in some way. that is what voters gravitate towards. >> here is julie from rhode island. republican line. go ahead, please. >> thank you for taking my call. i heard you mention a little bit here in there but do you think trump was too trusting of the people around him at the beginning? every button seems to have had trumped arrangements and durham. they are going after him after all of the things but he has never been convicted of anything. two people tried to indict him. they are trying to indict him now. do you think, maybe, he trusted too many people? -- because he is not a politician, he should keep his eyes open more. >> i think i spoke to a lobbyist recently who said everyone knows in politics it is a dog-eat-dog world and you

sleep with one eye open. that is the way to think about your time in politics. it is really hard to know who to trust. there are ways that politician trying to figure it out. one of the reasons why desantis might have such a closed circle is because they worry about the trust aspect. -- you never really know what can come out or how you will come across to different people. my understanding is trump like to pick people against each other sometimes, you know? there is that aspect of that, as well. he certainly feels like he should be the nominee. the others who are challenging him are being disloyal in some way. he especially feels that with desantis because it's his mind if he had never endorsed desantis for governor desantis never would've been governor. he wouldn't be launching a presidential bid, most likely, this summer. >> one more call from jeffrey and alabama.

democrat line. jeffrey in alabama, hello? >> a lot. >> you are on. go ahead, please. >> i got no question for that lady, i just got a comma. ron desantis will make a good governor -- know he will. because he is the ryan camp in the mcconnell camp. no, he will make a bad president. we will never vote for him. i am a democrat. i swapped over from the democrats to republican for donald trump. i do not have known desire for ron desantis or nikki haley. she can get no more than five or 6%. i do not listen to news people. i watch c-span i get all my information straight from the horse's mouth. i don't listen to the all new people could y'all it nothing but liars. >> we've invited the first not to talk about governor desantis. the fight of what he said, kimberly. go ahead. >> i think it's fascinating --

what he just said, that is something that the trump campaign definitely seems to be honing in, andre? all this time desantis has filled himself as someone who supports president trump, someone who is like trump. a lot of the headlines have described him as trump without the baggage. trump with the brain, et cetera. i have written articles on how the two men are very different. trump is trying to show, no. i am one thing. he is the establishment. i think that is the message he will take with him into the primary. >> our guest writes for insider. you can find her work a business insider.com. kimberly leonard serves as a policy correspondent based on a miami. kimberly leonard, thank you for your time. >> thank you.

>> round discussion on politics campaign 2024.

joining us this morning is jim -- politics editor with the washington examiner. we also have chris layman who's the d.c. bureau chief with the nation. gentlemen, thank you both for being here. chris, let's begin. last night, former president held his first campaign rally of campaign 2024. he talked about polls and there is a new poll out of showing him gaining a lead over the undeclared, possible candidates as well as those that have declared. in the last month, he was at 32% high with governor of florida. now, he's leading 41% over desantis with 27%. what do you make of this? >> i think a couple of things. one is trump is a member sir of culture war victimhood. to talk about his pending indictment in new york is really powerfully rallying the

republican base behind him. it's a very familiar kind of a litany. he said it during the russia investigation, said it after the 2020 election in january six. he said in the wake of january 6th. this is a really by now a really strong familiar message to republican base. the trump movement is in significant ways a cult of personality. and they are rallying to the center. it's not that surprising. i think the other thing to note is the setting of the rally. which was the side of the notorious disastrous federal raid on -- that symbolism i think is by no means accidental. >> jim mantles, same question to you. >> i think part of it is that governor ron desantis is in an unusual position for a challenger because part of his appeal is that he supposed to

bottle up would republican voters like about trump while discarding the distractions and the personal vendettas and the things that maybe they thought god in the way of trump doing some of the things. that they wanted him to do. but that makes it difficult as a challenger because you can't really have the same over attack on the person who are trying to defeat. you have to show trump a certain degree of deference. trump has been able to basically behave one like a conventional candidate and who like trump which is anything but a conventional candidate in terms of the links to which he will go to attack an opponent. whereas desantis's had to sort of heading back. he hasn't really found his footing in terms of how you carry with trump. >> he is being framed by the former president before he has a chance to frame himself. he hasn't declared his candidacy. >> i think that's the other thing. essentially, as this undeclared but all but declared candidate. he's trying to wage national

campaigns with the remnants of his state reelection campaign. augmented by some super pacs he doesn't really fully control. in some cases, may not even really be affiliated with him. that's kind of challenging. i think that trump has really found that a lot of things that would really and anybody else's political career. he's been able to figure out ways to use them to his advantage. it was thought when he got into politics that his real estate, reality tv star mantra of there's no such thing as bad publicity would be disastrous in politics. while it has a times hurt him, for the most part, he's been right that he's been able to parlay that into a great deal of success. at least within the republican party. >> chris layman on the democrats side, the president is considering another run in 2024. you have this by the associated press. by the 2024, question mark, most democrats say no thank

you. >> i think there is a lot of non certainty surrounding biden reelection campaign. he's 81 years old. i think that's a central issue. i think -- it's an interesting dynamic. i think the republican party is actually kind of afraid of this face. the democratic party speaking of the establishment doesn't like its face. there is this great tension between base on the democratic side -- we've already seen the president attack to the right on issues like immigration. on crime here in d.c.. he vetoed them a series of crime reforms in the district. this is already got the democratic base jittery about what might be some old biden.

a kind of a centrist democrat who is not going to be strong confident leader in the general election. >> you have this headline about his vp tethered together. biden harris move towards 2024 reelection run. inside the article they talk about her poll numbers are not high either. >> it's true. i think there hasn't been a breakout moment for the vice president. she hasn't really seized any issue in the traditional up -- vice presidents often have a sort of policy concentrations. she's been given some but they haven't really gotten much traction. to be honest, streaking performances have been erratic. i think there isn't really a sense of much of a inorganic

base behind them. >> can the biden harris ticket beat president trump. the former president in 2024? >> i got out of the prediction business in 2016. there are so many variables rate. i mentioned the prospect of an indictment in new york. there is a grand jury in georgia that's been when -- there are the ongoing justice department investigations of the former president. there is gonna be a lot of the kind of distractions that trump doesn't want or he can feed on. at some point, if he's only talking about the fact that he's under indictment from all these different jurisdictions and the daily news cycle is driven by that. i don't know, we haven't seen anything like that in a primary cycle before. >> following up on women's point in the point you made earlier. the president has seen his numbers go up.

that while this there is this talk of indictment. but who, where, with whom, which was to provoke or is he seeing the numbers go up. what about independent voters. we had a caller earlier say talking to republicans only saying the president can win. the former president can't win. >> that's sort of the dilemma. a lot of these arguments about the weaponization of the justice system against conservatives that may resonate with republican base voters. but doesn't really get you anywhere with the wider universe of voters particularly voters. some softer republican voters who didn't really help a lot of the more controversial republican candidates in the midterm elections. even though they voted in fairly large numbers for some of the more conventional republican candidates. that does become a concern in that a lot of the things that could benefit trump in the republican primaries wouldn't really set him up to be in the strongest position that a general election. and that he may not be able to

perform the same pivot that perhaps other candidates would. that they might run certain themes in the republican primaries. the new talk about something else if they were to win. trump does seem to be very much stuck on a certain set list. i think that's really what the whole theme of that race is going to be. committee will come to order. china recognizes the ranking member, miss plaskett, for five minutes to questions. the -- he's on his way. committee will suspend.

there we go. apologize to our witnesses. we had some votes. turn to the ranking member for finance the questions. >> thank you very much, mister chair. before the break our colleagues were concerned and accused the democrats refusing to condemn something that we have no actual facts about. cases beyond our factual understanding at this time. what -- other than what republicans have told us today. thanks to a long and exhaustive examination by the january six committee, however, we do know for a fact of the january 6th was spurred by president trump. who used disinformation and violent rhetoric to egg on extremists and conspiracy theorists. senator schmidt and mr. landry the two witnesses who were dismissed before their extreme

and false claims. be tested under cross-examination. played an active role in that. they were a key part of the republican attorney generals association which sponsored -- urging people to come to the capitol on january 6th. that's what they were here for. in their role as attorney generals during that time. my colleagues attempted to play that call earlier but technical difficulties prevented her from doing so. so i have asked that we can play that now so that everyone can see here exactly what mr. landry and senator schmidt did and the violence and chaos that resulted. >> the defense -- the march to save america's tomorrow in washington d.c. at the ellipse and presidents park between easy street and constitution avenue and the south side of the white house. with doors opening at 7:00 a.m.. at 1:00 pm, we will march to

the capitol building and call on congress to stop the steal. we are hoping patriots like you will join us to continue to fight to protect the integrity of our election. former formation, visit march to save america.com. this calls pay for unauthorized by the rule of law defense fund. 20279653 -- >> we just witnessed what was just given to us right now. was real evidence. facts. we just witnessed our very real crimes and violence that erupted because of what these witnesses actions did. if they had been here, i've asked them about that. i want to know also and i yield time to see if any of my colleagues would like to condemn the violence of january 6th. not just the violence of all things that are happening in america but the violence on january 6th some >> does the gentlelady yields? >> are you can animate, yes or

no? >> yes. >> thank you. >> same here, we all have, on the record. >> no you all have not. and we know that. reclaiming my time. mr. landrieu's appearance before the committee today gave him free publicity. we know that he's running for governor. and the chairman's decision to use this miss him in his role as attorney general before questions means he can't be held accountable for the efforts to overturn the 2020 election. >> with regionally yield? >> not at this time. one of the things they would ask him about is other things that he was involved in with donald trump. as you can see on the screen, this is testimony given deposition of a general the attorney general barr. it states how that discussion -- about the possible opponent of special counsel to investigate allegations of election fraud do you recall any of that? and serious. i remember there were some discussions about special counsel. i forgot how this came out.

but i didn't feel there was any predicate or basis for naming a special counsel and i was supposed to it. i think there was a proposal made. i remember proposal being made to take a state attorney general being appointed. i want to find out. i thought that maybe a way to address that without just saying no. and it turned out a state law precluded. question, yeah? with that louisiana? do you recall? and sir, i think it was louisiana. i think with jeff ryan. mr. landry, was president trump's choice to be the special counsel to investigate allegations of election fraud. mr. sour, i apologize for not having pronounced your name properly before. yes or no. do you believe that the fraud impacted the outcome of the 2020 election? >> when i'm sorry, you have to hit the -- >> i have no opinion on that. that is totally aside from the evidence that we -- >> at this time, that's no

opinion? you don't have an opinion on whether there was fraud or not? >> i've never studied the evidence. i've never seen the deposition transcript. >> i didn't ask for the deposition of transcript. i ask you if you believe that there was election fraud in 2020. >> i don't have an opinion on that. >> thank you. mr. -- same question. did fraught impact the outcome of the 2020 election? >> now, without question. >> was there any evidence of fraud? >> there was no evidence of fraud in any amount that was remotely close to what would have taken to affect the outcome of the election. >> how did so many people come to believe that such fraud existed? >> because they were told that about people who should've known better. >> thank you, i yield back. >> gentleman's time is expired. yields back. china recognize the gentleman from florida, mr. gates. >> white house staffers are some of the most powerful people on the planet earth. oftentimes, they get the dispositive opinion on appointments to different positions with the federal government. they influence statements of

administrative policy. they initiated regulatory reform. they often have a significant voice on which assimilation that is considered an approved. mr. sour, i want to understand how many of these intensely powerful people who work in the biden white house were involved in this effort to -- even investigating regarding the desire to shape discussions on social media. >> at least 20 and very likely more. >> was there a ringleader of this group? someone who had pervasive and repeated efforts to try to coerce social media companies to shape the truth according to the biden white house? >> deputy assistant to the president rob flaherty and also andy slavitt. >> who is ron flaherty? >> he is the i believe the digital coordinator for the white house. his level is deputy assistant to the president. >> what behaviors of mr. flaherty did you observe that

you found troubling. >> we've seen many pages of emails between mr. flaherty and social media platforms. we relentlessly badgers them to increase the censorship of ordinary americans. free speech on social media. and he gets results. you see the platforms agreeing to censor things that are truthful. that do not violate their policies at the behest of the pressure of the white house. >> can you give an example of that? >> one great example of this is the tucker carlson a video that was going by a role in april of 2021. where mr. flaherty and other white house officials were emailing facebook privately demanding that it be censored. facebook responded this does not violate our policies. it has not been fact-checked but nevertheless, we are substantially deep using it in limiting its distribution are platforms. even though we haven't identified anything falls in it. even though it does not -- they had a positive

determination that it does not violate their policies. >> did you assess that facebook took that action as a direct consequence of the badgering coming from mr. flaherty and the biden white house? >> that is a compelling inference from the email traffic back and forth we obtained and discovered. >> did mr. flaherty ever request any reports from social media companies on specific censorship issues? >> very frequently. he was demanding that again and again. his study drumbeat was when he called borderline content. that the email traffic makes clear borderline is what they call it often true content. things like personal anecdotes. opposition to vaccination expressed in terms of political opposition. things of that nature. that is what he wanted to target. he was certainly asking for reports back. they were sending in by weekly crowd reports to the white house. they do that through the closer discovery period. last august in 2022. there was --

overwhelming effort to get them to check their homework if you will. to get them to report back. on how much censorship are you doing it is gonna meet our standards of the white house? >> an overwhelming effort. badgering social media companies. demanding reports from those social media companies directly to someone in the white house. as my colleagues on the other side of the aisle remind us, not all speeches protected. some of speech is illegal. did you see mr. flaherty constrain his concern to a lawful speech or did you often see this badgering and this demand for reports from entirely lawful speech? >> virtually -- i camera single instance of them going after unlawful speech. >> almost all of it was after lawful speech? >> virtually everything i can recall here was lawful for some protected speech those being targeted. >> we heard from the witness that the democrats brought today. that these were but suggestions. that of course the government should be able to make suggestions to social media

companies. what would be a response to that testimony? >> characterization of the mid-suggestions is contradicted by overwhelming evidence. calling flaherty for example mr. player discrimination suggestions is akin to think that the earth is flat or the moon is made of green cheese. >> of course, if someone sure those viewpoints, that would be lawful speech, wouldn't it? >> you'd be allowed to say that on social media and based on -- >> not of mr. flaherty were in charge. >> that is the difference. in fact, what happened was you had a day -- suppression of many views. including truthful views, political organization at the behest of white house officials and other federal officials. >> i would suggest, mister chairman, when you have these intensely powerful people with the ability to control so many things even a suggestion is coercive and problematic and where the the committee's review. i yield back. >> thank you for his five minutes. yields back. gentlelady from california, miss sanchez, >> i think it's interesting the last line of

questioning. the video that is reference, if i'm not mistaken, that he just much about tucker carlson. was on a replacement theory. and i think it's interesting that you want to make a bogeyman of mr. flaherty because not one of the emails from mr. flaherty or anyone else from the white house required or demanded or mandated any action by social media companies. i want to clear the record on that. >> what the gentlelady yield? >> time is mine. i would like to use it without interruption. thank you. my colleagues on the other side the i'll keep shouting that the biden white house somehow influenced a private company to take down disinformation in 2020. before a biden white house even existed. and chairman jordan wanted to make this script so badly that he wanted the two republican attorney generals who began this lawsuit come in and make five-minute statements where

they could make all kinds of wild allegations. and then he let them scurry away so nobody could ask them any questions about their claims. but i really want to focus on the fact that this hearing really isn't about social media companies and it's really not about covid deniers. it's not even about elon musk. it's about protecting former president donald trump. i'd like to spend a few minutes looking at what congressional republicans are doing to try to keep him out of legal trouble at. we have a video cued up if they could show that. >> trump administration in new york manhandled attorney alvin bragg's office is accusing free gop house chairman of trying to interfere in a local investigation as they renew their demands that he testify about his current probe of former president trump. jim jordan, chairman of judiciary committee going on conservative tv. to say he's asking the manhattan district attorney to testify behind closed doors for his committee. for a state prosecutor to testify before congress to lay out all of his evidence of

internal communications about an ongoing criminal investigation. in front of a bunch of allies of the very person that investigator might be trying to prosecute. it is what congressman jordan himself might call the weaponization of the federal government. >> alvin bragg five-page letter to jim jordan and the other chairman some points out that what they're asking for would-be interference with a law enforcement and the very quest -- and on lawful incursion into new york's sovereignty. something that has been true and obvious for every day of the existence of the united states of america. >> mr. seligman, the manhattan district attorney called chairman jordan's letter a unprecedented inquiry into a pending local prosecution. the >> trump hush money -- >> and said that it seeks non public information about a pending criminal investigation. which is confidential under

state law. can you please explain why it's incredibly inappropriate for congress to interfere and state and local prosecutions? >> any political interference in pending criminal investigations and prosecutions inappropriate. that's true of political interference. to the department of justice is prosecutorial decisions. it's true of interference by the federal government and to state and local prosecutions. fundamental principles of federalism which conservatives tend to agree with hold that state and local government is free from the interference of the federal government into these police matters. >> chairman jordan, apparently -- after trump's attorneys asked him and after trump himself claimed online that he was about to be arrested. why would benefit donald trump for congress to intervene on his behalf in this criminal action? >> it appears that the purpose and the motivation is to try to influence the manhattan district attorney into not

pursuing the charges that it has been publicly reported that he is pursuing. >> why is even the appearance of former president directing the action of members of congress dangerous to democracy? >> the rule of law applies to all of us. whether we're a former president or a merely a lowly law professor. all of us are protected by the procedural protection of the constitution. all of us are subject to the law without fear of favor. political interference into criminal prosecutions whether that's interference to -- that would otherwise not be brought. or interference to protect politically powerful defendants from cases that ought to be brought undermines the rule of law of democracy. >> to me, chairman tournament appear to be an intimidation tactic plain and simple. he's using this very committee to carry out that intimidation. isn't that the very definition of weaponization of the government? >> i see why you say that. it is inappropriate for a congressional committee to inquire into a pending criminal

investigation. >> i thank you for your testimony a. yield back. >> gentle lady yields back. a gentleman from florida is recognized. >> thank you, mister chair. mr. sour, early this week i questioned hhs secretary bucket -- before the ways and means committee. i asked them about a report put out by a private research organization called cochrane that found mass may not be effective in preventing covid. summarization didn't about-face a few weeks later. on january the issue the report finding there, is no scientific evidence or prove that mask work. and then on march 10th, they issued a report that basically said what we said before was not fully accurate. secretary -- claim that he had no knowledge of hhs or anyone in the administration pressuring cochrane to withdraw their findings. i specifically asked him that. he was under oath. i asked him if he knew if anybody in hhs had information as a related to that. from your experience, has hhs pressured private organizations to take a certain stance is

instance -- information regarding covid? >> yes, our evidence includes pretty extensive emails of senior hhs officials. including within the office of the secretary. involved in these kinds of pressure campaigns to engage in censorship. we also extensive evidence of sub agencies within hhs. which is described this detail in my written testimony including -- the cdc. >> the biden ministration and these emails much to the chagrin of my colleagues on the other side who say there's no evidence that mr. -- was working with facebook. he's emails that he put are actually part of your statement today. is that correct? >> that is correct. >> you have conversations here about content. you have conversations here about vaccines. you have facebook sharing attachments and a researcher with mr. fluttery. it mr. flattery telling them i think actually telling them what facebook should be doing.

i'll read a quick excerpt and then this is in the materials that you provided the committee. generally, i think some combo of the fallen would be effective. it's some kind of think that puts the needs in context folks, have seen in covid news panels. he's directing facebook of how they should -- give information. which i would say is disinformation but their opinion on a certain information. it's right there in your testimony that you've given here today. can you expand on that a little bit? >> sure, thank you for the question. we see email after email after email from the white house. from mr. flaherty, pressuring specifically facebook but also other social media platforms to take down disfavored viewpoints. the emphasis of those emails is on true content. the reason that the emphasis on true continents because he almost says this in so many words of one of the emails that the true content is what they

perceive to be doing the most to undermine the narrative that the white house favorite at the time. it's a viewpoint discrimination. targeting truthful speech. that they perceive to be the most damaging to the narrative that they're pushing. >> you have actually males from the white house as part of your testimony today. >> we have submitted those. >> i would it's -- already in the record. i want to bring people's attention to that. . as a relay so that, the surgeon general also pressured big tech companies to only allow on their platforms administration approved information about covid. could you go into detail about that? >> that's exactly correct. what we see is what's probably an orchestrated pressure campaign involving the surgeon general and the surgeon general's office. what their witness described in sworn testimony esther bully pulpit to engage in this pressure campaign that reinforce the pressure campaign that was happening largely covertly from the white house but also key points became very public for example may fit

2021. july 15th of 16 2021. you're very public pressure from the white house. behind the scenes, you have emails with the office of surgeon general. and the white house are innocents teaming up with the social media platforms to pressure them. to remove the information that they thought was unworthy up for some protections. >> i've only got a less than a minute. could you use your major viewer time to talk about the more inappropriate ways that the administration sought to control information related to covid and vaccines? >> yes, there is a whole series of the threats for my written testimony. you have the pressure campaign from the white house. all those private components. that was executed in as a said kind of and him than with a similar pressure campaign from the surgeon general's office. but also you see both extensive evidence of federally induced censorship out of -- under the leadership of dr. fauci. and also the cdc who we haven't mentioned today. the cdc both have a meeting

after meeting after meeting and flagging specific content. individual posts in large numbers saying be on the lookout for this. this is what we the cdc want you to censor. you see the platforms responding by kind of differing to the cdc and allowing the cdc to dictate what americans can and cannot say on social media. >> my time is expired. thank you for being here today. i look forward to working with you. >> gentleman yields back. china recognizes mr. many from california for five minutes. >> thank you, mister chairman. before we broke for votes, the issue from one of my colleagues came up. about comparing the administration with the german star sees. -- i'd like you to talk about this inappropriate comparison. >> it is an inappropriate and an accurate comparison. the allegations in the lawsuit brought by mr. laundrie and others is that the federal government corps social media

platforms into censoring content. there is been vague talk about pressure campaigns and emails between white house officials and social media campaigns. in federal court, yet to make allegations about what exactly the threats were. from the record of the case, here is the cybersecurity infrastructure and security agency. the emails that are cited by mr. landrieu's lawsuit as threats. cecil will not take any action favorable or unfavorable toward social media companies based on decisions about how or whether to use this information. cease and has or 60 ability to remove or at what information is made available on social media platforms. in the light of this absence of a threat in the communications between government officials and social media platforms. the lawsuit turns to other allegations of threatened action. it turns to two. the first of antitrust action against big tech --

companies. the second is reform of section 2:30. these are implausible bases for threats by the biden ministration against big tech companies. the reason is because there is a growing bipartisan consensus that big tech companies should be subject to more antitrust enforcement. for example, on may 19 2022, congressman gates was among a group of four bipartisan congress members who introduced legislation that quote takes direct aim at google and facebook's ad market do awfully. and so congressman gates introduced legislation that targeted facebook and google for antitrust scrutiny. i don't think that makes him threatening violation of the first amendment who -- google and facebook. as such that their decisions on moderation or some of the responsibility of congressman gates. similarly, on june 11th of 2021, chairman jordan introduce the protected speech act. which would have reformed section 2:30 to limit or

eliminate the immunity that social media platforms have for civil liability for content posted on their platforms. this to was a legislative proposal that is exactly the same type of legislative proposal about this lawsuit and republicans on this panel are suggesting constitutes a threat. i don't think chairman jordan's introduction of legislation constitutes a threat in violation of the first amendment. once we move past the vague allegations of threatening emails. look at what the lawsuit alleges. we see there were no threats and the challenge coercive action was legislative proposals that are been made both by republicans and democrats >> it's useful to note -- our friends across the aisle here continue to claim that

there is censorship. last hearing, i provided substantiated information and multiple studies that showed that the social media actually amplifies far right voices. more than left voices. including their false claims about election interference in their efforts to spread covid disinformation. if there really is a problem, it obviously isn't working. the select committee on the weaponization of government really missing the major weapon that was used by the previous administration. president trump of used the federal government, used his position as president and his office of the presidency and others in the administration to promote the big lie. that the election was stolen. there is no doubt that the january six committee proved

this beyond a doubt that that's exactly what happens. that is the example of weaponization that this committee should be paying attention to. and should be looking for legislation at that kind of weaponization. by the president of the united states to stop the lawful transfer of power in an election. in which there was no proven fraud. that that is where we should be spending our time. my time having expired, i yield back. gentleman's time's expired. you're recognized for five minutes. yield to mr. gates. >> i'm shocked to have to explain to a law professor that there is an obvious difference between engaging in the legislative process that is open, transparent, subject to our constitutional system, rather than having a ski white house staffers try to threaten social media companies under the auspices of some sort of allowed content moderation.

. >> a mr. -- the didn't threaten or chorus the platform. they attorney generals complain they lack a factual basis. you did mention, as i understand, it just last, week the district judge in that case denied the administration's motion to dismiss. doesn't that's and i'll meet the opposite of what mr. shelley testified? >> turn on your mic. is your mic on? >> our federal district judge came to the opposite conclusion. >> that conclusion is that the -- there is plausible, factually geisha, and in support of a legally sufficient legal theory. that this censorship scheme violates first amendment. can you summarize some of the allegations of fact concerning coercion and threats that you tended to the court to that conclusion? >> i preface that by saying

that in fact there's more than one way you can violate the first amendment. there's coercion, joint precipitation, there is conspiracy there's deception, there is pervasive entwined met, there are a significant encouragement. even if we hadn't allege threats, you would know way undermined the first -- but there is overwhelming evidence of threats. if i may, i could summarize some of those. >> maybe a little bit of time on those. >> one of the things we've alleges that the threats about the antitrust liability in section 2:30 -- those, on one side, are tied to demands for greater censorship. it's one thing for federal official to say we should repeal or replace section 2:30. it's quite otherwise for them to say, you better since their private americans we don't social media or we will take that action against you. it's the threat link to the demand. that's it violates the first amendment. the case was abundantly clear on this. the evidence that is

overwhelming. that's not all. we have all kinds of other threats. for example, in the -- it was revealed that congressional staffers have been flying out to silicon valley, privately, to meet with the social media platform, since 2017. bringing proposed legislation with them, to threaten them with adverse legal counsel if censorship didn't improve. mr. chan, the governments fbi agent testified, this wasn't effective. it made a huge difference. it was -- >> how many fbi agents did they say interacted with twitter? the numbers in the 80s, isn't it? 80 something? >> certainly the task force involves about 70 to 80 agents, i believe. there's another eight and san francisco office alone that are involved in these activities. >> i know your written testimony can taints hundreds of pages of accusations. you referred to yourself as a professor. now, your fellow at the constitutional law center at stanford law school, isn't that

right? that's >> correct. >> and you are not on the faculty at stanford law school. >> indeed. >> you graduated from law school in 2011. you are looked in resume suggests that you haven't had any job for more than three and a half years since then. i looked on looks us and i couldn't find any in which you -- can you name one? >> i've worked on legal teams that have prevailed at every level of the federal judiciary, including -- >> can you name -- >> tyson -- which is a case of the supreme court. >> heisson versus? >> it was a case of overall 23 class certification. it prevailed. >> what reason -- because you're not a -- do you claim to be a first amendment expert? >> i am an expert in constitutional law, including the first amendment, yes. interestingly, on the stanford website, it says you are an expert in election law. but you also have broad

research interest in constitutional law. it does amend chen first amendment. >> as many legal scholars, do i have a diverse set of interests. >> wouldn't it be squarely in conflict with the first amendment dispense -- just because it conflicts with the official narrative as represented by the district court? >> absolutely. the first amendment protects everyone. >> can you take the last few seconds i got and talk briefly about how the election integrity projects, and the morality projects, have moved to centering hole narratives? >> yes, i see the time is almost up, but there is a concerted effort that we see to sensor narrative level, or this contains hundreds of thousands of social media posts, and that is operated out of stanford university. >> this time is expired. gentleman from texas, mr. -- has five minutes. >> thank you mister chairman. when you came to the capitol today, did you go through security? yesterday?

>> yes. >> did you interact with capital police at all? >> i may have said hello to one of them. >> just over two years ago, one of the police officers you saw might have been one of the nearly 150 officers who were injured when the capitol was attacked by a violent mob, or one of the hundreds more that are still dealing with mental trauma from that day. that attack was organized, orchestrated, on social media. those officers lives were put at risk, and several people died in connection to the account on january 6th. are you familiar with the internet record agency located in saint petersburg russia? >> there is some evidence relating to aid in our case. >> are you familiar with? it? >> no, i would say that there is a -- >> it's a kremlin assets that uses fake accounts, bots, and hacked materials, to influence elections here in the united

states, in 2016, 2020, even 2022. that's not, my opinion. it's at the center of a 2018 doj criminal indictment for its efforts to interfere with elections that are political processes. do you know who is president of the united states in 2018? >> president trump. >> trump was in office. i know the attack arm -- to point out that our social media is being used to incite violence. and, bye for now after, who do want to undermine our democracy. despite that, as you noted in your testimony, the agencies responsible for our natural security are not requiring that content be taken down. they have flight debt. the decision has rested with those private companies. is that correct? >> that's correct. >> maybe the most agree just examples lets come out in the

series of congressional hearings we held about this, from a white house official, contact me in social media, social media company, was that trump white house which you note about a chrissy teigen tweet. saying that it should be taken down because it said mean things about the president. can you imagine that. do you think that was a violation of the first amendment? >> we haven't seen that tweet in our case. i'm not familiar with that. i would emphasize that for any -- >> for any elected federal officials to demand that content be taken down raises serious first amendment concerns. >> so you are saying that the trump white house raises concerns for you. >> i would say if any federal official, elected around elected, is communicating with social media platforms and demanding that content be taken down, that raises great amendment concerns. if we put in evidence of that occurring on the scale of hundreds of millions.

>> the issue here is that much of the discussions that we're talking about here occurred when trump was in office. there is a claim is a vast conspiracy led by the biden administration, much of its centered on the fbi in the last election. when donald trump was in office. i'm not asking a question yet. when the trump office was reaching out to social media companies, trying to suppress certain discussions, and the truth is that despite all the claims being made here today, that social media is being used to censor conservatives, the truth is that their platforms have repeatedly failed to prevent their own platforms from being used to incite violence, spread disinformation, and said the twitter actually changed its own policies to allow donald trump to repeatedly spread lies about the election. we have some examples of this that we'd like to put up quickly.

>> all the way back in may of 2020, six months before the election, president trump was tweeting that this would be over election. that there would be massive fraud and abuse, that 2020 will be the most rigged election in our nation's history. that content was not taken down. it was allowed to stay up. that doesn't sound like censorship to me. those decisions were made by private companies during donald trump's presidency. i don't have a lot of time left, i just wanted to ask you, as an expert, what does it do when statements like this, from head to states, are allowed to attack the very democracy they supposed to be leading? >> if they get influence peoples political passions, and one hundreds of millions of people see claims like this, and believe them, and believe that our elections are not free and fair, contrary to fact, some of them will take extreme action in response to that. that is the danger of misinformation. >> it was still allowed to stay

up. >> gentleman's time expired. >> take off the tinfoil hats. >> gentleman's time expired. >> -- it's recognized for five minutes. >> are you familiar with a lawsuit against president trump or he blocked people on twitter? >> yes. >> very briefly, as brief as you can say it, at what was the issue there? >> it's been a while since i look at the case, all speak from my -- so president trump blocked people on twitter, of course, as a private use, or if he had not been president, there be no question that he had the right to do that. so the question in the case was whether his taking that action while he was president, and therefore wielding governmental power, amounted to a violation of the first amendment. >> was there a particular issue of the first amendment that these were constituents who were trying to make their voices heard to the government. >> that's right.

as attorney general landry mentioned before, you know, the right to petition for -- its part of the first amendment. >> i think it's a very important part of the first amendment. if you cannot communicate with your governments, how do you get any redress? so i think it's a really you have to be concerned when constituents were trying to -- their voices get squelch. before i get to a particular instance of, that i want to ask you, mr. sour, how did the cdc, the surgeon general, and -- communicate with social media platforms to influence them? >> they didn't different ways, but you see a lot of email traffic that was not public at the time. they were censorship activities that were out of public view. >> cdc, what was the particular channel there? i heard that they had some

portal partnerships, tick access directly to twitter. >> that is correct, do you see facebook and twitter are offering federal officials privileged access to be privilege flickers of misinformation that twitter calls the partners support portal -- this is something the facebook -- the misinformation reporting channel. they assure you that if you go through this process, you'll get a very prompt response. will prioritize escalation of your concerns. >> so the government literally signed up as a partner with the social media companies? >> i think that's a very fair comment in our evidence. >> something i want you to tell us about if the governments have had influence in the morality project. can you tell that what that is, what they do, and if they receive taxpayer money? >> the morality project is a -- working hand in glove with the federal government. it's really just an extension under a different name of the election integrity partnership. we're talking about entities

including the stanford -- the university of washington center foreign foreign public. the atlantic -- the afar lab, collaborating closely with state, federal, and local government officials. and, collaborating closely with the social media platform, all at once, to engage in a mass surveillance, and mass censorship program for social media, the breadth of which is staggering. >> i imagine my surprise when i found out that the morality of the project was targeting my communications and social media, with my constituents. in june, they said representative massie you just cleveland clinic study to allege counter to cdc guidance, and previously infected people don't need the vaccine. they were concerned that the fox news interview had gone viral at 390,000 facebook views. finally, they said, whether or not this is a case in which scientific consensus is changed, and other words, whether this

is true or not, they said the natural immunity is a source of uncertainty, not only among acts of acts seen -- but among the vaccine hesitant. that uncertainty must be addressed by experts, and openly and responsibly communicated to the public, this virology project, working with the government was advised the social media companies don't want to censor. is that correct? >> that's correct. that's correct. >> here's what i find disturbing. not necessarily that my tweets were censored, but if this was one of the tweets where natural immunity is better than vaccine immunity, there were multiple studies supporting that. the subsequent, he departments of, studies a cup block too. what concerns me is a statement down here. this tweet cannot be replied to, shared, or liked.

so shared. when we do this, to constituents, are we scratching their first amendment? >> absolutely. the first amendment case that mr. seligmann was talking about in the second segment help that liking, comes in, re-post, and retweeting, in this case law indicating that these are first amendment protected activities. >> i think it's appalling that we have evidence that the first amendment was violated by the executive branch, particularly people trying to register government. yield back. >> gentleman's time expired, gentlelady from garcia's -- >> thank you mister chairman. >> so in 2021, a reporter asked president biden what his message was to social media platforms when it came to covid-19 misinformation. he replied, quote, they're killing people. and quote. i know that one of our missing witnesses reference that quote earlier, but i can ask you about those questions because he's been excused. now if you look at the chart

behind me, this represents a consequences of vaccine science denialism. the arrow points to -- win the vaccine became widely available needed states. the dent to the right of the arrow shows the continued rather covid on our country, mostly among i vaccinated people in texas in the southern u.s.. as you can see, 200,000 lives have been saved. that's how many people were killed. we use the same formula which means that 15,000 lives could've been saved and chairman jordan state of ohio, or 5000 left determines saved and chairman johnson's state of louisiana. that's a lot of people. most communities across the united states have been devastated by covid. you all know i represent parts of houston, and big city. i was born and raised in the

small texas world community. and duval county, where i was born, one out of 151 people died of covid. in a similar community, like lamb county, nearly one out of every 100 people were killed by covid. this death rate was one of the highest in the country, and three times that of the nation as a whole. and fox, across the country, the americas death rate has been nearly 40% higher than that of those and cities. this is tragically sad, and i believe that its vaccine denialism that cause these american deaths, only 56% of rural residents are fully vaccinated, versus 67% of their urban counterparts. in my home state of texas, it's estimated that 2000 lives could've been saved if we had reached the vaccination levels of places like vermont, or connecticut. -- plaintive most jones from the preliminary junction.

that motion claims that biden is -- the social media companies are quote unquote, killing people, and that this misinformation spread was legal censorship. i frankly could not disagree with you more strongly i have a simple question for you today. mr. sour, for you, do you agree that covid vaccines save lives? jussie esther no, please. mr. sour, i asked for yesterday, our two simple words. yes or no? >> so you are a harvard train, you pretend to be an expert here. are you cannot answer the simple question of whether or not you agree that covid vaccines save lives. >> gentlemen, can you get the microphone. >> can you answer my question, because it looks like our harvard colleague over there says he cannot? >> yes, i believe vaccines save lives. >> you also signed the second amendment complaint which criticized one of removing --

that says face masks do not work to reduce transmission, or protect against covid-19. bull journalist in texas did a lot of the work that apparently you haven't, and compiled 49 studies, all showing that masks effectively reduce the rate of covid transmission. mr. sour, yes or no again. do you agree that face masks spa stop the transmission of covid. >> i refer you to the -- >> server, yes or no. >> again, congresswoman. >> no questions, there. >> it is my time, i want to yesterday. that's too hard for you, they're not just move on. alas q, mr. -- do you agree that face masks stop the transmission of covid. >> my understanding is that there are scientific evidence that, yes, it does. >> so your motion for preliminaries -- is that even though the -- human services efforts, to get there, with this inspiration of how widespread covid disinformation could somehow be

censorship. knowing how the american people are being lied to is not censorship. i guess you might be scared of what the data will show. mr. sour, again, a yes or no. do you believe the public health experts need data about the impact of disinformation in order to stop people and places like rural texas from dying from this pandemic? >> federal officials should not be demanding data about -- a political and social opinion express on social media. >> yes or no please. >> i reiterate what i said. >> -- >> under the first amendment, federal officials should -- >> do you agree that data on disinformation is necessary to help stop these lies from spreading? >> yes. >> thank you. you are an expert on -- >> lady's time is expired. >> thank you mister chairman, i yield back. >> i now recognize -- >> thank you mister chairman. your testimony described the

state action case law -- and its simplest terms, it comes down to this distinction between convincing course. you state that because there was no over threats to the platform that the government is in the clear. i want to be clear, i reject that premise significantly more with mr. sour. for the sake of argument, let's consider that each individual instance only constitutes attempts to convince platforms by the administration. we still have to view this and it's totality. there was an unprecedented level of continuous engagement between the administration and social media companies to address not only categories of speech, but specific individuals, specific content, and specific viewpoints. the sheer quantity has a quality all its own. the administration performed this unprecedented level of continuous engagement at several levels. the fbi, cdc, department of homeland security, essentially upper single all of its suit

agency. the white house. that's not even taking into account the state department funding a nonprofit, whose goal was to censor such a radical media as the federal -- and the new york post. in one instance, a white house staffer said this exact message to google. this is a concern that is shared at the highest level. i mean the highest levels of the white house. he's talking about the president of the united states. this is coming from an administration that is supported, in advance, several policies directly targeting the business models of social media companies. section two, 30 and corruption, the list goes on and on. regardless of which government agency is pressuring the social media company is on any particular issue, they were all being received by the same contract moderation teams at the social media companies. the administration isn't going to say, do this, or we were shut you down. to be quite honest, that's not how the government coercion is carried out.

they are never going to directly threaten anyone. the message is clear from a continuous request. play ball, or else. the end result is harming americans first amendment rights to speak, and to -- understanding the contents -- understanding that content based restrictions are unconstitutional, are you not at all concerned that the administration's continuous actions have chilled americans free speech rights? >> i don't think that the administration's actions constitute a first amendment violation, as you notice. i don't think there were any over threats. i don't think there were any covert threats as well. the best indication that we have of that is that social media platforms could, and dead, disagree with the suggestions that were offered by governmental officials. they made decisions that conflicted with those recommendations without consequence, repeatedly. >> without consequences, they got a lot of emails back and forth. mr. sour, we all understand that if federal law enforcement

wants to search your trunk of your car, you need a warrant. the federal government can't get around that warrant by using a capitol security guard to open that trunk, and then look at what's in it. one of the biggest things that we've been continuing to talk about in this context is the third party doctrine. if the doj cannot search my car without a warrant, they can't use the security guard to search my car. but this administration, even though they can't directly censor first amendment viewpoint discrimination, is trying to use social media companies to carry out their task. how do you view that moving forward? >> that is a grave threat to liberty, and directly undermines the first amendment. your statements are supported by overwhelming evidence to the record. >> the answerable to third-party doctrine, which we have carried out, who are dealing with it now, it's simply new. we continue to move forward. what recommendation would you have for us, as congress, to start dealing with this issue? >> i believe that this

subcommittee should take a very close look, and scrutinize, the various forms of first amendment violations that we see in this case. not just coercion, but also joint participation, and significant entwined meant. for example, your federal and state officials working hand in glove with nonprofits, like the stanford internet observatory, which are also tightly connected to social media platforms, to engage in mass surveillance, the censorship of, we're talking about, millions and millions of social media posts, systemic first amendment violations. that means to be scrutinized. >> with the little time i have left, i know came up earlier with objection. it's long provided that speech is lawful, content based discrimination by the u.s. government is a first amendment violation. >> so the fact that speech is objectionable, -- provided that it's constitutionally provided, it's a relevant when you're dealing with government discrimination. >> that's exactly right. under the first amendment, govern officials don't get to decide what's objectionable, or

tour falls. we get to decide that. >> and absolutely has to be that way, otherwise who polices the polices? >> this is the heart of the first amendment. >> thank, you i yield back. >> mr. chairman -- >> mister chairman, i -- fort documents into the record. >> when you verify the -- can you attend by the documents? >> sure. the first is a time magazine article titled, is this count cis county, there's no such thing as moving on from covid. from k x news in austin, to face masks work? you are 29 scientific studies that explained that they do, for the washington post, an article titled, inside the story of how trump's mismanagement a magical thinking lead to pandemics dark winter. finally, a reports published in the global public health, by the dean of the national school of tropical medicine and -- and more with cooler for

allergy, and the chair in to help local pediatrics and vaccine development at texas children's hospital, titled the great texas covid travesty. maybe entered into record. >> the gentleman from new york's acknowledge for five minutes a question. >> do you acknowledge the substance of your testimony here today with any members of this committee? >> can you turn your microphone on? >> i participated in a briefing yesterday afternoon with members of the subcommittee when my testimony had already been finalized. >> or any democratic members included in that briefing? >> i can't say for sure. i don't know all the members who were involved. >> you don't know. >> i'm not as familiar of the membership of the committee is perhaps i should be. >> am i correct, i'll note for

the record, there were no democratic members in that briefing. am i correct sir that you are one of the lawyers that brought the lawsuit that we are discussing today? >> that's correct. >> so your party to that case? >> no, i'm attorney. that's very different. >> you represent louisiana, you worked with the attorney generals office of louisiana, and the louisiana brought the case? >> that's correct. it would be an accurate to describe me as a -- >> but you don't decide whether or not your arguments that you make in that case, or that you're making here today, are valid, or not, do you? >> they seem very valid to me. the judge will make a decision in our case. >> the judge makes the decision, right? not you. as you know, the district court did not decide in its opinion what your assertions are correct. right? >> the district court dismissed the pending motion to dismiss by the department of justice, saying that we -- and we will have a hearing in

late may on our motion for a preliminary injunction. >> just so lay people can understand, the motion to just miss just says that if the allegations that you make are true, you can continue with your claim a preliminary injunction, ball also addressed the evidence that you are discussing, right? >> that's correct. >> are you expecting that the department of justice will appeal the motion to dismiss order? >> you would have to ask them. actually, motion to dismiss,. orders very unlikely. there is no procedural right to appeal them. and so far, they have been made in a time to do that. they would have to do that by pursuing an extraordinary -- that be unusual. that means that, i don't speak for them. >> do you read the news, sir? >> i'm sorry? >> do you read the news? >> some news. >> are you aware that donald trump's defense attorney asked -- the house of representatives to intervene in an ongoing criminal investigation into himself in a local prosecutors office? >> i don't recall reading that.

>> if that were the case, would you consider that to be called, quote, erecting, unquote, that the house of representatives act on behalf of donald trump? >> i would have to have many more facts before it make any kind of judgment like that. >> i just want to understand, because you talk a lot about directing here, that the government is directing, then you also say that there is a compelling inference. we lawyers understand that inferences only a crohn you don't have direct evidence to support it. i would also like to note that. -- >> there is no question. >> the sad reality here is that we are continuing to go down the spans of narrative that the white house, at the biden administration core social media companies into sensory and anti-vaccine and election disinformation. now we know why that is, because the members on the other side of the aisle believe that that disinformation, misinformation, if it gets out there, it's politically

beneficial to them. unfortunately, neither you, nor that i, have presented any direct evidence to support this. i would actually submit that this hearing is more notable not because of the topic in the witnesses, including two who are too afraid to say in answer questions, but because of what we are not focusing on. apparently, this committee is no longer focused on the so-called dozens of fbi whistleblowers who were supposedly going to show some massive government conspiracy to attack conservatives. three of them have now come in for a transcribed interviews over a month ago. where are those witnesses, mister chairman? let's bring the men. bring them in right here, so that the american people can see for themselves what the entire basis of this subcommittee is. now, you want to talk about censorship, you imagine in your opening statement a world where the fbi sends a list of books

that should be pulled from their shelves. luckily, we don't have to imagine, that sir. were you aware that recent laws in florida have resulted in the massive removal of books that are now banned in public schools? >> i don't know florida. i know that we have some more testimony from fbi agent -- that directly backs up the testimony made my opening statement. >> you should go look into it, because florida right now is banning books. you would agree that's a violation of the first amendment. >> gentleman's time expired. >> can he answer the question? -- stay tuned, mr. goldman. there's much more to come in this committee. the gentlelady from -- is recognized for five minutes. >> thank, you mister chairman. thank you to our witnesses for appearing before us today. i've heard your last name pronounced a couple of different ways today, how is the properly pronounced? >> seligmann.

you stated that you are an expert in constitutional law. in your testimony, your written testimony, which is provided to us late last night, it says that, quote, tennis is your writing, no government official, ever, threaten to any social media platform with adverse action if they platform decline to moderate content flagged by the officials or if -- not to take a official -- do stand by your testimony? >> yes. >> prior, you said members of the branch say they do not qualify for this particular statement despite the fact that >> a government official? >> let me testify. i don't think that legislative proposals that were brought by republicans, or democrats, constitute threats against social media platforms. that's true whether, or with respect to section 2:30

performance. two with respect to antitrust enforcement. >> that would lead us to the natural inclination to believe that you're talking about the executive branch, correct? being government officials. so government officials like the deputy assistant to the president, director of digital strategy, like robert flattery. or the white house senior adviser, like andrew's law that, or any stafford -- or the deputy assistant to the president, or the white house digital director, or the press secretary for the first lady. or the nsc director for counter terrorism, the chief of staff, or the office of digital strategy. the director of strategic communication engagement, the white house associate council director of communications, the deputy director of digital strategy, in the strategic direction additional communications. those are government officials, correct? >> yes. >> what's so interesting is that all of these members of the executive branch, all of them have communications, thousands of emails between them, and quota, and matter

officials where they demands that post be taken down and censored. i'll give you a couple examples, and then we'll see if you still feel so strongly about your words. january 23rd, three days after the inauguration, at 104 a.m., clark humphrey of the white house emails twitter and says, we are flaking this post for you. hey folks, wanted to like this we. wondering if we can get moving on the process to have a get taken down. dot dot dot asap. then, on february 7th, and email exchange took place between twitter and white house deputy assistant to the president, director of digital strategy, rob flaherty. he was asked of the steps what steps he could take to streamline the process for the white house's demands for twitter censorship. two days later, on february 9th, 2021, he follows up again with facebook, with a more aggressive demand for more information, along with an accusation that would be repeated many times in the

future. that facebook was failing to censor speech, on its platform, it was causing political violence. fast forward, you have march 15th, white house senior adviser then made an ominous statement threatening unspecified executive action against facebook and retaliation for facebook's perceived lack of cooperation with the white house's list of demands, that have been documented, and will be inserted to the record for the syrian, on censorship of, quote, borderline content. the line that i think is particularly troubling is saying internally, we have been considering our options on what to do about it. do you consider that to be not threatening? >> i'm not particular with a particular documents you're referring to. >> i read you multiple examples. >> i don't think that emphatic expressions of their concerns about the problem of

misinformation is the threat. i don't. >> when president biden says that social media companies are killing people, and then there is a direct line from the white house to the social media companies demanding post be removed, going so far as they say that there has to be a quick and devastating takedown, a published takedown, that's not a threat? >> i don't think so. >> wow. >> i also don't believe -- >> i'm so glad we have this on the record. again, my apologies to, you sir, for what you've had to endure here today. with that, i yield back. >> the gentlelady's time's expired. chair recognizes mr. hageman for -- >> thank you, >> mr. sour, you and your colleagues have truly provided a great service to this nation by exposure in what we can rightfully described as the surveillance industrial complex. censorship industrial complex.

the corruption industrial complex, take your pick. your testimony today is stunning, as is your written statements, and i encourage everyone to read the information that you have provided. the breadth and scope of this vast censorship complexes stunning, and extends from the halls of congress to the executive branch, to the office of the president of the united states. as the last questioners today, i want to give you the opportunity to speak directly to the american public. i'd like you to give us examples for one or two takeaways that you believe are paramount as we continue our work, and as we seek to hold this administration, and these corrupt government tax accountable for their blatant violation of the first amendment to the united states constitution. >> i would emphasize maybe two or three points. first, federal censorship

activities are not in retreat. they are expanding. federal executive officials are expanding the topics on which they seek censorship, it's expanding to more and more agencies, and it's expanding any social media platform they could reach. we are not in a situation where this has occurred in the past. we have overwhelming evidence that it is growing, and growing, and growing. there is little indication that there will ever be any volunteer or relinquishment of the power to dictate what ordinary americans can say on social media. it's a problem that's growing. it's a looming threat. the second point that i would make is that censorship, as i said in my opening statement, both now, and every other time that there has been censorship throughout human history, is not about truth. it is about political power. it's about obtaining power. it's about preserving power. it's about expanding power. the evidence of this is overwhelming. you see right there in the documents.

you can see the white house say in, when we really want you to take down facebook, twitter, and so forth? that's borderline content. borderline content that is described as the emails as true. it's often true, it involves poor political speech. we want you to take that down, because that is what is most effectively underlining the narratives that we want to be -- on social media. that's an egregious violation of the first amendment. i would also point out that many of the comments that have been made on the other side today have said that we can't let that be misinformation on social media, because a tiny minority of the hundred million people who might see, at might take it into something bad. you might call that the minority report approach to the first amendment. it's absolutely poppycock. it turns the first amendment on its head. the problem of the first amendment is that no official will be able to dictate what americans do. americans make their own opinions. they can read the evidence, they come have actual opinions

in their own opinions. that is the core, the heartland of the first amendment. we see that radically perverted, radically provided and the white house. virtually every agency has discussed this in their extensive written testimony. i would also emphasize, censorship does not make america safer. it does not make them healthier. it does not protect our democracy. censorship is what kills, not freedom. freedom is what preserves our liberty, freedom is what makes us safe, and healthy, as a society. this notion that we've got to have censorship, because it's going to be a threat to our democracy. what could be more anti-democratic then federal censorship with ordinary americans -- the first amendment on social media, it radically democratize the speech. this is the most pro-democratic -- so every citizen can decide for

themselves, without interference or federal facials, as to what their opinion is. we can participate in a free market ideas, with freedom of expression, freedom of association, to engage in that. that is what we see under direct assault by a whole army of federal officials, in this case finally, i would emphasize that this should not be -- censorship violates the first amendment no matter what federal fissures are going after. everyone in this chamber should oppose the kinds of pressure, collusion, deception, all the things you see in our evidence in this case. federal officials should not be in the business of saying what americans can and cannot say on social media. those of the conclusions that i would offer the american people. -- >> thank you for what you have described. what an incredible summary and statement of where we are in this country. we appreciate what you, done what you've been really to expose, and with that, i yield

back. >> the gentlelady is yielded back, all -- as we wrap this up today, we've heard a lot. what you said is extraordinary, i wish every american can watch that clip, because you summarize it so. well i thank the gentlelady for giving need opportunity. will you set this morning summers as a wall. censorship impedes the pursuit of truth to the free marketplace of ideas. that's the summary. we brought in exceptional witnesses this morning, and we bought and the lieutenant general of this -- and now a u.s. senator because they have revealed overwhelming, direct evidence, as you pointed out, the executive branch is undertaken abroad campaign to censor the american people. that's the headline, that's the takeaway. rather than one-off instances of censorship inclination between federal agencies the private sector, you are case says -- have taken a hold of government approach, to censoring online speech about topics that they think they're just favored. the federal governments --

and to plainly john constitutional acts. first, they coursed. technology companies to engage in censorship. they did this in a number of ways, and at least 20 officials in the white house were involved. then, the federal government colluded with big tech companies, and others, to censor content. the federal agencies met frequently, the social media company is received internal platform data, and other special privileges, that have powered censorship. third parties, such as certain nonprofit organizations, also work is intermediaries to help the federal government fluctuate its scheme -- this offers the american people unique window to the federal government -- was being called the censorship industrial complex. this litigation, led by louisiana and missouri, continues to -- inclusion with tech companies, to censor just favorite content. of course the census have been wrong time time begat, that's not the point. the point that we're trying to make is that the u.s. government is pressuring these platforms, one that nearly half an uses every day, to censor

speech. what do you agree with the speech or not, it doesn't matter. the only thing that matters is that these actions are wrong, they have to be stopped. we have to protect the first amendment in the free exchange of ideas. the gentleman here -- he quotes, he decries baseless conspiracy theories, and he says that social media platforms must be uncorked by misinformation. he doesn't seem to recognize how dangerous that position is. who decides -- what is misinformation. you've provided tyranny. i suggest to you -- that your dean's sam ford has just been -- >> has the government pressures social media to censor americans for saying things like natural unity is real? >> absolutely. did he censor americans were saying things like -- for that lab in china? >> did he --

like the virus likely came from a lab? >> that's in the heartland of our evidence. >> did -- getting vaccinated does and prevent covid, and it doesn't necessarily stop transmission of covid. >> absolutely. >> so all those were true statements, but according to the democrats, it's fine for the government to pressure social media to take the statements down. and, fact this administration started doing that on day two. day three, excuse me. january 23rd, 2021. here is what the suggestion, as mr. seely says. the biden white house said to twitter, -- executive office of the president, white house office, hey folks, wanted to flag the bullet, we wondered if we can get moving on the process for having it removed, then, and all capitals, asap. is that a suggestion, or maybe something a little stronger than the suggestion, from the white house, on the second day, third day, excuse, me of this administration? >> stronger than a suggestion.

>> yes, is stronger than a suggestion. here's the scariest thing of all. the bullets in the democrats put up earlier, the national terrorism advisory -- february 7th, 2022, it talks about, mysticism, malinformation. professor, mr., sour what is malinformation? >> malinformation, by their definition, is truthful information that the federal official things locks appropriate contacts, it's a orwellian term. >> so it's true, but the government says, we don't want the people seen that, hearing that, we're putting that, liking that, sharing that, we don't want that to happen. >> correct. >> that is scary. that's exactly what the chairman just said. that is just dystopian crazy world. that's exactly what they were doing on day three. you know what the underlying tweet was. the underlying tweet said this, -- is part of a wave of suspicious deaths, deaths among the elderly --

of the administration -- true. real americans, great american, amazing athlete, wonderful human being. he got the vaccine on january 5th to inspire others to get, and then, there's nothing falls in. that nothing at all. nothing false. these guys, in the biden white house, that take it down. not just takedown, they said take it down as soon as you possibly can. that, and mr. seely -- the professor of law says, you know, what that's just fine. that is a scary, scary world that we, that the democrats want to take us to. as you said earlier, if it was the other way around, this is republicans doing the democrats, we'd be, we'd be testifying to. you just checked off. so what i. i yield back. >> i thank the gentleman, the chairman of the committee. we thank all our witnesses for appearing before the subcommittee today. without objection, all members will have five minutes. they will be able to submit additional questions for the witnesses, and materials for the record, without objection,

this hearing is adjourned.

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