LIVE: Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. testifies to House

tweet and I'm wondering if we can get moving on the process for having it removed ASAP in all caps that third day what did that tweet say tweet from Mr Kennedy said this Hank Aaron's tragic death is part of a wave of suspicious deaths among elderly closely following administration of the vaccine he received the vaccine on January 5th to inspire other black Americans to get the vaccine now what's interesting about the email that the White House sent to Twitter is the subject line says flagging Hank Aaron misinformation a misinformation is when you don't have the facts right you're saying things that aren't true but when you look at Mr Kennedy's tweet there was nothing in there that was factually inaccurate Hank Aaron real person Great American passed away after he got the vaccine pointing out just pointing out facts and yet the White House on the third day was trying actually 104 a.m on January 23 2021 37 hours into the administration they were trying to censor Mr Kennedy I find that interesting the irony here trying to censor the guy who's actually their Democrat primary opponent go figure three months earlier the FBI helped censor our second witness Miss Morris's story her story in the New York Post about emails on the hunter Biden laptop and we know the FBI censored her because of work this committee has done to uncover what happened and because of our third witness Mr Sauer the lawsuit that he argued on behalf of Florida excuse me Louisiana and Missouri in federal court in a case that they got the amazing ruling from on July 4th just two weeks ago you go back to in the course of that investigation course of that lawsuit from Missouri and Louisiana Joel Roth former head of site integrity at Twitter in his sworn declarations it's brought out in that lawsuit in sworn declaration in front of the federal elections commission he said this during weekly meetings federal law enforcement agencies communicated that they expected hack and leak operations before the 2020 presidential election likely in October these expectations discussed throughout 2020 were discussed throughout 2020. I also learned in these meetings that a hack and leak operation would involve Hunter Biden now think about it weekly meetings throughout 2020 hack and leak operation in October involving Hunter Biden five key things they pointed out throughout that year and guess what it all happens it happens just like they predicted go for how did they know how did they know it was going to happen like that because they had the laptop they have had they had the laptop for 10 months before Mrs Morris's story on October 14th her story breaks that day that same day October 14 2020 Twitter meets with the FBI specifically the foreign influence Task Force at the FBI later that same day again the day her story comes out Facebook also meets with the FBI the head of the foreign influence task force now is Lord demlo and this committee interviewed her just three days ago and what an interesting interview that was we asked her about these meetings she stated in the first meeting the FBI and Twitter in that first meeting she said someone from Twitter asked is the laptop real they asked the fundamental that story had broke it was big news Twitter asked the FBI they're right there in front of them they've been prepping them for a year they asked the FBI is the laptop real Miss demolo conveyed to the committee this week an FBI agent answered yes it is another FBI agent a lawyer very quickly followed up with no further comment so again here's the scenario the story breaks Twitter's meeting with FBI later that same day someone from Twitter asked is this story real is the laptop real the FBI answer is yes and then quickly followed by again all this conveyed by Miss demolo the FBI lawyer says no further comment in the later meeting with Facebook again that same day the FBI was asked the same question and this time the FBI gets their story straight Miss demo is the only one who comments and she says no comment obviously by the second meeting the FBI had coordinated and she conveyed this in her deposition that they had deliberated what were they were going to respond when that question was asked so think about this after being repeatedly told a hack and leak Russian info operation is coming for a whole year it arrives on October 14th in the form of Miss Morris's story an accurate story our government knows the laptop is real they know it's not a Russian information op and they know this story is true but when directly asked they say no comment and of course Miss Morris's story is censored visibility filtered the term that the tech companies use no you can't direct mess you can't send it keeping the American people from valuable information just days before the most important election we have election for commander-in-chief election for the presidency of the United States that's why Miss Morris is here today you know what she knows what it's like to to be censored it's why Louisiana Missouri filed the cases why Mr Sauer argued the case and frankly it's why Mr Kennedy is running for president it's to stop help us Expose and stop what's going on this Alliance big government pressuring private entities to censor Americans I think in Miss Morris's testimony which I read this morning big Tech big government working together big media working all together to censor American speech so we look forward to your testimony over the next few hours um but I will tell you this just get ready I think these guys Miss Morris get ready last time we had a journalist set in there they were trying to get them to divulge their sources so be ready but I know you can handle it we appreciate your willingness to come forward we appreciate your willingness to fight for the First Amendment with that I yield to the ranking member for an opening statement thank you Mr chair and good morning to everyone just have some administrative matters first I wanted to introduce into the record page 50 55 from the committee's interview with FBI employee Roya demlo who you just spoke about which took place on July 17 2023 uh in that line she says the question was asked okay if someone were to leave here today we're to leave this interview and we're to suggest or imply that when you said the laptop was real that it meant that the FBI had affirmatively determined in October 2020 that the laptop belonged to Hunter Biden that the contents belonged to Hunter Biden and that the contents had not been manipulated in some way would they be representing what you said correct answer by Ms demlo they would be representing what I said because I don't have much knowledge of that they would be misrepresenting what I said because I don't have much knowledge of that because this committee likes to misrepresent or leave off complete sentences of what individuals said I'd like to introduce this into the right objection thank you uh and as to no comment by an FBI that's usually what they say when there's an ongoing investigation particularly when it's a couple of days before an election but why are we here why you know that's been the question that quite a number of people have been asking me why are you having this hearing what does this have to do with inflation what does this have to do with the cost of living what does this have to do with the everyday lives of Americans the thing that the Republican Party said that they would focus on if they had control of the house why would the Republican leadership in the committee majority give a hearing and a platform to the witnesses today specifically to Mr Kennedy a man who was recently claimed that covid-19 is targeted to attack Caucasians and black people the people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews in Chinese and before that in his film medical racism the new apartheid that film stated that covid-19 vaccines do not work for black children because of their quote kick at Kick-Ass kind of immune system that hyper superhuman subhuman kind of language also said he also said even in Hitler's Germany you could cross the Alps to Switzerland you could hide in an attic like Anne Frank did to imply Jews in Nazi Germany had more freedoms than unvaccinated Americans during the covid-19 pandemic now many of my Republican colleagues across the dice will rush to cover that they have Mr Kennedy here because they want to protect his free speech that they do not believe in American censorship this is not the kind of free speech that I know of free speech that is protected by the Constitution's First Amendment but free speech is not an absolute the Supreme Court has stated that and others free speech that is allowed hateful abusive rhetoric does not need to be promoted in the halls of the people's house this Republican charge of free speech is ye being used by Republican members to promote quasi-science things such as the replacement theory that says that brown people are replacing good white Americans here in this country let's not remember that this country first belonged to Brown Native American people it's a rallying cry for bigotry and Hate there are members of the Republican conference who also frequently suggests that Americans have to deal with coveted rules is the same as oppression of Nazi Germany indeed some have even questioned whether the Holocaust took place we have staffers who openly follow white supremacy without any condemnation of the Republican conquerance some give it Chuckles slaps on the back shrugs all under the Mantra of free speech it's a free country you absolutely have a right to say what you believe but you don't have the right to a platform public or private we don't have to give one of the largest platforms of our democracy Congress this hearing our right does not mean that we as Americans are not free from accountability and that's what's distressing about this hearing even knowing what they know about Mr Kennedy's hateful evidence-free rhetoric and even though they've invited any number of witnesses to make their point speaker McCarthy chairman Jordan affirmatively chose to give this a platform they intentionally chose to elevate this rhetoric to give these harmful dangerous views a platform in the halls of the United States Congress that's endorsing that speech that's not just supporting free speech they have co-signed on idiotic bigoted messaging there's it's a conscious choice there's no doubt as to why they're making the choice it's not to in guard to guard Free Speech or to ensure equality for all of this as you'll hear throughout this hearing is to show us by their conduct over and over and again that any attack on Joe Biden to get Donald Trump back in the White House is what they need to do they think that by hurting the Biden Administration by putting Mr Kennedy on display they have said that he's only running for censorship I think people run for the president of the United States because they want to advance the American people over the last eight months the extreme Mega majority has spent its time not to mention tons of taxpayer money something that they're always so cautious about on baseless investigations that have gone nowhere all in an effort to serve as a legislative arm of the Trump campaign and discredit any agency that dares to hold the president or those that work with him or who have the same ideals that he has accountable for those that are such as white supremacy such as election deniers such as insiders and those who engage in the Riots of January 6. truth be told I have no idea whether the chairman actually believes any of the stuff I don't it's not a question I've asked him or one that's necessarily even important but it's clear that one aim of his investigation is to bully Tech and media companies into turning a blind eye to right-win extremist conspiracies from Q Anon to the great replacement Theory as they spread across their platforms even when those theories violate very basic terms of service about deliberate disinformation and promoting violence Nets not even think about what happens in 2024 with Russian trolls Iran China trying to interfere in our elections and the bullying extends far beyond tech companies witness after witness have testified to the treatment they received from chairman Jordan and his team one of our earliest Witnesses Nina jankovic told the committee about receiving thousands of death threats and being told to go into hiding while she was pregnant with her first child after chairman Jordan first posted a doctored video of her when Politico asked Mr chairman Jordan about the threats his office responded she deserves to be held accountable anyone who doesn't agree with their point of view deserves whatever hatred and threats are thrown at them now I'm across the hall from Mr Jordan and several months ago I saw somebody who seemed to be threatening to his office and the Capitol Police were moving them away and I was grateful that they were doing that because I don't want anyone to harm him or his staff for their rhetoric for the things that they say that's inappropriate that's unconscionable another witness this one a current member of federal law enforcement who spent years protecting Americans from harm described receiving threatening mail not just to her work office but to her home address someone out there has figured out where this person lives and is targeting them based on disinformation this committee itself spread she summed it up in a single sentence I'm frankly scared and why does the chairman send this movement to intimidate witnesses to change their behavior of course to make it less safe for law enforcement officers who to enforce the law and less likely that researchers and companies will combat the spread of hate and violence online one witness an academic whose organization helped identify disinformation threats to election processes and procedures describe the threats sent to him and his family in detail when the Republican staff asked him if he would consider performing the same research for 2024 elections he said quote since this investigation has cost the university now approaching seven figures in legal fees it's been pretty successful I think in discouraging us from making it worthwhile for us to do a study for 2024. another witness a researcher who analyzed massive data sets to assess the way that rumors spread online was explicit and personal about the effect of the threats on her life I mean quite frankly I don't have kids in if I did I would no longer be doing this work I'm worried about my students I know they're worried about doing this kind of work because of these kinds of threats and what they see that I'm going through and at the same time I just think the work is so important and I want to make sure it keeps going so I don't so I don't want to step off that stage I don't want I think we have like special skills that can be really useful and helpful and make our cup our country grow stronger and this is having a chilling effect and it's not just me other researchers are experiencing the same thing these are the fruits of this committee's majority investigations if Maga Republicans agree with you you're given a platform to spread any conspiracy theories no matter how harmful and if they disagree with you you get death threats until you have to go away these folks have a plan they want to force social media companies to promote conspiracy theories because they think that's the only way their candidate can win the 2024 election they want to bully the experts into abandoning their work on disinformation to pave the way they want to give expression to the most vile sorts of speech here in this committee room because it repairs the ground for their own conspiracy theories and pseudoscience and they apparently don't care how many people are hurt or die as a consequence of their actions either through lies about vaccines or threats to the safety of witnesses because nothing nothing is more important to them than power it's a free country both chairman Jordan Mr Kennedy are free to say whatever they want it's the Chairman's right to promote any of the views he wants to promote but that freedom doesn't mean that the rest of us can't see what they're doing and demand something better from our representatives from my colleagues from this Congress be better than the witnesses my colleagues let's be better let's get about the business the real business of the American people and stop the division the divisiveness that is being promoted through this committee I yield back generally yields back up ATMs consent to enter into the record from page 29 of Miss demolo's testimony from three days ago question do you recall whether any of these social media companies you were meeting with ask you any questions about the laptop story I do was her answer and what is your recollection somebody from Twitter essentially asked whether the laptop was real and one of the FBI folks who was on the call did confirm that quote yes it was before another participant jumped in and said no further comment question do you recall who from the FBI was said it was real I do and who was that person I'll have to get back with you uh without objectionable internet into the uh into the record we now want to introduce our Witnesses I want to start with Miss Emma Joe Morris Miss Morris's politics editor at Breitbart News he previously served as the deputy politics editor at the New York Post where she authored the post coverage of the hunterbind laptop and his contents in 2020. Miss Maya Wiley is the president and CEO of the leadership conference on civil and human rights she previously served as Council to New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and at the American civil liberties Union and the NAACP legal defense and education fund we welcome you as well miss Wiley Mr John Sauer is a Special Assistant Attorney General for the Louisiana Department of Justice and then he is one of the lead lawyers in the Missouri B Biden case that I referenced in my opening statement he previously served as Deputy attorney general for special litigation with the Missouri attorney general's office and solicitor general of Missouri he clerked for judge Michael ludig and Justice Antonin Scalia and then our Final witness is Mr Kennedy I will turn to our colleague Mr Roy member of the Judiciary Committee and waved on to the subcommittee to introduce uh Mr Kennedy thank you chairman um Robert F Kennedy Jr is the son of a former Attorney General Robert F Kennedy and the nephew of America's 35th President John F Kennedy the third of 11 children he graduated from Harvard University we won't hold that against him because he went on to receive his law degree from the University of Virginia school of law my alma mater as an undergraduate some viewing Mr Kennedy through his last name but that does a tremendous disservice to his life's work whether you agree with it or not out of Law School Mr Kennedy built his career as an environmental lawyer representing New York City environmentalists and environmentalists across the globe and numerous legal battles his work culminated in the landmark New York City Watershed agreement focused on the cleaning of New York City's waterways after the 2008 election Politico reported that president-elect Obama strongly considered Mr Kennedy to have the Environmental Protection Agency he went on to found Children's Health defense a National Organization intended to address childhood chronic disease and toxic exposures I assume that being a father of seven in addition to being one of 11 children himself fuels his interest in Children's Health following the 2016 election Mr Kennedy met with then president-elect Trump to discuss his potential for a committee to examine vaccine safety and scientific Integrity their conversation also touched on the CDC in ways to increase independence from Financial conflicts most recently Mr Kennedy announced his campaign for president of the United States during his campaign announcement he stated quote my mission over the next 18 months of this campaign and throughout my presidency will be to end the corrupt merger of state and corporate power that is threatening to impose a new kind of corporate feudalism in our country end quote it is for this that Mr Kennedy finds himself receiving the scorn of both the political left and right because if one dares challenge the Orthodoxy of the powers that be then one is their enemy as a graduate of the University of Virginia Mr Kennedy no doubt knows the following quote for here we are afraid for here we are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead Thomas Jefferson that truism was lost during the coveted pandemic individuals receiving scorn simply for asking questions people being silenced for challenging the status quo these are the kinds of questions that should have been publicly debated in this hearing this hearing is focused on that truth and we welcome Mr Kennedy I think the gentleman uh Mr Kennedy we we're glad you were here um we will now proceed with all the same but before I do I want to introduce the guy sitting behind you Mr Kennedy who was a former colleague of ours and maybe more importantly for me a good friend of mine Dennis kucinich who served the United States Congress for 14 years I believe and uh great Buckeye so we welcome Dennis and I know Elizabeth's here as well and we we appreciate your service Dennis and your commitment to the First Amendment uh we'll now go with opening testimony Mr Kennedy you are recognized for your opening statement thank you as a line his mind's not make sure it's Mr chairman are you going to swear in the witnesses please uh stand and raise your right hand do you swear our firm do you swear our firm under penalty or perjury that the testimony you're about to give is true and correct to the best of your knowledge information uh information and belief so help you God let the record reflect the witness answer in the affirmative thank you may be seated Mr Kennedy you are now recognized for your opening statement and then we'll go right down the line he's going to go a little longer excuse me point of order I know that what Witnesses usually have five minutes I see 10 minutes on the board is it going to be 10 minutes we'll give you five minutes but we're pretty relaxed with this uh we'll let him go for uh we'll yeah I've seen him gavel down on quite a number of witnesses given senators and former Democrat members of Congress and all kinds of neither he's neither I'm just saying in past history okay okay we'll catch the time for all the witnesses and if you want to cut him off and censor him some more you're welcome to do it oh that's not my job that's that's your job why don't you threaten a witness so that they can not want to be a witness it is recognized for his opening statement we'll get five minutes for Kennedy go right ahead thank you Mr chairman Mr chairman maybe we could put five minutes on the clock then not 10. we put five on the clock and we'll start it running foreign thank you Mr chairman and I I want to I want to start I want to put it aside my written State and for a moment and address one of the uh points that was brought up I think an important Point by the ranking member that this body ought to be concerning itself with the uh with issues that impact directly the American people the rising price of groceries 76 over the past two years were basic food stuff uh the war in Ukraine the inflation Asia is the Border issues many many other issues that concern us all as a nation we can't do that without the First Amendment without debate uh when I gave my speech my announcement speech in Boston uh two months ago YouTube I I talked about all those issues I focused on groceries I focused on the fact that Working Class People can no longer afford to live in this country I talked about inflation all the issues that deeply concern you and that you've devoted your career to alleviating those ashes five minutes into my speech when I was talking about Paul Revere YouTube deep platform to me I didn't talk about vaccines in that speech I didn't talk about anything that people it was a verboten subject I just was talking about my campaign of things the conversation we ought to be happening with each other as Americans but I was shut down and that is why the first amendment is important debate congenial respectful debate is the is the fertilizer it's the water it's the sunlight for our democracy we need to be talking to each other oh there this is a letter and many of you signed many of my fellow Democrats I've spent my life in this party I've devoted my life to the values of this party there's 102 people sign this is itself is evidence of the problem that this hearing was convened to address this is an attempt to censor a censorship hearing the the the charge is in this and and by the way censorship is antithetical to our party it was at it was appalling to my father to my uncle to FDR to Harry Truman the Thomas Jefferson is a chairman referred to it is the basis for democracy it sets us apart from all of the previous forms of government we need to be able to talk and and the first amendment was not written for easy speech it was written for the speech that nobody likes you for and I was I was censored not just by the Democratic Administration I was censored by the Trump Administration I was the first person censored by as the chairman pointed out on the Biden Administration two days after it came into office in order to truthful and by the way they had to invent a new word called Mal information dude to censor people like me there was no misinformation on my Instagram account everything I put on that account was cited and sourced the peer-reviewed Publications or government databases nobody has ever appointed to a single piece of misinformation that I publish I was removed for something they called Mal information Mal information is information that is true but it's inconvenient to the government that they don't want people to hear and it and as antithetical the values of our country after I announced my presidency it became more difficult for people to censor me outright so now I'm subject to this new form of censorship which is called targeted propaganda where people apply pejoratives like antifax I've never been to any vaccine but everybody in this room probably believes that I have been because that's the prevailing narrative anti-semitism racism these are are the most appalling disgusting pejoratives and they're applied to me to silence me because people don't want me to have that conversation about the war about groceries about inflation about the war on the middle class in this country that we need to be having and and by the way I want to say this while I'm on the record that in my entire life and why I'm under oath in my entire life I have never uttered a phrase that was either racist or anti-Semitic I have spent my life fighting my professional career fighting for Israel for the protection of Israel I have a better record on Israel than anybody in this chamber today I'm the only person who is publicly objected to the two billion dollar payout by administration's now making to Iran which is a is a genocidal program I'm the only one who's objected to that I fought more ferociously for Israel than anybody but I am being censored here through this target through through through the smears through misinterpretations of what I've said through lies through Association which is a tactic we all thought we had been discredited and dispensed with after the Army McCarthy hearings in the 1950s but those same weapons are now being deployed against me to silence me I know many of the people who wrote this letter I don't believe there's a single person who signed this letter who believes I'm anti-Semitic I do not believe that there is no evidence of that I want to say something I think that's that's more important than it goes directly to what you talked about ranking member which is the the need this toxic polarization that it is destroying our country today and how do we deal with that we are more this kind of division is more dangerous for our country than any time since the American Civil War and how do we deal with that how are we going to every Democrat on this committee believes that we need to end at polarization do you think you can do that by censoring people I'm telling you you cannot you that only aggravates and amplifies the problem we need to start being kind to each other we need to start being respectful to each other we need to start restoring the comedy to this chamber and and to the rest of America's but it has to start here my Uncle Edward Kennedy has more legislation with his name on him than any senator in the United States history why is that because he was able to reach across the aisle because he didn't deal any insults because he didn't try to censor people brought home people who were antithetical as to what he believed in he came home almost every weekend with people like like Orrin Hatch to our house at the compound in Hyannis for it at that time Warren hatch to me was like Darth Vader because I was an environmentalist and I was saying why why is Teddy bringing this guy home but he knew that he was effective because he understood that comedy and respect and kindness and compassion and empathy for other people is the way that we had the only way to restore the function in this in this chamber but more importantly today we need to give an example in the leadership of our country of being respectful to each other if you think I said something that's anti-semitic let's talk about the details I'm telling you all the things that I'm accused of right now by you and in this letter our distortions they're misrepresentations I didn't say those things there's fragments that I said but I denounce anybody who who uses the words that I have said to imply something that is negative about people who are Jewish I never said those things and I want to point out also that the chairman pointed to Dennis kucinich is fighting behind me there is no two people in the country who feel differently about it more differently about American politics than these two people and yet they weren't friends Dennis attended his children's basketball games attended his daughter's wedding this is what we need how we need to start treating each other in this country we have to stop trying to destroy each other to marginalize to vilify to Gaslight each other we have to find that place inside of ourselves of light of empathy of compassion and above all we need to elevate the Constitution the United States which was written for Hard Times and that has to be the premier compass for all of our activities thank you very much thank you Mr chairman I'd like to raise I'd like to raise a point of order got a lady to stay at a point of order one of order pursuant to house rule 11 Clause 2 which Mr Kennedy is violent above I move that we would move into executive session because Mr Kennedy has repeatedly made Despicable anti-semitic and anti-asian comments as recently as last week rule 11 Clause 2 says whenever it is asserted by a member of the committee that the evidence or testimony of the hearing May tend to defame degrade or incriminate any person or it is asserted by a witness that the evidence or testimony that the witness would give at a hearing May tend to defame degrade or incriminate the witness and it goes on Mr Kennedy among many other things has said I know a lot now about bio weapons we put out hundreds of millions of dollars in into ethnically targeted microbes the Chinese have done the same thing in fact covid-19 there is an argument that it is ethnically targeted covid-19 attacks certain races disproportionately the races that are most immune to covid-19 are lady making emotion or speech I and I've made a motion to move into executive session because Mr Kennedy's testimony Mr chairman I moved to table emotions gentleman from Kentucky has moved to table Mr chairman I asked for a roll call vote on the on the motion to table well let me ask the question the questions on the motion to table the gentle ladies asked for a roll call vote the clerk will happy step back for a second the clerk will have to come in we'll call the roll on the motion of the table and then we can get back to testimony I think the witnesses can sit in the chair sitting behind um I'll leave that up to the clerks if the clerks are comfortable with that you know why don't we do that maybe we can go right down here Mr Mr Mr chairman point of order gentleman from Louisiana is it the custom of this committee to censor viewpoints that we disagree with from witness Mr chairman that's not a point of order on the table there's a motion and the votes we're waiting for the clerks it's violative of waiting 11 plus two waiting for the clerks clerk will call the roll Mr Jordan yes Mr Jordan votes yes Mr I said Mr Massey yes to not censor Mr Massey builds yes yes Mr stefanik votes yes Mr Gates Mr Johnson of Louisiana yes Mr Johnson of Louisiana votes yes Mr Armstrong yes Mr Armstrong votes yes Mr subie Mr Bishop yes Mr Bishop votes yes Miss kamek yes Miss camach votes yes Miss Hagerman Miss Hagerman votes yes Miss posca no I want to follow the rules that the Republicans made at the beginning of this conference with these house rules so no Miss pascot votes no Mr Lynch Mr Lynch votes no Ms Sanchez no because it's violative of the rules Miss Sanchez votes now miss Wasserman Schultz no to allowing a witness to degrade and says to violate the rules and not have his testimony and degradation and Amplified rather than given an executive session Ms Wasserman Schultz Fields now Mr Connolly Mr Connolly votes no Mr Garamendi no Mr garamandi votes no Mr Allred Miss Garcia no Miss Garcia votes no Mr Goldman no to hate speech Mr Goldman votes now Mr Gates yes Mr Gates Mr Gates votes I clerk will report Mr chairman there are 10 eyes and eight knows the motion to table is agreed to we will now move to our second witness uh Miss Morris you are recognized for five minutes thank you thanks so much for inviting me um my name is Emma Joe Morris a politics editor at Breitbart I'm here today because I publish a series of news stories three years ago in October of 2020 about Hunter Biden's now Infamous laptop also known as the laptop from Hell which is seen as some of the most scandalous reporting of the last decade um what was more scandalous than the reporting itself though was the fact that it exposed the Unholy alliance between the intelligence Community social media platforms and Legacy Media Outlets at the time I was Deputy politics editor at the New York Post and my reporting showed that despite then candidates Joe Biden's repeated and Furious denials he was apparently involved in the foreign business deals of his family over several days just weeks before Americans would vote for their next president I revealed verified authentic emails from the Biden Scions hard drive showing Ukrainian business partners receiving leaks from the Obama White House I documented an off the books meeting between then Vice President Biden and a Ukrainian energy executive and introduced the world to the big guy who got action on a deal with cefc China Energy company the post published exactly how the material for the reporting was obtained even identifying our sources as well as a federal subpoena showing the FBI was in possession of the material the story was based on and had been since December of 2019. but when the stories appeared on social media that morning the venue where millions of Americans go to find their news and editors to get their angles within hours the reporting was censored on all major platforms on the basis of being called hacked or Russian disinformation um Twitter refused to allow users to share the link to the stories ban the links from being shared in private messages a policy by the way that's used to clamp down on child porn and lock the post out of its verified account Facebook said it would curb distribution and reach of the links on its platform however the stories were not based on hacked materials nor were they Rush In disinformation And despite those claims appearing to come out of thin air at the time we would eventually learn that they actually didn't come out of thin air at all on October 19th five days after the post began publishing Politico ran a story headline Hunter Biden's story is Russian disinfo dozens of former Intel officials say God I can't even say that with a straight face you know Politico prints in a letter completely uncritically from veteran members of the U.S intelligence Community falsely claiming that the post expose has quote all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation oh my God most notable among the signatories of that letter were Jim Clapper from former dni Michael Hayden former CIA John Brennan former CIA despite having such damaged credibility following their participation in the Russia collusion conspiracy theory a few days later on October 22nd when Biden appeared in the second presidential debate and was confronted with the facts of the post reporting he said to Trump quote 50 former National Intelligence professionals said this what he's accusing me of is a Russian plot but it was not and he knew that now fast forward to this year three years later just last Spring House investigators revealed it was a call by now Secretary of State Anthony blinken to former acting CIA director Michael Morrell that prompted the Spy letter published by Politico which bypassed agency approval processes that would have been normally applied it is also now known that ahead of my reporting federal agencies were priming social media companies to execute an operation to discredit it according to internal documents released by Elon Musk upon his acquisition of Twitter the FBI and other intelligence community members essentially directed the platform censorship operation in part externally by working with top management and in part internally by social media companies hiring eye-popping numbers of agency alumni journalist Michael schallenberger reported based on documents he obtained from musk that during all of 2020 the FBI and other law enforcement agencies repeatedly primed Twitter Executives to dismiss reports of Hunter Biden's laptop as a Russian Hack and leak operation feds arranged for top secret security clearances to be granted to Twitter management and even had encrypted messaging network setup which they dubbed a virtual war room to this day hundreds of people from the intelligence Community work at social media companies over the last few years my reporting has been confirmed by virtually every mainstream news outlet from The Washington Post to the New York Times to Politico when the stakes Were Nothing by the way two years later no one denies that the laptop is real that the origin story is exactly what I told you it was in the first place this elaborate censorship conspiracy wasn't because the information being reported on was false it was because it was true and it was a threat to the power centers in this country what this relationship between the US government officials and American corporations represent is is an unprecedented push to undermine the First Amendment the right to think write read say whatever we want and how we respond will determine whether we see a free press as inalienable or as optional thanks thank you Miss Morris Mr Sauer you were recognized for five minutes thank you Mr chairman and members of the subcommittee on July 4th 2023 Independence Day Judge Terry a Doty of the U.S District Court for the Western District of Louisiana entered a historic injunction against the White House and other Federal officials this injunction prevents them from quote urging encouraging pressuring or inducing in any manner the removal deletion suppression or reduction of content containing protected Free Speech posted on social media platforms judge Dodie's opinion contains 82 pages of detailed factual findings supported by 577 citations of the evidence which is drawn from roughly 20 000 pages of the federal government's own emails and Communications with social media Platforms in six full-length depositions in its recently filed stay motions the government is hardly bothered to dispute any of these factual findings the court of appeals has entered a quote temporary administrative stay of this injunction and granted expedited argument briefing an argument on August 10th contrary to some recent suggestions a temporary administrative stay is quote routine practice in the fifth circuit that's a direct quote from the recent decision and and Ray Abbott and it does not reflect any Judgment of the merits today I want to offer seven observations drawn from the Louisiana opinion first the Louisiana court found based on overwhelming evidence that Federal officials are the cause of the censorship of the viewpoints they disfavor the government likes to claim that social media platforms acting on their own would apply their policies and censor all this content anyway this is demonstrably incorrect again and again the Louisiana court found that the platforms would not have suppressed this speech but for the fact that the federal officials were pushing for it the de-platforming of Alex Berenson the throttling of Tucker Carlson's content the silencing of the so-called disinformation doesn't which includes Mr Kennedy the suppression of much of the so-called borderline which is quote often true content on Facebook's platforms the censorship of the hunter Biden laptop story and much more all these were suppressed because of the efforts of federal officials second the scope and reach of federal censorship is staggering as the Louisiana court repeatedly found it affects quotes millions of social media posts and speakers all across America it affects virtually every American who reads listens engages our posts on social media about great disputed political and social questions that Federal sensors have stuck their fingers into Third Federal censorship is ongoing and it shows no signs of relenting federal official censorship efforts are in full swing and they're expanding to New Frontiers left unchecked Federal censorship will reach virtually any disputed social and political question over which federal officials want to impose their power fourth the Louisiana opinion shows that Federal officials are most eager most focused on focused on silencing truthful speech and to muzzle the most influential critics of the administration and its policies Tucker Carlson Alex Berenson and many others were targeted not because what they were saying was necessarily false but because it was the most effective criticism of the narrative line that the administration was pushing at the time censorship is not about truth it is about power preserving and expanding the power of the sensors and the political narratives they prefer fifth Federal officials are deeply intertwined with what other Witnesses have called the censorship industrial complex the Louisiana court made very detailed findings about the close connections between many federal officials and that mass surveillance and mass censorship Enterprise that calls itself the election Integrity partnership and the virality project not just sisa officials but White House State Department and Surgeon General officials have deep ties to that Enterprise as the Louisiana court found sisa and the EIP were completely intertwined sixth Federal officials don't just dictate the outcomes of specific content moderation decisions they also directly induce changes to the content moderation policies policies of major social media platforms to ban his favorite viewpoints in advance in seventh the federal censorship Enterprise has succeeded in transforming online discourse by rendering entire viewpoints virtually unspeakable on social media which is the modern Public Square this ongoing Distortion of the most fundamental American Freedom the right to free speech is intolerable under the First Amendment thank you thank you Mr Sauer Ms Wiley you're recognized microphone I'm usually quite loud but thank you for pointing that out chair Jordan ranking member Plaskett members of the subcommittee I want to thank you for having me here today I have introduced written testimony and I did have a summary of my oral testimony and I am going to depart from it after listening to the openings and these proceedings this week began the sentencing of Robert Bowers who murdered 11 people wounded six others because their faith was Judaism and because they were in a synagogue to worship Robert Bowers expressed on social media for a very long time deeply anti-semitic hateful statements he did it and used gab which is a platform that was de-platformed by Twitter because of its constant space it provided to hate that has actually become embodied in the most violent anti-semitic act we know to have happened on our Shores in the history of this country and I will tell you as a black woman who lived through covet in New York City where we watched too many images of refrigerated trucks with the bodies of loved ones because there were too many deaths to accommodate in morgues that surpassed surpassed the deaths during the Spanish Flu and where in this country we have lost over one million of our loved ones and for the black community for the Native American community for so many communities of color in particular where our rates of death were three to four times those of some other groups three to four times I want to agree with Mr Kennedy I want to agree that it's true incredibly important for us to be kind and respectful to one another it is incredibly important for us to be able to understand our experiences across our differences and to have a platform for those Communications and it is deeply vital that they be faced in fact not fiction and without regard to the intent or what is in the mind of anyone which I cannot say including what is in the mind of any of those who are testifying here today but what I can say is when you make a statement that suggests that based on race based on religion based on anything other than facts that you may have somehow not been targeted but other racial groups have that by definition feeds into something very dangerous in this country that is actually impacting lives and in some instances taking them and what I will say about the opinion in this case and I am here to talk about Missouri versus Biden is that in this case we can talk all day about the very specific facts and there is factual and accuracy in some of the fact statements in judge Dougherty's opinion but the most important one is the fifth circuit Court of Appeals widely widely believed by all for very good reason to not be out of step with conservative ideology vacated that preliminary injunction and I want to point to something else because one of the things that that injunction said was that our government responsible for public health responsible for National Security which by the way even under the Trump Administration the Department of Homeland Security said it is domestic terrorism that is our greatest National threat that even that it had in the injunction a statement that the federal government could not collaborate or partner or jointly work with institutes researchers including the Stanford internet Observatory could not in terms of identifying understanding or even talking about the deletion or removal of anything even if even if that research actually demonstrated that those social media companies were violating their own policy in a way that was dangerous for people and for our democracy so yes let's be kind let's be respectful and let's descend into a real discussion of facts where we can disagree about their meaning but not about their existence thank you gentlelady yields back we will now turned a five-minute question the chair recognized the gentleman from North Carolina Mr Bishop for five minutes and we will go a couple rounds here I think and then we they have called votes so we'll get the votes pretty quick but the gentleman's recognized for five minutes thank you Mr chairman I'm going to focus on the testimony the chairman made a reference to and that the ranking member was so concerned with damage control that she opened her comments about it I'll not ask staff to put the blow-ups on the screen as we proceed and Miss Morris begin with number one while I'm getting my first question out Ms Morris uh in your statement you had an interesting turn a phrase you uh you said that no one denies that the laptop is real what an interesting turn of phrase because that's exactly what Twitter was asking about the day your story appeared and it was interacting still further with Twitter and with Facebook Miss dimlo testified here it is on the screen for those who are visual Learners like me are you familiar with the October 2020 New York Post story on Hunter Biden's laptop I am this is Ms dimlo under oath do you recall whether any of these social media companies you were meeting with asked you any questions about it I do please proceed to the next slide and here's how in the same page but it was it was relayed to me later that somebody from Twitter I don't recall who I'm not sure who somebody from Twitter essentially asked whether the laptop was real and one of the FBI folks who was on the call did confirm that yes it was before another participant jumped in and said no further comment proceed to the next slide so you said he was one example do you recall other social media companies proceed to the next slide Ms dimlo says I believe Facebook we met with Facebook soon thereafter can't remember if it was the same day or within a couple of days and they also asked and I said no comment that was the that was the decision we made in those post-meeting deliberations which is pretty typical it was an ongoing investigation and we don't generally comment on ongoing investigative matters when asked so Ms Morris to your point I think this shows one thing for sure you you credited Michael schellenberger uh and some of his reporting one of the things that he asked in one of his uh Twitter file stories was whether the foreign influence task force people the FBI folks who were interfacing with the social media companies whether they knew about the hunter Biden laptop contents that the FBI had since December 2019. so we now we know right the foreign influence task force knew it was real and it wasn't just a few people it was common knowledge an analyst on that telephone call before they got their act together admitted that it was real and then the we also know that the social media companies wanted to know if it was real of course they did because the FBI had been telling them for months to be prepared for a hack and leak operation and also to be prepared for an opera something involving Hunter Biden of course they wanted to know so what do you think about the fact that the FBI in response to Twitter told them it was real then they covered that up or stopped no further comment into Facebook with his billions of users said no comment we're not going to tell you um yeah I know we know that the FBI knew that it was real uh they knew it was real since not just December 2019 when um is which is when the subpoena that I published is from which was in the original story the the uh thanks for the meeting with your father from Ukraine story um we published The subpoena um and they had already confirmed though which we would learn later they had already confirmed that the laptop was real and uh the quote not manipulated in any way quote um in in November of 2019 a month before they actually obtained the laptop to keep which is when they got they gave that subpoena to John Paul Mac Isaac the owner of the Mac Store where Hunter Biden forgot the laptop um and and I think that's something that gets glazed over in this reporting um I'm so familiar with it it's nauseating um which is that Jim Baker was the deputy council at Twitter and if that name doesn't sound familiar I'll remind you all who that is he's the former deputy Council of the FBI like are we supposed to all sit here and pretend that he didn't know what that subpoena was when he saw it in the New York Post I mean let's not insult our intelligence here in the intelligence of the American people obviously he knew what it was Point well taken Miss Morris and my times expired but what we have always understood in all likelihood was true we yet we now have yet one more piece of evidence from the from the folks at the FBI they that they interfered Comey interfered in 2016 was IT director Ray himself who interfered in 2020 we still need to know tell me it was back down recognize the ranking member for five minutes and I think we'll do ranking member and one more and then we'll have to take a break thank you Mr chairman um I know that we talked earlier about a post that Mr Kennedy had at the beginning of the Biden Administration I just want the record to reflect that that post has not been taken down um so I'm wondering about the extent of censorship when the post is still there but more importantly again I go back to just the fact that we are creating a platform for these for this kind of discussion not about the censorship not about Free Speech but the content of some of that speech that we are amplifying in this room I'm appalled and and just so troubled by colleagues that I have to work with that these are individuals who would bring a witness who's promoted a video that compared the coveted vaccine to the Tuskegee trials the Tuskegee trials were a very difficult time in Black America where individuals who were already sick with a disease we're then reviewed experimented on who already had a disease how far that disease went and making the comparison to manip that manipulates and prays on black people's feelings about the atrocities of the past in order to prevent them from seeking life-saving vaccines in the present and knowing that this is dangerous I I cannot also be uh unaware that this comes from an individual who by Mr Roy's introduction is very smart and understands the implications of this you know Mr Kennedy's own family just decries his stance on vaccines and families disagree on a lot of things I got family members that you know we all disagree so that doesn't mean anything but the fact that he uh has famously sent a request to a party guest that they had to be vaccinated to come to his party and I'd like to introduce into the record a letter from Louis silkin a law firm representing Mr Kennedy which states as he has stated repeatedly he vaccinated all his children and I'd like that to be introduced into the record but tells the black community and myself a mother of five black children that I should really be careful and not necessarily have the same safeguards to protect my family my children from a virus that has killed millions of people because I'm black there's no secret that this is an amplification of his own platform you know I'm not going to talk about the money that's received from the Children's Health defense from his anti-vaccine organization that's responsible for a majority of the false information about their out there about covid and the notoriety that's gained from it by manipulating black and other vulnerable communities to propagate these pseudosciences Ms Wiley are you aware of the phrase superhuman yet sub-humanization I can't say I'm aware of the phrase I am aware of the viewpoint and can you share what you believe that to me when it comes to black people well sadly and unfortunately we have a history in this country where black people were both by law and by social view viewed as inferior and sub-human and that there were stereotypes attached to that that includes all kinds of myth about the ability to disregard both the health needs health conditions and disparities that exist for black people and in Black communities to the detriment not only of the health of people who are black but also to Public Health by not taking good sound yes in chattel slavery you don't have to feed them the same way because they can take it they they can handle that they don't need as much or now with covid they've got super human genes that they don't need to get the same vaccines in and they may be more susceptible if you get vaccines Miss Wiley why do you think someone might choose to Target the black community for false health information about vaccines well I can't say that I can sit in a position to explain why anyone would do that I can only say that for those who wished to prevent people from getting a vaccine it was very clear that one of the ways in which you could convince people not to is to play on fears that have basis in historic experience sadly and and frankly and I can say this personally speaking from having conversations with friends with people I worked with with family worked with who were terrified of whether or not there might be some adverse consequences for them because of the Tuskegee experiments explicitly referring to times in which black people had been tested on without their permission or denied access to Medical intervention despite awareness that it would be detrimental to their health that distrust has historical fact and we have come to a point where in terms of the coveted vaccine and what we were being told by scientists including the ways in which both the CDC the World Health Organization and others were examining were actually putting out factual information both about the degree to which testing and trials before approval had been in had included for black people who are Asian and therefore had more basis in fact to be able to State scientifically time of the gentlelady time the gentle ladies expired generally yields back the gentleman from North Dakota is recognized thank you Mr chairman and I'd like to yield my time to representative Massey I thank the gentleman from North Dakota wow the irony and cognitive dissonance from the other side of the aisle it's deafening you could cut it with a knife they are at the same time denying that censorship is occurring but suggesting that there's more material that needs to be censored this is a hearing on censorship that began with an effort with a formal motion from the other side of the aisle to censor Mr Kennedy they do not want him to speak yet that is the topic of this hearing they have kept him from speaking a collusion between the government and private organizations Mr Kennedy and your opening statement you introduced us to this word Mal information can you tell us more about this made-up word what it means and some of the things that you've said or tried to say that you've been censored for that's been characterized as Mal information yes Congressman as and if if it would call defamations that have been uh just applied to me by the ranking member I'm happy to talk to you about my opinions on these issues what you have stated and tried to associate me with uh through killed by Associated simply inaccurate virtually everything every statement that you just made about me is inaccurate I have never advised black Americans not to receive vaccines at one point you say I'm anti-vaxx and that's a bad thing the other thing the other moment you point out that all my children are facts I've I'm fully compliant with the vaccine to schedule myself except for covid I I took flu vaccines for 20 years straight I have never been to anti-vaxx I have never told anybody I have never told the public avoid vaccination the only thing I've asked for and My Views are constantly misrepresented so that the truth of what I believe is not we're not allowed to have a conversation with about that with the American people which I believe vaccines should be tested with the same rigor as other medicines and medications you try to associate me a moment ago with a replacement Theory which is racist no I did not say you I belongs to the gentleman my colleagues time belongs to the gentleman I denounced that theory it is racist and I have never endorsed it or had any association with it our film on a medical plan um who is the black CDC official who ultimately exposed the Tuskegee experiment tried for years and years to appeal to CDC to stop it for 40 years finally he got relief by walking into my uncle's office in the building next door heading out hearings and ended the experiment I remember that very well and to say that that I I brought a I created a film that encourages blacks not to get adequate Medical Care is just completely aborn it's the witness's time do not censor the witness I'm not censoring the witness I'm not censoring the winds it's my time and I've given it to the witness do not censor him I'm not censoring him if the view others tribute it to me if they were actually true I can see why I shouldn't be able to testify here today those are not true these are defamations and malignancies that are used to censor me to prevent people from listening to the actual things that I'm saying and I think ranking member that we should have a real conversation rather than an exchange of ad hominem attacks and answer very quickly to your question the term malinformation was going to describe information that Facebook and Twitter and the other social media sites understood was true but that the White House and other federal agencies wanted censored anyway for political reasons because it challenged official orthodoxies I'll give you one example there was a I was included in a group called The disinformation doesn't and and Facebook and others were asked to censor as wish they did and by the way my Aaron pose it was taken down my whole Instagram account with 900 000 people was taken down because of that oh they knew Facebook knew that the disinformation doesn't claim it what they said the disinformation doesn't came from this very shady group the center for preventing digital hate in England that was that's funded by dark money that should be looked into they claimed that 65 of the vaccine misinformation on the internet was generated by those 12 people Facebook itself said that is impossible that is false information we know that not to be true And yet when the White House asked them to censor this disinformation doesn't including me they did it anyway when they knew it to be untrue my time has expired Mr gentleman yields Baxter chairman every unanimous consent motion before we had to you see from the gentleman from New York uh I would like to introduce uh page two of the transcript of Laura demlow where uh specifically she says uh if someone uh she's asked if someone were to leave here today were to leave at this interview and were to suggest or imply or state that when you said quote the laptop was real unquote that it meant that the FBI had affirmatively determined in October 2020 that the laptop belonged to Hunter Biden that the contents belonged to Hunter Biden that the contents had not been manipulated in some way they would be misrepresenting what you said correct answer they would be misrepresenting what I said because I don't have much knowledge of that without objection I think that's already been introduced but without objection we'll do it again recess we stand in recess for approximately 40 45 minutes and we'll be back and right back at it thank you all and you can uh and the background foreign thank you sorry well you know okay yeah foreign thank you all right this is oh back ground s is now foreign Edition foreign I didn't think thank you foreign foreign okay okay thank you [Music] thank you foreign thank you foreign I really um okay things yeah yeah um foreign together information this video will come to order the chair recognize the gentleman for Florida Mr chairman I have a point of order Mr chairman I have a port of order generally consider point of order thank you Mr chairman Mr chairman I just missed two votes on the house floor because we were not giving them we did not resist on time I think many of my colleagues that's not going to be in a properly stated point of order to check recognize from Florida is what is the intent of the chair in the future recesses that they need to avoid the the censorship of the voice of my constituents because I was not able to recognizes their views on important items on the agenda oh that's right that's right questionable yeah yeah actually the chair recognizes the gentleman from Massachusetts for his five minutes Mr chairman introduce um some ask unanimous consent to introduce uh an article from NPR June 8 2021 discussing the film medical racism where viewers are warned that in Black communities something is very Sinister and the same thing that happened in the 1930s during the Eugenics movement is happening again without objection uh uh we'll be entering the record of the chair is the gentleman from Massachusetts for his five minutes thank you Mr chairman Mr chairman one of the saddest parts of this fabricated circus of outrage is the drum beat of attacks that I have seen against the men and women of the Department of Justice and the FBI many of them armed service veterans who in their earlier careers actually put on the uniform of this country and served honorably as well as attacks against Department of Homeland Security CDC and and health and human services and as evidence today he's hearing the Republicans are continuing to go to Great Lengths to invoke Wild and seemingly race-based conspiracy theories this information and propaganda to allege that those same men and women who at one point served our country in uniform are now somehow targeting the American people meanwhile this same subcommittee on weaponization has turned completely a blind eye to the actual and well-documented blatant and egregious weaponization of the federal government undertaken by the previous president we are in fact still receiving reports of actual weaponization committed by President Trump in fact we now have a recent sworn declaration from former white house chief of staff John Kelly indicating that President Trump suggested utilizing the IRS and other federal agencies to investigate his perceived enemies who at the time happen to be two FBI agents who are examining his conduct I asked for a unanimous consent for this record this sworn statement to be entered into the record without objection we also have another recent disclosure from Miles Taylor former Chief of Staff at the Department of Homeland Security reporting that President Trump sought to wiretap the phones of his own White House aides in order to detect any leaks to the great detriment of the American people however we are not investigating the actual weaponization of the federal government and worse yet this committee has come to embody weaponization itself misusing Congressional oversight to protect Donald Trump and attempt to divert attention from the multiple federal and state criminal investigations surrounding president Trump's misconduct in office in the midst of the outgoing State prosecution in New York of President Trump chairman Jordan has repeatedly sought to interfere and influence that case threatening to subpoena Mr Bragg and even holding a field hearing on Mr Bragg's prosecutorial record blocks from his Lower Manhattan office deliberately interfering in the rule of law being applied in that case the Republican members of this committee have also followed the shameful example set by the president former president in targeting the independent federal law enforcement Personnel that have sought to hold Donald Trump accountable these are the good and patriotic Americans trying to uphold the rule of law within the FBI and the Department of Justice in the same vein as president Trump describing the Department of Justice and the FBI my colleagues have described my Republican colleagues had described these individuals as Scoundrels quote vicious monsters and the chairman of the other Republican members of this committee have continually described these agencies as quote corrupt out of control and rotten to the Core these are the men and women who are serving our country in the Department of Justice trying to uphold the rule of law Miss Wiley what what is the underlying threat to American democracy and the rule of law to basically baselessly claim that the federal agency and the individual personnel at the Department of Justice and FBI are being weaponized to attack everyday Americans what's the impact of that on our democracy Mike yeah okay unfortunately unfortunately Congressman there's more than one impact One impact that's very clear and obvious to sadly for far too many is that foreign governments who have deep interest in sowing distrust in the American people against our own government and our own civil servants utilize that to generate and propagate myths and disinformation that then it puts out under disguise on social media platforms to help incite and spread the notion seemingly seemingly in a way that suggests that it is not coming from a foreign government so that so that is sowing the seeds not just of distrust but fundamentally in any Democratic country it is critically important that we be able to have a relationship with our government and with law enforcement in order to make sure that people are coming forward to law enforcement sharing information truthfully with law enforcement and that law enforcement can engage in investigations into any version of potential crimes that have been committed in violation of our own laws without interference and without the refusal or inability to do so in a manner that also holds the privacy and protection of people's rights by also keeping that quiet which is centrally important investigation I'm the gentleman from Massachusetts expired the chair recognized gentleman from Florida Mr Gates you'll miss Roy it's always recognized I think the gentleman from Florida I think the chairman um Mr Kennedy first of all your father served as the Attorney General of the United States I'm a former assistant United States Attorney uh do you believe that it is a proper function and role for Congress and for all of us to question whoever happens to be in the seat at the Office of the Attorney General or in the FBI or in Upper levels of government generally to seek the truth wherever it may lead make sure your mic's on your microphone that is exactly the function that the United States Constitution has signed to the people of uh to the members of Congress and I you know I would say this I don't want president Trump misusing the FBI and I don't want President Biden I mean you should want anybody amen and I I agree with that completely let me characterize my understanding of something get your your perspective on it following the 2016 election election Dr fauci Dr Collins Peter marks met with you to the best of my understanding regarding vaccine safety in part as a result of your engagement with President Trump and at that meeting you requested evidence of a vaccine undergoing placebo-controlled trial safety test prior to licensing after making a show of looking for the document Dr fauci informed you to the best of my understanding that the document was back in Bethesda and that he would eventually send the document to you the document to the best of my knowledge was never sent and that you sued HHS for documents showing and trying to figure out the truth of the matter and that you found that not one study was done on pre-licensing safety testing for coveted vaccines after a year HHS finally sent you a letter stating we basically we don't have any this means to the best of my understanding that nobody knows the risk profiles for these products or whether they avert more harm than they cause and as a result there's no real science behind these statements but rather guesswork is that a fair characterization of what you've experienced that is a fair characterization we we had looked for many years to find a a pre-licensing safety trial of any of the 72 vaccines doses that are now essentially mandated they're recommended but that's effectively mandated for American children and we have not been able to find any and I and every other medication requires prior to licensing my FDA at the company perform a safety trial that compares Health outcomes Simplicity oh in a placebo group and a similarly situated vaccine group my assumption was that was done for vaccines we found out that it hadn't been that it was not it was they were exempt and uh I made that statement publicly Arthur fauci contradicted me and when President Trump out ordered him to meet with me and uh and Francis Collins and a group of my colleagues I said to them at that time you've said publicly that I've been dishonest about that can you show us a single pre-licensing safety trial placebo-controlled safety trial for any of the 72 vaccines required for American children and he made that show of looking through a file and he said well they're back in Bethesda and I said will you send them to me and I never heard from them again so we sued the HHS under the Freedom of Information law after year of litigation they sent us a letter which is posted on chd's website and acknowledges that they are now not able to locate a single pre-licensing safety trial Placebo control for any of the vaccines that are now mandated for children these are zero liability vaccines and so if I might interject in just limited time and I hope you can expand on that further I know my friend from Kentucky Mr Massey will probably expand on this later but your your uncle Senator Ted Kennedy was a pretty strong opponent of sweeping immunity from liability for manufacturers of vaccines and did he not introduce an amendment to repeal the so-called prep act uh the public Readiness and emergency preparedness act uh when he was a senator yes he did and you know that the immunity which was passed in 1986 not neither the Republicans Or democrats wanted it uh Ronald Reagan at that time who signed the bill said and why it was the company that was pushing it and they were saying that they were losing 20 in Downstream liabilities for every dollar that they made in profits from vaccines they were going to get out of the business if they were not granted immunity oh Ronald Reagan said to them at that time why don't you make the vaccines safe and why is that because they're unavoidably unsafe which is true of most medicines I'm not any vaccine but I think we need to be honest and we need to have good science that's all I've ever argued and closing out my time here I would just say this my my father had Polio um I understand the ravages of that disease I'm grateful that we have the opportunity to have polio vaccine but I also want the truth being sought I want to know the health impacts of the polio vaccine going forward and every other vaccine that's being administered and I'll just close by saying and asking I know that this is informed by a great deal of conversations you've had with mothers and moms who came up to you and if you could expand on that I'll yield back yeah I mean I was drag Kicking and Screaming into this space because I was confronted by you know when I was touring a country on uh suing companies about mercury and fish and by the way people you know I spent 30 years trying to get Mercury out of the fish in this country and nobody ever called me any fish at that time we were trying to get Mercury out of vaccines because mothers were coming and saying my child was injured by the vaccine these were many many hundreds literally on mothers with intellectual disabilities and they said nobody's listening to us the Democrats aren't listening to us the Republicans aren't listening to us and I felt like I should listen to them and actually read the science and that is what got me down into that time and by the way it's the worst career decision I have ever had time in the gentlemen yo back time and gentleman inspired the generally from California is recognized for five minutes thank you chairman and ranking member plaska during the height of covid-19 pan the covid-19 pandemic anti-asian hate and violence skyrocketed as some racists blamed a virus coming out of China on all Asian Americans since March of 2020 stop AAP I hate a non-profit organization aimed at tracking and addressing anti-asian hate reported more than 11 000 anti-asian acts of hate and violence this same report found that 49 of Asian Americans in Pacific Islanders have experienced some form of discrimination these acts of hate include Asian Americans being beaten spit on screamed at and even killed and the increases in these types of attacks during covid accompanied a slew of anti-chinese sentiments related to the virus like calling it The quote-unquote China virus and even disgustingly quote-unquote Kung flu many Asian Americans were harassed physically costed and told that they quote unquote created the virus yet one of our Republican Witnesses encourages this appalling rhetoric and promotes anti-asian hate with dangerous and unfounded claims just last week Mr Kennedy suggested covid-19 was a bioweapon and said it was quote targeted to attack Caucasians and black people end quote and that quote the people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese end quote suggesting that the Chinese people didn't suffer like others during the pandemic despite asserting that he should become their president Mr Kennedy seems to disregard the correlation between anti-asian rhetoric and violence Ms Wiley do you frequently work with minority communities including Chinese American or other Asian American communities I do and do you think Mr Kennedy's theory is racist I think that Mr Kennedy's statements fuels the theories that suggest that there's a biology to race and that therefore we can actually identify people in communities as possibly either being benefited by or being people who are not sharing the same interests and needs as the rest of us and yes that has served to drive hate and bias and sadly including violent incidents now it was said earlier in this hearing that Mr Kennedy is a smart man now so far as I know he does not have any specific education or training in medicine he is not an epidemiologist one who studies infectious diseases he has never conducted clinical trials in a professional setting he has never done scientific research in a professional laboratory and published scientific findings in a peer-reviewed publication Ms Wiley what kind of harm does someone with absolutely no medical training or knowledge do when they espouse unfounded anti-asian vaccine theories during a fraught time like covet one of the things that happened in this historic pandemic was that there was certainly a need to get on top of very quickly what the science said I am not a scientist either and so what social media platforms did was go and speak to government agencies because their own policies their own user agreements required them to look and figure out what the facts were so that they could assess what was responsible and what was not responsible to post I say that because it was incredibly important to ensure that people were getting real-time information as possible but also ones that really demonstrated what all of us need rather than where and how we should ascribe blame or where and how we should consider who benefits and who doesn't because we were all harmed but I say this in part because it was a social media platforms themselves that reached out to government agencies including Health and Human Services and CDC to get that information and under the vacated the vacated opinion it's really important to understand it has been vacated by the fifth circuit this preliminary injunction on all these incidents we're talking about because because one of the things it would do in my view just as in my legal view is that it was actually saying that the government could not respond to such requests under this injunction which is incredibly over broad dangerous and doesn't allow government agencies to do what they are chartered to do now I'm an attorney by training and one of the things I learned very early on in constitutional law is that no right given to the people of the United States is absolute and that includes the right to free speech because you do not have the right to shout fire and crowded theater because it could produce harm and death of people by being false these social media platforms have user policies to try to prevent that kind of harm is that not correct Mrs Ms Wiley that is correct and so we are not trying to censor speech we are simply trying to create factually correct information to prevent harm to people including death and that's what we they were trying to do during covet is that not correct legally speaking absolutely and I say that as a matter of law which is that court cases say that the government has the in fact it's its role to ask for compliance with policies the policies on the books of social media platforms were violated I mean excuse me Mr chairman but the last questioner got an additional extra minute I'm at 35 seconds over I would want to order Mr chairman the Democrat beforehand got an extra minute her sentence trying to be generous finish her sentence generous even when the response is that the government determines the truth I would like for her to be able to finish her sentence Mr chairman then I will yield back okay Miss Wiley you can finish your sentence thank you I'm not sure I remember the sentence but thank you I just think the point was it was you were saying the government should be the Arbiter please not put words into the mouth of the witness and let her respond which are now recognizes a lady from New York the gentlelady from California I love how you follow the rules Mr Sherman it's really indicative of times Lord thank you Mr chairman thank you Mr chairman Ms Morris isn't it true that your October 2020 Hunter Biden laptop from Hell story has proven to be 100 factually accurate I was 27 when I published that story it better have been isn't it true that the FBI obtained Hunter Biden's laptop a full 10 months before your story broke that's correct according to the subpoena that I published isn't it also true that we now know that the FBI's foreign influence task force coerced social media companies into an alleged forthcoming Russian quote hack and leak operation and as a result illegally censored the hunter Biden laptop story isn't that true censorship by government agencies like the FBI was paid for by the taxpayer since the taxpayers fund the FBI isn't that true yes and Hunter Biden's laptop from hell it has everything it's a hellhole and Cesspool of corruption and criminal conduct it has hard drugs prostitution pornography money laundering it has Biden family shell companies communist Chinese corrupt foreign government deals from tens of millions of dollars in exchange for access to the Biden family the hunter Biden laptop from hell has all of this correct yeah and the American people are smart they know that this was not a hack and dump this was illegal government censorship to protect and prop up Joe Biden on the eve of the 2020 election and according to polling of people who were now made aware of the hunter Biden laptop story 53 percent would have changed their vote including 61 percent of Democrats so do you agree that the censorship of the hunter Biden laptop story was determinative in the 2020 election Miss Morris yeah there are various polls that say that um that there would have been a change in the outcome of the election and obviously it's immediately relevant to a decision on who to vote for so obviously and do you believe that this government censorship was election interference yes any any censorship of speech prevents um your ability to think clearly yes of course yes and Mr Kennedy I want to turn to you you've heard me lay out this example of egregious and illegal government censorship you have been censored yourself do you believe that government censorship is a form of election interference yeah I think I think democracy is dependent on the free form of information and if we if that information is distorted if the public is lied to then it interferes with election and by the way it interferes with Public Health and the Wall Street Journal did a article a couple of weeks ago is adjusting that the censorship of important health information cost American lives and Mr Kennedy I want to ask you specifically about the hunter Biden laptop Story the total blackout on all social media Outlets as well as Telecom you couldn't text the link to the hunter Biden laptop story this specifically was a form of election interference by the U.S government in the 2020 election I don't know enough about it I know that uh there was censorship on that story and Other Stories that uh you know presumably um could have changed people's minds about the election and we know the pollings demonstrates that now people have said they would have changed their vote had they been made aware of the hunter Biden laptop story isn't that correct I am not aware of that but I'm not surprised um Mr Sauer uh I want to turn to you um you I I want your reflection on this form of government censorship specifically in the 2020 election as a form of election interference and what I believe is some of the you know most egregious political scandals that you know I will live through in my lifetime Mr Sarah what are your reflections I strongly agree with your characterization of that form of censorship as election interference uh the evidence in our case strongly supports that uh it strongly supports it actually we have judicial findings now that the suppression of the 100 by laptop story was done at the instigation of federal officials in the FBI at a very high level of that organization it was an orchestrated campaign of deception that was anticipatory it was planned in advance and it was I think consummated with the testimony that I hadn't seen before that's been put up today from his demo uh characterizing how at the very end the FBI then uh uh clammed up at the last minute after spending months of seeding the record in these endless ceaseless meetings with social media platforms about there's a hack and dumb coming it's going to involve Hunter Biden that would actually came they said no comments are our judge focused on that particular issue as kind of the coup de grass in this formal election interference thank you my time's expired Mr chairman opponent unanimous consent request we've got a lady from California is recognized for unanimous content my majority counterparts have repeated repeated cited at District Court the order staying that opinion almost as soon as it was issued the objection the chair now recognizes the generator voter Mr chairman gentleman from New York's recognized um the distinguished gentle lady from New York mentioned a poll I would just ask that she identified what poll that is and if we could enter it into the record I'm sure she'll be happy who will submit it for the record can you identify what it is sure I will submit it for the record and you'll be able to review it we'll get it uh the chair now recognizes the gentlelady from uh Florida Miss Washington thank you Mr chairman Mr chairman we respectfully requested that you rescind Mr Kennedy's invitation to be appear here due to his repeated and very recent statements that spread dangerous anti-semitic and anti-asian conspiracy theories and attempted to move into executive session because house rules prohibit public testimony that degrades or defames people his Reckless rhetoric helped fuel anti-semitic incidents which for the record are at the highest level in the United States since 1970. they have nearly tripled in the last six years since you gave Mr Kennedy a megaphone today I want to give him a chance to correct his statements and prepare some of the harm that he's helped cause Mr Kennedy you're well educated so yes or no please are you aware that for centuries Jews have been scapegoated and blamed for causing illnesses like black plague and more recently coveted I am those are known as blood libel and they are one of the worst most disturbing parts of uh human history good I'm glad to know that of course that you that you acknowledge that of course it's true and well documented that his permission to finish his form of anti-Semitism led to centuries of discrimination even horrific programs and massacres and it still fuels deadly violence today yet last week you floated a baseless conspiracy theory that the coronavirus was bioengineered to Target Caucasians and black people but to spare Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese people Mr Kennedy your bizarre unproven claim Echoes that same historic slander of labeling Jews and Chinese people as a race and that Jews and in this case Chinese people somehow managed to avoid a deadly illness that targets other groups for death you do see that yes or no you're misstating no no no I was describing and NIH funded studies no no you didn't cite I was describing an nih-funded study by Cleveland clinics claiming my time reclaiming my time reclaiming published in USC medical which is online the time is mine I'm reclaiming it please ask the witness to stop talking you asked me a question reclaim it let me allow me to answer my question Mr chairman I'd like about 10 seconds I'd like 15 seconds back we will be happy to give you that thank you so much you did not cite any study like you are citing here now during that conversation you reference no study at all you simply labeled Jews and Chinese people as a race and you also said that somehow they managed to avoid a deadly illness that targets other groups for death you don't see that you're trying to rewrite history here a few months ago Mr Kennedy you compared covid Public Health policies to barbaric murderous tactics of Nazi Germany saying that Jewish people in Nazi Germany had more freedom than Americans facing coveted Health restrictions in hindsight Mr Kennedy do you reject this absurd and deeply hurtful and harmful comparison or do you still stand by it Congressman what you are saying that you you said it it's it's I oh I did not I never can tell you I never ever Mr chairman Mr Kennedy said that I reclaim my time in discussing coveted Public Health measures you made light of the genocide against Jewish people by saying and I quote even Hitler's Germany you could cross the Alps to Switzerland you could hide in an attic like Anne Frank did Mr Kennedy do you think it was easy for Jewish people to escape systematic Slaughter of Nazis yes or no absolutely not okay good Mr Kennedy do you think it was just as hard to wear a mask during covid as it was to hide under floorboards or false walls so you weren't murdered or dragged to a concentration camp yes or no excuse me that's a question yes or no I didn't hear your question okay I said do you think it was just as hard to wear a mask during covid as it was to hide under floorboards or false walls so you weren't murdered or dragged to a concentration camp of course that's ridiculous that's a comparison that you made that the measures taken were the measures taken to contain the spread and fatalities related to covet in any way at all comparable to the murder of six million Jews yes or no absolutely not okay let's be very clear here there's no legitimate comparison to the Holocaust it doesn't matter if you're talking about AI vaccine mandates or anything else there is no comparison and If This Were a slip of the tongue Mr Kennedy or a one-off comment we would all move on but there's a deeply disturbing pattern in 2015 you apologize to all those quote who am I offended by my use of the word holocaust to describe the autism epidemic when discussing efforts to encourage others to get vaccinated for covid-19 you said Nazis did that in the camps in World War II they tested vaccines on Gypsies and Jews that was a quote like before you apologize for invoking the Holocaust saying quote to the extent my remarks caused hurt I am truly and deeply sorry these are not real statements of Contrition or remorse they are passive aggressive non-apologies that blame the listener for reacting to the law you just read I'm deeply saddened that this is a conversation we're having today I have deep respect for what Mr Kennedy's family did and still does to make life better for all Americans but what you are doing now Mr Kennedy and the forces you aligned yourself are Reckless dangerous and disturbing by echoing dangerous claims such as quote Jews don't really suffer as much as we do which you said your rhetoric creates a climate of mistrust antagonism and even hatred or violence against Jewish people my own children have been the targets of brutal anti-Semitism on social media you fan those flames and jeopardize their safety you've marginalized other groups too like Asian Americans and the LGBT plus community and worse you don't seem to care or brush it all off to misquotes and misunderstanding frankly it's disgusting thank you for your Indulgence Mr chairman I yield back the bills Mr chairman I have unanimous consent records gentleman from Kentucky is recognized for UC I asked unanimous consent to introduce into the record to study that Mr Kennedy just referenced new insights into genetic susceptibility of covid-19 the main body said that they investigated genetic susceptibility to 19 by examining DNA polymorphism and ace2 and TM PR SS2 those are receptors for covid in 81 000 human genomes and they found unique genetic susceptibility across different populations have another document that I would like to ask your name is consent with the objection to submit and this is uh from the FDA FDA review of efficacy and safety of Pfizer by intact covid-19 vaccine this is dated December 10 2020 and it shows that the Pfizer trial and the USDA broke down the effectiveness of the vaccine into seven different racial categories because this was also a concern of theirs and it would frankly be delinquent not to study the uh the effects across Mr Kennedy said it was bioengineered without a Target thank you claiming my time Mr Kennedy you've had uh some accusations uh thrown at you today I'm going to ask my questions briefly and give you a chance to respond to that at the end of my time here miss Wiley if I could talk to you uh and maybe you're busy you know with something else there but uh do you trust the government to determine what facts and Views the American people should be exposed to process whereby we can interrogate what we hear and learn from the government but certainly I expect the government to share facts and information that was my question I didn't say share facts and information I said do you trust the government to determine what facts and Views the American people should be exposed to and which ones they should not uh well well I'm struggling with the question because that is not the facts of the case in Missouri I'm not talking to Missouri I'm not talking about Missouri this is a very simple question do you trust the government to determine what facts and Views the American people are exposed to I am not aware of any action of the government that time to take the American public what facts they should be exposed you're not aware of that no I am not oh my gosh where have you lived for the last three years in the United States of America let me tell you let me ask you China suppresses free speech is that a good thing no of course not Iran mola's air suppressed free speech is that a good thing no of course Vladimir Putin expresses suppresses is that a good thing no we we all well we agree then that the government should not government leaders should not suppress free speech that's a different question uh yes it is it is unconstitutional for the government to pass laws that would abridge Free Speech or or not pass laws but to create pressure that was suppressed Free Speech they don't Vladimir Putin doesn't pass a law he exerts his force and influence to suppress free speech Yes the case law says that the government cannot coerce private entities and we agree that's a bad idea don't we yes and I would absolutely agree when honestly and the government social media companies hang on hang on regulation shutdown that was coercion that's not my question oh I know but I think it was consistent that's my question for you we agree the government shouldn't be responsible for restricting views that the American people are exposed to we agree on that right you wouldn't answer it at first but that's clear that you do agree with that that's a different question okay so to my question do you agree with that or not I agree that the government should not violate our constitution do you agree with my question your question is the government this is so simple it is not so so I'm going to ask at one time and it is so simple a seventh grader could understand this question should the government be responsible for the views and the facts that the American people are exposed to the problem I have is that I don't know I'm going to see the facts in which your government tells us I want to say that you're unable to answer a question which for me is fairly shocking as an American citizen let me ask you now then having concluded that you're unaware of suppression of free speech in the last several years what about foreign do you think it was appropriate for the FBI to pressure private companies to censor and take down posts that the government disagreed with was that appropriate I'll give you an example what you were unaware of I'm glad you're aware of it now was that appropriate for the government to do that sir the only thing that is appropriate for the government to do is what it is lawfully allowed to do both under the Constitution and the laws of this country which is which is to conduct its criminal investigations appropriately to our laws and to our so they didn't have the ability then to go to these private companies and to say they can't there there are instances there are instances in which in order to protect the Integrity of a criminal prosecution they may ask sometimes news agencies and others agree with that was that the case here any criminal prosecutions involved with these cases not that there were criminal criminal investigations are not prosecutions and also the integrative criminal were there any criminal investigations regarding these examples which examples are those sir for example anything regarding the hunter Biden laptop well there there are lots of things that have been said in public media about Hunter Biden's laptop there has there was a criminal investigation in fact a plea in that case does it bother you that 51 former intelligence officials made a determination that the hunter Biden laptop was Russian disinformation which they admit by the way they had no evidence at all that that was true zero evidence that that was true does that bother you they did that what bothers me tremendously is that while there are a lot of things we should be talking about with regard to whether or not the government at times exceeds its Authority that includes whether or not government exceeds its Authority when it tries to censor interfere with research or research institutions where any White House official such as Donald Trump actually threatens the full power of the federal government including the threat to shut down social media because they put a fact Mr chairman I have a unanimous consent request gentlelady from New York's recognized I'd like to submit for the record tip insight to new jersey-based Institute of policy and politics poll conducted of over 1 000 adults between August 2nd August 4th of 2022 showed that 8 in 10 voters if they were made aware of the Biden laptop that would have been determinative in changing the outcome of the election it also demonstrates that 61 percent of Democrats including this poll would have changed their vote submitted for the record not objection thank you the general woman from Virginia is recognized for five minutes thank you Mr chairman I've been in this Congress 15 years and I never thought we'd descend to this level of orwellian dystopia foreign ly the tools of the trade are not to get at the truth but to distract distort deflect and disassemble disagree is censorship to try to correct the facts is to infringe on my right a free speech of course it only works one way the name of Dr fauci has been invoked I'd love to have him here as a witness to describe his travail in being censored but of course with that right-wing censorship comes intimidation and threat and intimations of violence and a wink blink that by the way violence you know can be justified the violence for example here on January 6. has been explicitly excused by some of my colleagues on the other side of the owl as a bunch of tourists who got a little out of hand a little over excited five are dead including my constituent Capitol Hill Police Officer who died the next day from the trauma and shock of that experience and ironically talk about free speech and Duty he voted for Donald Trump but his duty was to be here that day after schooling and somehow my freedom to harm with the words I use is considered further evidence of censorship but we know words have power and that's why we take care with the words we use we have mass killings in America We buried people recently at Pittsburgh because of their identity hate speech has consequences Distortion of the truth has consequences it's not censorship to try to correct that record vaccination denial would have cost millions or more lives in America 1.1 million fellow Americans are dead today because of the pandemic and millions are saved because of a vaccine that was developed in record time and we ought to be celebrating that not cavling about it protective measures were taken to take down disinformation about vaccines and about the nature of the virus and about protective measures we could take including masks including social distancing it was not big brother government trying to exercise its will on a on an innocent population it was Public Health measures to protect lives again something should be celebrated but now There's an opportunity to have a conspiracy theory here There's an opportunity to make political points and no matter what you may think Mr Kennedy and I Revere your name you're not here to propound your case for censorship you are here for cynical reasons to be used politically by that side of the aisle to embarrass the current president of the United States and you're an enabler in that effort today and it brings shame on a story name that I Revere I began my political interest with your father and it makes me profoundly sad to see where we have descended today in this hearing I yield the balance of my time to Mr Goldman um thank you Mr thank you the distinguished gentleman from Virginia we don't have a lot of time to dig into questions but I would just note for my colleagues on the other side of the aisle who are former prosecutors you well know that the opinions of a journalist don't amount to actual evidence of anything and it is a sign of the desperate attempt to satisfy your conspiracy theories that you're bringing a fringe right gentlemen to provide evidence of your for your investigation and I yield back gentleman yields back the chair now recognizes Mr Johnson from Louisiana I'm so grateful for that segue from Mr Golden because we're about to talk about hard evidence here it's really ironic this hearing is covering the left censorship of opposing viewpoints and you've all seen it on display all day long they've been doing exactly that but they've been trying to bully and defame our Witnesses and and try to cover up their opinions they they actually began the hearing with emotion to prevent them from testifying you can't make this stuff up it's on Broad display for everybody they did the same thing yesterday in the hearing what the IRS whistleblowers you know why because the Democrats are panicked right now they're panicked because it's impossible to cover up the inescapable conclusions of the last few weeks let me give you two of them first one the hard evidence Mr Goldman and everybody else now proves that the Biden family is hopelessly corrupt and has apparently engaged in a long pattern of extortion bribery influence peddling and tax fraud and staggering abuses of power and number two we're highlighting here today that we now know that a growing list of the most important executive branch agencies of the bite Administration are in on it they've also been corrupted they've been weaponized to help cover all this up the first family's crimes when we summarize all this stuff it sounds like a premise of a dystopian novel or something but it's actually happening right now on our watch this is not conspiracy theories this is evidence our hearing today is to put a spotlight on one more of these incredible Avenues as unprecedented corruption and government cover-up and here again a federal court has just affirmed all that hard evidence it proves that the White House the Department of Justice and the FBI among other agencies threatened and coerced the social media platforms to censor and suppress disfavored viewpoints and conservatives social media posts online I'm grateful we have with us today two individuals Mr Kennedy and Miss Harris who are directly impacted by that censorship and third Mr Sauer who we're about to speak with serving as League counsel in the landmark lawsuit against the federal government on this you let's talk facts the American people are not aware of the magnitude of this case Mr Sauer and its profound implications because most of the mainstream media is in on it too and they're trying to bury the story in brief in May of last year the Attorneys General of my state Louisiana and the state of Missouri filed suit in U.S District Court of the Western District of Louisiana this blatant censorship they went after the blatant censorship by the Biden White House in nine of its federal agencies two weeks ago on Independence Day The District Court issued a truly extraordinary 155-page Court opinion a rule in granting the plaintiff's request for preliminary injunction Mr Sauer your lead counsel in that litigation you reference some in your opening statement but let's do it again here because they don't seem to be paying attention can you give a summary again of some of the key components of that opinion and the basis for it I know you mentioned there were 82 pages of detailed factual findings right that is correct 82 Pages 577 citations of the record evidence that evidence is drawn from about 20 000 pages of the government's own Communications with social media platforms and six full-length depositions of senior federal officials with first-hand knowledge of federal censorship practices it's absolutely staggering and now they've tried to bury this and say well the fifth circuit entered a temporary administrative stay they granted a an expedited briefing in oral argument however for August 10th what what's the impact of that that's in that routine practice in the fifth circuit that's a direct quote from the recent Fifth circumstitution and Ray Abbott which is cited in my written testimony it's legally incorrect clearly legally and correct to describe them as vacating the injunction which has happened multiple times today they either don't know the law or I don't know they're trying to obscure the facts that's a theme around here the White House and the fellow Democrats disputed almost none of the factual findings in the court isn't that right so far we've had two emergency stay motions from the Department of Justice one in the district court one in the court of appeals and what really struck me in Reading those is they just don't dispute those 82 pages of factual findings almost none of them are directly disputed and what they've filed So Far So at the very beginning of this lengthy opinion the court explains the Staggering scope of the government censorship uncovered here at page 2 the court explains quote if the allegations made by the plaintiffs are true the present case arguably involves the most massive attack on Free Speech in the United States history the court called a dystopian orwellian how broad has this attack been how many Americans have been censored there's judicial findings again and again in the opinion of millions millions of American voices silenced by these efforts and it had profound impacts we know we just saw the poll in the in the data that's been entered here facts not conjecture that it probably changed the outcome of the election the court noted that they suppressed among other topics the hunter Biden laptop story and the court noted not you not me not Republicans that millions of Americans were not exposed to that story had they been we know they might have voted differently we'll never be able to unwind history but wow I mean the profound impacts what are some of the other categories of speech that the government suppressed with its unconstitutional scheme well the court made findings on that I just quote them opposition to covid-19 vaccines opposition to covid-19 masking and lockdowns the lab League theory of covid-19 opposition to President Biden's policies statements at the hunter buying laptop story was true oppositions to the policies of government officials in power all were suppressed and that's just some examples many other examples and that in the Court's findings and in the discovery in the case I so wish I weren't out of time I yield back the gentleman yields back the chair now recognizes Mr Allred from Texas for his five minutes thank you Mr chairman I yield my time to miss Plaskett let me thank the gentleman from Texas Kennedys and others here are claiming that they've been censored but they actually have a huge megaphone the rules that my colleague tried to bring up were rules that the Republicans made at the beginning of this Congress they did not allow the Democrats to be part of that and one of those rules was that if information or testimony might potentially defame an individual that we would go in executive session no one was trying to stop him from testifying but not to give him the megaphone that this group has allowed him to have I also note in terms of censorship that the far right media has already issued articles about me playing the race card the race card is something that's often used against black people for bringing up when they see race hatred being propagated against them and it's a means to try and keep us quiet and keep us in our place oh you're playing the race card by bringing up what is obvious in our lives what is obviously happening race and so you can keep saying I'm race-baiting and try and censor me but I'm going to continue to tell the truth I want to be abundantly clear about what else is happening in this room the Maga Republicans are trying to scare social media companies into not taking down blatantly false information in the lead-up to our 2024 presidential election chair Jordan knows as we do that when conspiracy theories succeed so does Donald Trump Russia interfered in our 2016 election they attempted in our 2020 and they're going to try to interfere in the 2024 presidential election we note that Russian trolls sought to suppress the black vote by unleashing a turret of social media posts designed to stoke racial tensions and spread incorrect voting information in 2021 our National Intelligence agencies found that proactive information sharing between the government and social media companies facilitated the expeditious review and in many cases removal of social media accounts covertly operated by Russia and Iran Ms Wiley if the government is not able to proactively share information with social media companies in 2024 what is the likely what is likely to have be the ramifications and I'd ask that you make your answer as succinct as possible there's a lot of information I need I will just quote one thing Mr pregosian who's been in the news of late actually said explicitly and openly that they would continue to try to spreadness and disinformation into the United States and interfere with our elections thank you they know that that Russian interference that is the Maga Republicans know the Trump benefits When Russia interferes Super PAC that supports the same Super PAC that supports Mr Kennedy and has raised significant funds on his behalf is run by a man named Jason Bowles here's Jason Bowles Twitter profile as you can see up on the screen Jason Bowles isn't just a Maga supporter he also ran the Super PAC for Maga Republicans Marjorie Taylor green Lauren bobert George Santos and in 2022 he supported Herschel Walker so the person behind Mr Kennedy's Super PAC is an individual who personally and professionally wants the Republican party to succeed yet Mr Kennedy is running as a Democrat Miss Wiley will it benefit Mr Kennedy as well as the other individuals that are supported by the super cat pack if social media companies are less able to detect and if needed if they determine that it's needed to remove Russian covert information designed to suppress votes in this country it is possible thank you I yield back can I uh yield gen remainder of the tall lady yields back I now recognize Mr stuby from uh Florida for his five minutes Mr Kennedy do you want to respond to that can you do that quickly yeah I I've never heard of Mr balls and I've never heard of that Super PAC this is typical of the accusations against me at this hearing they are baseless every single one I've been subjected to a string a parade of defamations if I believe those things about myself I wouldn't want to hear me either and when I gag me and lock me in a room somewhere but none of those are true and they were all all of this parade of accusations and defamations were made against me in a way that was calculated to make sure that I could not respond to any of them every one of them I'd like to respond to but I was not allowed to uh to further the disinformation going on Miss Wiley in a response to a question you stated the decision in Missouri V Biden was vacated by the Appellate Court is that correct I did and I want to correct that because Mr Sauer is right the appropriate word is stayed administratively state so it hasn't been vacated or dismissed like Mrs Sanchez it stayed which means it cannot be ER because I you know I didn't want us to censor your disinformation that you stated as a factual assertion earlier so I did miss speak and I apologize thank you for clarifying that for us and to talk about more evidence about uh I think it's interesting there's a lot in this opinion and I just you know I have limited time but I think illustrating some of the actions that the Biden Administration took to to censor speech is very important I'm going to read specifically from the opinion explicit threats are an obvious form of coercion but not all coercion needs be explicit I'm on page 97 of the opinion the following illustrative specific actions by defendants are examples of coercion exercised by the White House defendants a cannot stress the degree to which this needs to be resolved immediately please remove this count immediately sounds like a directive from the White House to me to social media companies accused Facebook of causing political violence by failing to censor false covid-19 claims F this is exactly why I want to know what reduction actually looks like if reduction means pumping arm most vaccine hesitant audience with Tucker Carlson saying it does not work then I'm not sure it's reduction implying that they're reducing uh the information on that questioning how the Tucker Carlson video had been demoted since there were 40 000 shares wanting to know why Alex Berenson had not been kicked off Twitter because baronson was the epicenter of disinformation and radiated outward to the persuadable public and I'm just skipping through here I'm not even going through all these flatterly stated not to sound like a broken record but how much content is being demoted and how effective are you at mitigating reach and how quickly flattery told Facebook are you guys effing serious I want an answer on what happened here and I want it today sounds like a pretty explicit threat to me number uh letter M White House Press Secretary saki stated and I quote we're in regular touch with these social media platforms and those engagements typically happen through members of our senior staff but also members of our covid-19 team were flagging problematic posts for Facebook that spread disinformation saki also stated one of the White House asks of social media companies was to create a robust enforcement strategy oh saki stated on the February 1st 2022 White House Press Conference that the White House wanted every social media platform to do more to call out misinformation and disinformation and to uplift accurate information another one hey folks wanted to flag the below tweet and I'm wondering if we can get moving on the process of having it removed ASAP sounds like a pretty explicit demand from the White House to me again quoting the opinion these actions are just a few examples of the unrelenting pressure the defendants exerted against social media companies this court finds the above examples demonstrate that plaintiffs can likely prove likely prove the White House defendants engage in coercion to induce social media companies to suppress Free Speech Mr Sauer in the limited time that I have can you just comment further on these are just some of the highlights that are in the opinion and illustrate to us all of the evidence of the White House censoring the American public and working with social media companies to accomplish that it's very telling that the judicial findings are quite specific on the specific threats so there's several ways you can violate the First Amendment if you're a government official one is coercion one is significant encouragement one is joint participation where you've insinuated yourselves into private decision making the court found all of those present here and with respect to those White House communications there's a series of specific judicial findings that these statements were threatening they were threatening adverse legal consequences there's multiple findings for example that White House spokesperson sake's public statements explicitly linked the threat of adverse legal consequences to the White House's demands for censorship which we didn't know at the time but now no we're being very aggressively peppered on the social media platforms while she was making those public statements so you have public statements from the White House also a White House communications director Bedingfield there's a very specific judicial finding on that threatening adverse legal consequences in public if there's not greater censorship and in private you've got Rob Flaherty Andy slavin other White House officials saying take this down take this down do more to take down borderline content I'm the gentleman has expired Mr chairman of unanimous consent request settlement from Louisiana there's a lot of talk about this uh preliminary injunction so I'd like to enter into the record 155-page Court opinion the memorandum ruling on request for preliminary injunction in the matter of state of Missouri and Louisiana V Biden from the U.S District Court Western District Louisiana Monroe Division and also the fifth circuit's administrative stay which does not address the merits yield back uh without objection Mr chair I'd like the unanimous consent to enter into the record an article that say it's Pro F RFK Junior Super PAC as deep ties to Marjory Taylor green George Santos which discusses is the Super PAC title Heal The Divide which states that only Robert F Kennedy Jr can unite the nation and start healing America and also discusses Mr Kennedy's discussions with Mr Trump about working in his administration without objection uh the the chair now recognizes the gentlelady from Texas I believe is that the cue thank you you recognize it thank you Mr chairman and um I live in Houston but I was born and raised in rural South Texas and shamefully Rural South Texas uh and all the rural Texas has been utterly devastated by covet 19. in fact only 56 percent of rural Americans are fully vaccinated versus almost 70 percent of their Urban counterparts and we know that being unvaccinated makes you up to 17 times 17 times we're likely to die of cobit compared to people who are vaccinated and boosted a recent study found that nearly 2 000 lives could have been saved in Texas if it had reached the vaccination levels in places like Vermont or Connecticut however today despite the horrific covid-19 tragedies and thank you for describing those refrigerated morgues if you will because that was horrible to even see but I'm sure there are some deniers just like the deny the climate that that even happened but these tragedies have also played rural South Texas and families all around the country we but yet we give a platform to one of the biggest spreaders of anti-vaccine propaganda in the country he has claimed that vaccines have caused widespread death they have not he has claimed that vaccines are unsafe for pregnant people they are not he has claimed that vaccines cause autism they do not he has even suggested that vaccines implant government-controlled microchips into patients they do not as crazy as Mr Kennedy's theories are he has been able to effectively spray spread false medical information throughout our communities due to his prestigious family's name his big pocket Deep Pockets and his websites that publish patently Falls health and medical information by inviting him here today extreme Mega Republicans elevate a man who tells others that vaccines aren't safe but but vaccines his own children for protection and it was noted earlier even asked guests to his party to be vaccinated three billion lives were saved by the covid-19 vaccine and if anti-vaccine Advocates like Mr Kennedy did not continuously flood our communities with faults health and medical information more lives could have been saved Ms Wiley thank you for your opening remarks because that was the reality that New York and so many communities across the country faced we know that Sensational false information emission spreads much faster than accurate information from your personal experience is that true uh it is true and actually one of the ways that the social media companies which are the places where the rules are determined and I think it's important when we keep talking about censorship that they have they have the power and the legal right to decide what content is on their site and we're talking about their policies here and their enforcement or failure to enforce them we've actually raised alarm Bells at the leadership conference for civil and human rights about the fact that they have not sufficiently enforced their own policies and that this has led to harm very dangerous harm which we've talked about but I just want to point this out as well the social media companies actually use algorithms it's to elevate content that it finds draws users and that's why there is research that shows far from suppressing right-wing and extremist speech that actually the algorithms algorithms used by social media has elevated them has elevated them and that's true from the New York Stern school that has a study out from 2021 that testimony I think has occurred in Congress but even Twitter's own analytic 6 shows that it is elevated conservative speech which by the way that shows and that research shows that while we're sitting here talking about this as if there is somehow a targeting of viewpoint it's actually been about targeting whether or not the content is consistent with the policies of the platforms that they themselves set so this year it really is literally putting even more lives at risk for elevating all these what I think are crazy theories uh because in as long as all this anti-vaccine theories are continue to spread it makes people not only question the vaccine but other vaccines would you agree I I would and I also want to say it also incurs in in our democracy in terms of voting missing disinformation about whether or not voting laws are being violated and whether individuals are violating them if left to death threats that that is also in violation of the social media the dental lady has expired the chair now recognizes the gentlelady from Wyoming Miss Higgins I got a death threat after the last weaponization here I belongs to the gently from Wyoming I want to thank you Mr Sauer Ms Morris and Mr Kennedy for your courage for your willingness to be the tip of the spear to protect all of our first amendment rights Mr Sauer I don't know if you watched the testimony from Christopher Ray last week but he testified and admitted that the FBI was continuing to meet regularly with social media companies up until the very moment that the injunction was issued by the district court judge what that tells me is they're not stopping they're going to continue to try to further the censorship industrial complex as long as they can and will continue to attempt to violate our first amendment rights we all must be vigilant Ms Morris I want to focus on you today I don't think that we've talked enough about the freedom of the press but it's also included in the First Amendment and is as important as any other First Amendment right that we have I want to thank you for your testimony today and we all know that the first amendment is a core fundamental right within its protection of the free is the protection of the free press against infringement by the government Free Press has been an institution in this nation which dates back to even before America existed Americans have always relied on the media to remain informed about the workings of their government and events in the world this is why the Press is often referred to as the fourth Branch using the rights secured by the Constitution as a fourth check on the three branches of government Ms Morris before a majority presidential election you were prepared to release a factual report about one of the candidates one would think that the information in your report would be of interest to the American people to understand the Integrity of the candidates who are asking for their support and their trust the facts have been laid out by you and this Committee of how the FBI worked with social media to alter their perception of what your story was and to change their policies to censor it Ms Morris your story was obviously ground breaking news and as we have learned and uncovered additional information over the intervening two years I can say with confidence that what has been going on with the Biden family is it absolutely it is is absolutely horrific and undermines the Very Foundation of our country and our the Integrity of the people in the highest highest elected and appointed offices in this country but it's now we we know that you were correct in what you were going to be reporting has there been any estimates or do you have any general idea of how many people were denied access to your story because of the government censorship so there are polls about that um the MRC media Research Center did a poll about you know it's a 45 percent of Biden voters were not aware of the story um but I think it also is an impossible question to answer because the thing about the censorship was not only that it was you know deleted or whatever from Twitter but also um it casted an aspersion on on the reporting on me that was literally made up it was made up and there is a subset of this country where despite the New York Times The Washington Post like literally fill in the blank like liberal news Legacy Outlet that um they all trust they'll like they just reflexively think laptop from Hell fake uh Russia whatever um and so the the effect of that can't be measured because like these these people who are spies who the country looks at as the ultimate authority of Truth came out and said that this was um there was something wrong with it so you can't measure the impact of that and so going back to the Legacy Media uh the oversight committee had a very explosive hearing yesterday with whistleblowers from the IRS some of our Lego Legacy Media Outlets did not cover the hearing but they did talk about Taco Tuesday and they talked about other things that seem to be of great interest to them but not the fact that we are uncovering an enormous amount of corruption at the very highest levels in our government um while we don't while you don't know about the F you didn't know about the FBI's efforts at the time I would assume that between the Twitter files and what we've uncovered in the uh Missouri versus Biden case you now know the rule that the FBI played in censoring your work do you think the FBI tried to ensure that the American people didn't hear the story in order to change the outcome of the election in 2020. I I don't know how to answer that question because I'm not in their head I don't know um you know the reason why um I know I don't have a headcount of how many Biden voters work at the FBI I can't assign a motive to them I can just tell you what happened and and what we've learned in the two years since this blatant in your face censorship event but we do know that the American public were not told the truth about the hunter Biden laptop and Joe Biden's involvement with his dealings foreign dealings well that's it and that's that's what pertains to my work and my experience thank you General lady yields back the gentleman from uh the chair now recognizes the gentlelady from Florida Miss kamik foreign sorry this microphone is broken I want to thank all our Witnesses for being in front of us here today I know that this has not been an easy couple of hours but I appreciate your endurance I'll start with you miss Wiley five days ago Democrat representative uh pramila jayapal stated that she has been quote fighting to make it clear that Israel is a racist State yes or no do you believe that statement to be anti-Semitic uh I I I believe that there is a distinction between uh any conversation about a government versus a group of people so do you believe that each of my Democratic colleagues should publicly denounce her comments well not continue to give her a platform to make statements like Israel is a racist Nation because essentially that is what is happening here is it is we we are 100 trying to censor one gentleman because one side doesn't agree with his comments so in a weaponization hearing about censorship the left is trying to censor which I I think is absolutely crazy and I have to bring this up and and since the the door was opened uh you know I I'm deeply concerned about the fact that there were FEC reports brought up uh Mr Kennedy you acknowledge that you don't know where those came from uh you said that you have no affiliation with those uh that pack that Super PAC I believe um the ranking member said she was deeply concerned about the affiliation and we seem to have a guilty by association theme going on here and so I just have to State for the record that I myself am deeply concerned about the affiliation of the convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein of which the ranking member took campaign donation money from so I think that's the beauty of the first amendment is that we have a right to say what we want to say but we also have the right to be offended so I just wanted to point that out you know glass houses and all our Democrat colleague Mr Lynch opened up the door of what does the impact of the continued Narrative of weaponization have on the general public and I think that's really important because what we have seen in the last couple of weeks is irrefutable evidence of the fact that the FBI has not only been systematically working to censor American speech but they have been facilitating it and in some cases at the behest of foreign governments a weaponization report proved that there was a direct connection between the Ukrainian sbu in which that intelligence service was sending spreadsheets of thousands of posts in some cases posts that were belonging to the United States state department and because we we know that the Ukrainian sbu is Rife with double agents the FBI wasn't even vetting the posts they were simply sending them direct to the social media company saying please take these down so now we have an FBI that is not just saying that they're going to fight foreign interference they're facilitating it at one point even suggesting that they put forward a 24 7 Channel where the FBI takes requests from a foreign government and filters it right to the social media company to have those posts taken down and it was across the board anti-ukraine pro-ukraine that right there proves that they weren't vetting the posts that's a problem we've established clearly with hard evidence that there is in fact a weaponization of the federal government against the American people and every single day that we do not acknowledge it is a bad day in America the pillars of our constitutional republic not democracy are being taken down bit by bit because the Press is being told they can't ask the tough questions Miss Morris you have probably received threats you have been censored you have been silenced Mr Sauer you have been before us many times and you have expressed the pushback the threats that you have received Mr Kennedy I can't imagine what you receive on a daily basis from both the left and the right so I'm going to go to our Democratic colleague Mr Lynch and ask the question what impact does the continued Narrative of weaponization have on the general public I know he framed this in a way to make a point that it is somehow negative to ask the tough questions but I'm going to ask our three Witnesses here what are the ramifications if we don't talk about it if we don't expose it and I only have 25 seconds so Mr Sauer take it away if Federal censorship is not stood up to aggressively it will expand to every corner of online Miss Morris it's it's just this I can't even believe this is a conversation like this is not controversial or taboo we live in the United States of America and you have the right to say whatever you want to print whatever you want and to read whatever you want Mr Kennedy a government that can censor its critics as license for every atrocity it is the beginning of totalitarianism there's never been a time in history when we look back and the guys who were censoring people were the good guys all of us grew up reading Arthur Kessler Robert Heinlein Aldous Huxley George Orwell and they were all saying the same thing once you start censoring you're on your way to dystopia and totalitarianism and I know my time has expired but Mr Sarah you said earlier censorship is about power censorship is about control and the entire Progressive leftist agenda is about nothing more than dependency and control that is why this is so Empower important with that I yield back generally yields back gentleman from New York's recognized Mr chairman before that I have um document I'd like to enter into the record or Washington Post article of July 23rd which lists the misstates misstatements of facts in the preliminary injunction in the Missouri V Biden case that we've been talking about for what paper what publication I said the Washington Post okay objection gentleman from New York's recognizing thank you Mr chairman Mr Sauer welcome back to the committee it's great to see you again you're becoming a Mainstay on the committee and and I do hope that you continue to update us on your case uh now that it has been stayed and will not be implemented as it goes through the appeals process I'd like to quickly play a short video if we could covid-19 is targeted to attack uh Caucasians and and black people the people who are close to me are asking about you choose and uh and Chinese Mr Kennedy I have a simple question for you as a early victim of covet I actually got it uh March 10th 2020 and and my question to you is whether you think I should be worried about my genetics as an Ashkenazi Jew because I did contract covet no not at all and that statement that you saw there is a truncated version of a larger State I understand you you issued I think I would understand hold on I just I don't know I've been reclaiming my time because what I really want to talk about here is evidence evidence evidence evidence Mr Johnson was so eager to talk about what he called the hard evidence and yet all we heard again was him repeating allegations without identifying any evidence you can repeat all of these allegations as much as you want but it doesn't make them true the gentlemen you are not Witnesses I don't have enough time unfortunately you are not witnesses to any of this conduct and just because you say it over and over it doesn't make it so and if we're talking about censorship here which I believe is presumably the reason why Mr Kennedy is here the tweet that you've identified was never taken down whatever the government may have tried to do and I don't agree that it tried to do what you said it did it wasn't taken down so how can the government actually censor anyone if there's enough Freedom within the companies they're talking to that they reject whatever request that the government makes I'm going to focus now Miss Morris on the laptop there's been a lot of talk about the laptop being real and that is true there was a laptop it's a computer keyboard screen it is it is real but you never got a laptop before you wrote that story did you that's correct you got a hard drive hard drive and you received that hard drive from Rudy Giuliani right yep okay who had been openly associating with an agent of Russian intelligence in the months leading up to your story you agree with that right uh I guess now did you do a forensic examination of that hard drive before you printed your story uh we had tech people in the post looking at it yes yes that's a that's a forensic analysis no not I highlighted out the New York Post has the ability to do a forensic analysis of a of a hard drive um Miss Morris were you the primary drafter of this article that yes Bruce Golding was not the primary author no drafter no did he uh did he help with the uh with the article yes and then isn't it true that he decided to withdraw his name from the byline because of concerns that he had I wasn't involved with that well isn't it true whether you're involved in it or not I don't know the details but he did withdraw his name from the byline his name was not published right well I'd like to introduce for the record an article in the New York Times uh that says the first line is New York Post front page article about Hunter Biden was written mostly by a staff reporter who refused to put his name on it to post employees said now I would note um you also said that this article was determinative of the election but there was a pause for 24 hours and there was a tremendous controversy and there is no doubt that this article received far more attention because of the controversy than it would if it had ever ever been uh published without any controversy and it is odd to hear my colleagues and Miss Morris talk about their uh somehow expert knowledge about whether it affected the election because we're not hearing a lot about Jim Comey although one of my colleagues did say that he interfered in the 2016 election and that is correct he interfered on behalf of Donald Trump against Hillary Clinton by unnecessarily announcing of an investigation six days before the the majority would like us to believe that there's some broad government conspiracy but in reality this government is playing by the book that is why Joe Biden's justice department has allowed a trump-appointed U.S attorney to continue its in his investigation of the president's son which is in direct contrast to what the former president did by weaponizing the justice department and I yield back gentleman yields back uh the chair don't recognized himself hard evidence Mr Johnson said that we're not only witnesses to censorship we were victims the Republican website on the house Judiciary Committee posted this story and it was limited where it could go you got it they they exercise censorship of the house Judiciary Republican account for goodness sake Miss Wiley uh you were a lawyer for the ACLU I was Mr Kenny I remember when the ACLU defended the fir they were the champions of the First Amendment you remember that remember that ACLU I remember when the ACLU represented Nazis who they uh who who they were appalled by appalled disgusted by and yet they would defend the crazy things they said right that that's how much the First Amendment meant to him right I want to go back to where Mr stuby was I want to talk about this hard evidence that Mr Goldman says doesn't exist I want to read from that from the facts this is what the White House was saying I want to go to just three statements one cannot stress to do this is statements from our wife from the Biden White House to social media cannot stress the degree to which this needs to be resolved immediately please remove this account immediately same kind of thing they put on yours remove ASAP but here's the here's the better one here's the better one Mr Flaherty who ran this covet operation misinformation concept at the White House Mr Flaherty said this not to sound like a broken record how much content is being demoted and how effective are you at mitigating reach and how quickly and we should just translate that because this is real simple how much censorship are you doing it how much internship are you doing and how quickly are you doing it but I think the kicker is what jinsaki the press secretary said back in 2021 look at this now think about this the press secretary I mean they were talking about the White House considered the center of freedom on the planet the press secretary in The Press Room says this we are in regular touch with these social media platforms and those engagements typically happen through members of our senior staff but also members of our covid-19 team we're flaggling problematic post for Facebook that spread disinformation their definition of course saki also stated one of the White House asked was of social media companies to create a robust enforcement strategy so you got the press secretary in The Press Room in the White House saying we're going to limit the Press now that is frightening that is frightening and Miss Wiley from the ACLU wire with the ACLU thinks that's somehow appropriate we know it's not and their number one target Mr Kennedy was you was you a Democrat their primary opponent I I've just I find that I find that amazing and I would just like I would like any thoughts you may have on because here's the scary thing and Dennis and I had this conversation a while back if you if you don't have a robust First Amendment if you try to restrict what the people say and what the Press reports that is a scary place to go because if you can't have debate and work out our differences like you said in your amazing opening statement let's work together let's figure this out but if you can't have that robust debate and figure things out the alternative is scary and that's exactly where we're heading I would I would encourage everyone to read Mr Kenny's written statement I read it this morning amazing he walks through the history here that is what's at stake and that's why what you're doing whether we agree with what you say or not and we I disagree with what you said last week what they played I think a lot of people did you've you've you've clarified it but it's about protecting the Constitution the First Amendment I'll give you the last minute and a half Mr Kennedy uh well you know what I would say is that the the founders of our and the framers of our constitution knew that democracy was very inefficient system at all of these built-in inefficiencies and difficulties they said they felt that it would give us the one thing that would give us an advantage over totalitarian systems was this capacity for the free flow of information and and a complete lack of control debate so that ideas that would eventually mature into policies would be annealed in a furnace of debate and then rise through the marketplace of ideas rather than being dictated from above and that's what would give the energy the vibrancy the Vigor the Democracy when they invented this democracy we were the first one in the modern era in 1780. 1865 five other nations had imitated us I today it's 190 Nations based upon our system we are supposed to be the exemplary democracy and the corner foundation stone of our system is freedom of speech all of the other freedoms depend on it if we lose that not only do we lose our democracy in this country but the entire world exactly that's as an example exactly I couldn't have said it better I recognize the gentleman from uh Mr chairman I have a unanimous consent request gentleman said a request as for unanimous consent to enter the record an article by the New York Times on July the 20th 2023 New York Post published Hunter button report a mid News Room doubts as green Emerson said without objection uh some some things amaze me uh the gentleman from Kentucky is recognized and this is uh this will be our last line of question one of the immutable and undeniable uh tenets of Immunology is natural immunity but for two years it was denied it wasn't even just denied it was censored Mr Sauer I noticed in the Court ruling in the case that you worked on uh that they said that the court said that Facebook reported to the White House that it labeled and demoted posts suggesting natural immunity to a covid-19 infection is superior to vaccine immunity is that true was that kind of censorship going on yes that kind of censorship was going on and there were Direct Communications between the platforms and federal officials about natural immunity specifically that I think you've correctly quoted and um thanks to the Twitter files we found out that the former FDA director who is on the board of Pfizer is Dr Scott Gottlieb wrote on August 27 2021 to Twitter executive Todd O'Boyle who by the way was kind of one of the go-to people for the White House also to coordinate with when they wanted something suppressed uh requested Twitter take action against a post about natural immunity um you know what's amazing to me is Scott Gottlieb who works for Pfizer who's a former FDA director went to Twitter the day I got censored on natural immunity my post a congressional post now the other side said well your tweet's still up your post is still up what do you mean you're getting censored what they did is they labeled it and they denied anybody's ability to to actually comment on it and they de-boosted it so I simply said natural immunity is better than vaccine immunity we had studies showing that they took it they censored it so the next day I tried it again with a reference to Bloomberg Bloomberg hardly a right-wing um outlet and or a conspiracy generator and they censored that one as well this this is astounding to me Mr Kennedy can you talk about the censorship the effort of the White House and Pharma to suppress the acknowledgment of natural immunity and and why they might have been doing that well again it was an effort to suppress information not uh the in fact if you read the Twitter files in the email correspondence at between Facebook and the white house there was an acknowledgment that they were being asked and they were complying with censoring information that everybody knew to be true were highly likely to be true other purpose and in fact the term misinformation did not denote a falsehood or or veracity rather it was a euphemism or any information that departed from government orthodoxies and it is very dangerous and you know uh Congressman a minute ago that a million people have died because of misinformation about vaccines in this country but in fact our country had the worst at one of the highest vaccination rates in the world and the word stealth outcomes we have 4.2 percent of the global population we had 16 percent of the covet deaths blacks in Haiti with a one percent vaccination rate were dying at a rate of 15 per million population and not same in Nigeria at 1.3 vaccination rate they were dying at one in uh 14 per million population 14 per million population in our country blacks were dying at 3 000 per million population 200 times death rates in other countries and this holds throughout the world we needed information we should have all been sharing information openly and and talking to the 15 million doctors through the internet who were treating patients on the front line all over the world and channeling the best therapies the most successful treatments so that we can all figure it out we this is not a time in a pandemic to to you know I'll just say this one thing trusting the experts is not a function of science it's not a function of democracy it's a function of religion and totalitarianism and it does not make for healthier population let me ask you this you you referenced your your father and your uncle and the party that they were in what has happened to your party with respect to the First Amendment would they recognize the position now I you know I think listen I'm a Democrat and I you know and I believe in all the if you went through a checklist of all of the things that my father believed in that he fought forth that my uncle believed in and fought for I would check every box I feel my party is departing has Departed from some of those core values and one of the reasons that I want to run for president is to reclaim my party for with us but it's God Is You Know listen this is not a partisan issue the First Amendment it just seems crazy to me that anybody thinks that it's okay to censor and there's a lot of information that I don't like there's hateful information but as the chairman was saying in 1977 the ACLU went out and and supported Nazis who were walking through a Jewish neighborhood in Skokie Illinois and they said that's important we hate what they're saying we're repulsed by it but we cannot survive as a democracy if we if we if we're not ready to die for the right for even people who are who are appalling to speak the Democracy won't work unfortunately there's no other way to control it but through the first amendment and Free Speech amen and thank you for those comments on the time the gentleman is expired Frank I have I have one one other question I could ask but I would first give you a chance to ask the question if you had I just have one quick question for Mr Kennedy but I want to be fair if you got if you got an extra question you want to ask Miss Weiler and Witnesses I'll turn to you first foreign thank you sir um I did want to ask Miss Wiley regarding we had a discussion and it was brought up by one of the witnesses related to the website Gab um and if you could tell us it seems to me that while Mr Kennedy is here he claims to have been censored but in reality his group Children's Health defense has been allowed to say whatever they want on gab can you share what gab is uh gab is a online community that it explicitly states that it wants to create a Christian political economy and it is a space where researchers have identified a massive influx of extremists and also explicitly anti-semitic engagement and behavior not saying that's about everyone who participates but that has been documented and as I stated earlier the murderer convicted murderer in the Tree of Life Massacre actually spent a lot of time on that and it was de-platform because it was not was not inhering to some of the social media policies about identifying that kind of speech thank you gentlelady yields back um actually I'm gonna let Mr Johnson have our our arm one minute here but I think he wants to wait for Mr Kennedy to well I can be asking to Mr Sauer okay um I'm sorry that Mr Goldman left because we talked a lot about evidence isn't it true in your litigation Missouri V Biden that Elvis Chan who was one of the FBI agents in charge of the FBI online censorship program testified under oath in the litigation and the court noted it in the opinion that 50 he had a 50 success rate in other words when the FBI brought to the social media platforms content or post that they said was you know disfavored speech for whatever reason 50 of it was taken down isn't that true that's correct and is there any other glaring piece of evidence that Mr Goldman might have missed in his review of that uh outcome if we've got a second or two here there's so much evidence I couldn't possibly summarize at all 82 pages of factual findings tens of thousands of pages of of emails and other documents uh six full-length depositions and you know I just quote what the U.S Department of Justice attorney said it oral argument in front of Judge Dodie on May 26. he said how can I be sure that this won't happen again and she answered it's not the government's position that this will never happen again to be fair I'm out of time I yield back gentleman yields back um I want to thank our Witnesses uh for for being here today we appreciate the work you're doing to um to defend the First Amendment um and uh thank you for just very compelling answers and compelling testimony and the work you've done and um how important this is for the country I mean if we don't have a First Amendment it's just I'm frightened by where we go may I Mr chair you may not you may not I just want to respond Mr chair I don't know time is out we're done I don't I haven't adjourned the hearing and I don't think you're the champion Mr chair I this Chairman's discretion I know it's your discretion Mr Kennedy he has had so much additional time well I think everyone why why are you doing that specifically for him be as short as he possibly can are you going to allow our witness to just give another piece no let him address the defamatory comment that was made about him that's untrue that was not defamatory that is a legal definition that was not met I want to acknowledge information about the Super PAC that you mentioned go ahead I've just been told that that Super PAC is connected to somebody that we have a connection to it's not a Super PAC that I've endorsed and it's not one as I said that I've ever heard of thank the gentleman uh for uh that statement and I thank you for your testimony the committee is now adjourned

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Length: 219min 21sec (13161 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 20 2023