Jeff landry, testified before a house judiciary subcommittee. Subcommittee will come to order, without objection declare recess at anytime. We welcome everyone to todays hearing on the weaponization of the federal government and we particularly want to welcome back our friend and colleague, mr. Steube from the great state of florida. Good to see him healthy and strong, back working with us. Weve asked if he would lead us in a pledge of allegiance. We pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of america. For which it stands one nation under bruce richardson. Justice and justice for all. Thank you, mr. Do be. Chairman 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. Happened to be the three months time that mr. Musk had purchased the company. In the first letter, after the first twitter files, the first question was, who are the journalists you were talking to . Actually named for journalists personally. Two of those four journalist testified the very next day, three weeks ago today. They testified that day in front of this committee. Michael shellenberger and matt tyab right here in this room. And in that hearing, democrats asked them to reveal their sources. Theres another thing that happened during that hearing. While mr. Was testifying, the Internal Revenue service paid a visit to his home. Left a note on his door saying, we will be back in touch with you next week. That all happened. That all happened. And then we learn at the same time, excuse me, certainly appears that, we still do not have the answers from the irs about that unlikely coincidence. Certainly appears to be just the latest example of the weaponization of the federal government against the American People and it shows the need for this subcommittee and its work to proceed, no matter how robust the opposition. Todays hearing is so important, it builds on our prior work related to government induced censorship. Its interesting. In the first hearing, we had mr. Turley, by the way, not a republican. Mr. Turley, who talked about censorship by surrogate. In our hearing three weeks ago, we had to journalists, again, not republicans, talk about the censorship, Industrial Complex, and today, senator schmidt and three read through the written testimony last night. They talk about the vast censorship enterprise. And the key word in all three is the word censorship. Because thats exactly what is going on. Todays hearing provides an opportunity to bring to light evidence from within the federal government and federal agencies that have driven much of this censorship. This evidence comes from the litigation efforts of missouri and louisiana, against the federal government, the States 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 censors goal is simple. Limit what americans can see, limit what americans can say, which is the direct assault on the right to free speech that is protected by the First Amendment. The sensors that bullied big tech with threats to get them to do their governments bidding and big tech is all too often agreed to collude with the government and facilitate the censorship agenda. In this country, the government does not get to pick what viewpoints are right, what issues we discuss, or what we believe. But that is exactly what the white house and the agencies as the cdc and the fbi have done. Their censorship has extended to speech on critically important topics, like how best to respond to covid19, and even to elections, themselves. That kind of speech is 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 has boasted that 35 of the pages it flagged for social Media Companies were either labeled, removed, or soft blocked. But perhaps even worse is the scope of the censorship. The government no longer pretends that censorship is limited foreign disinformation, or even domestic misinformation. Instead, censorship extends to the socalled malinformation. In other words, true information that is supposedly misleading and conflicts with the censors 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 its also should be able to weapon non government actors. It should not be able to weaponize non government actors to work on his behalf, to advance censorship. This subcommittee must investigate the extent of what has happened here and we must protect the American People from it happening again. Already this subcommittee has requested related documents from the president s agencies, big tech companies, and their intermediaries that make up this complex, this vast censorship enterprise. This important work must continue so that the American People learn what their government has done to them, so that this congress can take action to ensure that it doesnt happen again. Chair now recognizes the Ranking Member, the gentlewoman from the virgin islands, miss plaskett, for her opening statement. Thank you, mister chairman, and good morning to everyone. On monday, multiple people, including three children, lost their lives to violence, gun violence in nashville, tennessee. This week, federal grand jury and a judge, a federal judge, has had to force Trump Officials to testify concerning their possible involvement and what they knew regarding the violence or and death, and insurrection attempt on our capital from january 6th, 2021. The debt ceiling is looming over the American Economy and Speaker Mccarthy and the republican conference are holding the debt hostage right now. And we are holding a hearing on what missouri versus biden, and some alleged deep state effort to censor conservative 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. And everyone here should be alarmed when that amplification pushes out false and dangerous narratives. False narratives, such as january 6th, being a deep state effort. False narratives such as covid vaccines, they somehow do harm. False narratives suggesting that President Trump won the election. In fact, that is the real reason we are here. Republicans know that these are false narratives and they know that the americans know the truth. So, they are grasping for a way to spin the truth, how do you do that . You tell an on truth, eli. Misinformation over, and over, and over, and over, and over again, and 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. Seligman, you are renowned lawyer, legal scholar, an expert on election law and disinformation. Im eager to hear from you on exactly how disinformation harms our democracy. And part of the reason im interested in that is because of the other witnesses that are here. Senator eric schmitt, you are a u. S. Senator. You signed a statement defending trumps indefensible campaign to stop social media from Fact CheckingElection Fraud falsehoods when trump complained about censorship. Served as the vice chairman of the Republican AttorneyGenerals Association while its fundraising arm made robocalls, urging a march on the capitol the day before the deadly january 6th insurrection. You also, sir, signed a brief in support of a texas lawsuit seeking to invalidate electoral votes in the hopes of reversing the results of president ial elections. I dont 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. Sawyer, you, as well, now serve as missouris Deputy Attorney general for special litigation. You have sought to silence people with disabilities from participating in legal cases about covid19 mask mandates. You have opposed lgbtq rights on numerous occasions. As early as 2000, or recently as 2015, you opposed samesex marriages and a brief in 2021, opposing the president s executive order, redefining sexual discrimination. And 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, and 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 a summer. Only 93 of those were peaceful. One day, january 6th. Yes, yes, yes, 93 were peaceful. One day on january six was devastating to our democracy. You have also denied climate change. So, 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 or has been donald trump. Yesterday, the New York Times, i know its not everyone in his favorite paper, but i would like to submit this. I have a motion to submit this into the record . Without objection. Thank you. The article was on march 29th, 2023, and it says, trump says the Justice System has been weaponized. He would know. Yes, he would. And 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, that we need to use the fbi and the irs to go after people. It was constant and obsessive, and it just what hes claiming is being done to him now, said john f. Kelly, mr. Trumps white house chief of staff. Quote, i would tell him why it was wrong and while i was there, i did everything i could to steer him away from it. And tell him why it was a bad idea, mr. Kelly said. I thought we were successful. We 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 would claim he did nothing wrong. That is the twice impeached former president , donald trumps, chief of staff speaking. So, do not tell me he didnt weaponize the government. I dont think were going to be investigating that, however. And mister chairman, i know that you and my republican colleagues leave believe that mr. Trump is still the leader of the Republican Party and, on fortunately, you are following his example and attempting to weaponize congress. Last weekend, President Trump posted the message that is on the screen right now. Thank you. What kind of person can charge another person, in this case, a former president of the United States who got more voteshan any sitting president in history and a leading candidate, by far, for the Republican Party nomination with crime . When it is known by all that no crime has been committed and also known that e tential death and destruction in such a false charge can be catastrophic for our country . Why and who would do such a thing . Only a degenerate psychopath 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 and his response was that 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 chairmans to seek to interfere in this investigation of the president by a duly elected state representative in demanding the District Attorney bragg appear for a transcribed interview in a matter 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 today is, why are the chairman, others, where Congressional Republicans doing the president s 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. Gentlelady yields back. Without objection, all of their opening scenes will be included in the record. We will now introduce todays witnesses. We first have the honorable eric schmidt. Senator schmidt represents a great state of missouri in the United States senate. Before his election to the senate in 2022, senator schmidt served as the military Missouri Attorney general and the treasurer of that state. The honorable jeff landry, former colleague of ours, jeff landry serves as the attorney general of louisiana post. Hes held since 2016. Prior to serving as the attorney general he represented louisianas third Congressional District here in the United States house of representatives. Mr. John sour is a special assistant attorney general for the Louisiana Department of justice. He previously served as Deputy Attorney general from the special litigation with the Missouri AttorneyGenerals Office and solicitor general of missouri. Judge Michael Luttig and justice antonin scalia, and then matthew c look mans nonresident fellow at the constitutional Stanford Law School. His research focuses on election law, constitutional law, and reports contracts and private lot theory. He clerked for doug judge douglas ginsburg. Welcome our witnesses today, and thank them for appearing. We will begin swearing you in. Would you please rise and raise your right hand . Do you swear with testament youre about to give is true and correct to the best of her knowledge . Information and belief, so help you jesus . Let the record show that each of the witnesses answered in the affirmative. Please know that your written testimony will be entered into the record in its entirety, accordingly, we ask that you summarize your testimony in five minutes. We will give you a few mid attorney general landry has in the courtesy or has been the custom of this committee. We will start with senator schmidt. You know how that works here with the lights, senator. You go up, like i said, we will give you a little extra time there. We appreciate your service to our country and your state, appreciate you being here today and you are now recognized, senator schmidt. 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 maintaining our republican form of government in the belief that we are a country of free people, not oppressive government. The Biden Administration has led the largest speech censorship operation in recent american history. Since taking office, President Biden and his team have labored to suppress viewpoints with which they disagree and 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, and colluded with social Media Companies to censor disfavored speech. The biden team has publicly threatened social Media Companies from removing Legal Protections with removing Legal Protections, blamed social Media Companies for societal problems, accuse social Media Companies of killing people, and the social Media Companies, 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 bidens political opposition, by revoking section 230. Biden suggested facebook ceo, mark zuckerberg, should be subject to civil liability and potential criminal prosecution for not censoring political speech. Pre