GOP members of the House Judiciary Committee said they expect their growing probe of the politicization of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Department of Justice to include an uncompromising look at Meta.
The company formerly known as Facebook, now Meta, is facing increasing questions about its relationship with the FBI during the lead-up to the suppression of The Post’s reporting in October 2020 on Hunter Biden.
“The Judiciary Committee of the next Congress should probe the politicization of our intelligence community — especially the influence and infiltration of Twitter, Facebook, and other technology and social media companies,” said Republican Representative Darrell Issa of California.
Another committee member, Florida GOP Representative Matt Gaetz, added that “the national security state’s operation against ‘We the People’ is happening across many platforms.”
Release of documents increases scrutiny
The increasing scrutiny comes as a plethora of internal documents released by Twitter owner Elon Musk to independent journalists showed what appeared to be an apparently close working relationship between the social media company and the FBI in the months leading up to the reports by The New York Post looking into Hunter Biden’s abandoned hard drive.
Like Twitter, Facebook also suppressed coverage of the Hunter Biden laptop story after it was published in the New York Post. Like Twitter, Facebook was approached by the FBI in the lead-up to the 2020 election. Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook boss, disclosed this in August during an interview with Joe Rogan. Zuckerberg said the FBI warned the company of an impending drop of “Russian propaganda.”
The top policy manager for “misinformation” at Meta, Aaron Berman, is a former senior analytics manager for the CIA. He spent 17 years with the agency, from March 2002 to July 2019, writing the president’s daily briefings at one point.
Berman was publicly friends with Twitter counterpart Yoel Roth — with the two occasionally interacting on the site. Both men were also donors to Democrats, according to the Federal Election Commission records.
On his LinkedIn, Berman said he was focused on “making online spaces safe and constructive for societies” and said his work at Facebook included “strategic policy work to ensure policies appropriately balance countering harm with fostering free expression.”
Former FBI agent, Steve Friend, turned whistleblower, said the more significant leftward tilt of upper and middle management at the bureau and other intelligence agencies had become more pronounced.
“There is this belief that half the country are domestic terrorists, and we can’t have a conversation with them,” said Friend. “There is a fundamental belief that unless you are voicing what we agree, there is an understanding that you are the enemy.”
