WEAPONIZATION OF GOVERNMENT HEARING-3/30/23-REP MATT GAETZ QUESTIONS D. JOHN SAUER

TRANSCRIPTION
White House staffers are some of the most powerful people on the planet Earth. Oftentimes, they get the dispositive opinion on appointments to different positions within the federal government. They influence statements of administrative policy. They, uh, initiate regulatory reform. They often have a significant voice on legislation that is considered and approved. And so, Mr. Sour, I want to understand how many of these intensely powerful people who work in the Biden White House were involved in this effort that you've been investigating regarding the desire to shape discussions on social media,
At least 20 and very likely more.
And was there a ring leader of this group? Someone who had pervasive and, uh, repeated efforts to try to coerce social media companies to shape the truth? According to the Biden White House
Deputy assistant to the President, Rob Flaherty, and also Andy Slit,
Who is Rob Flaherty,
He is the I believe the digital coordinator for the White House. His, his level is deputy assistant to the president.
And what behaviors of Mr. Flaherty did you observe that you found troubling?
We've seen many, many pages of emails between Mr. Flaherty and social media platforms where he relentlessly badgers them to increase the censorship of ordinary Americans free speech on social media. And he gets results. You see the platforms agreeing to censor things that are truthful, that do not violate their policies at the behest and at the pressure of the White House.
Can you give an example of that?
One great example of this is the Tucker Carlson video that was going viral in April of 2021, where Mr. Flaherty and other White House officials were emailing Facebook privately demanding that it be censored. Facebook responded, this does not violate our policies. It has not been fact checked. But nevertheless, we are substantially de boosting it and limiting its distribution on our platforms, even though we haven't identified anything false in it. And even though it does not, they had a positive determination that it does not violate their
Policies. And did you assess that Facebook took that action as a direct consequence of the badgering coming from Mr. Flaherty in the Biden White
House? That is a compelling inference from the email traffic back and forth that we obtained in discovery.
And, and did Mr. Flaherty ever request any reports from social media companies on specific censorship issues?
Very frequently. In fact, he was demanding that again and again. His, his steady drumbeat was what he called borderline content, that the email traffic makes clear borderline is what they call often true content. Things like personal anecdotes, uh, uh, opposition to vaccination expressed in terms of political opposition, things of that nature. That is what he wanted, wanted to target. And he was frequently asking for reports back. They were sending in biweekly CrowdTangle reports to the White House. They did that through the close of our discovery period last August in 2022.
So, uh, uh, uh, there was, there was an overwhelming effort to get them to, to check their homework, if you will, to get them to report back on how much censorship are you doing and is it gonna meet our standards as the White House,
An overwhelming effort badgering social media companies demanding reports from those social, uh, media companies directly to someone in the White House. And as my colleagues on, on the other side of the aisle remind us, not all speeches protected. Some speech is illegal. Did you see Mr. Flaherty constrain his concern to unlawful speech, or did you often see this badgering and this demand rep for reports from entirely lawful speech,
Virtually everything, I can't remember a single instance of them going after unlawful speech.
Almost all of it was after lawful
Speech. Virtually everything that I can recall here was a lawful First Amendment protected speech that was being targeted.
Uh, we heard from the witness that the Democrats brought today that these were but's suggestions that of course, the government should be able to make suggestions to social media companies. What would be your response to that testimony?
The characterization of them as suggestions is contradicted by overwhelming evidence. Calling Flaherty, for example, Mr. Flaherty's communication suggestions is akin to saying that the earth is flat or the moon is made of green cheese.
Well, and of course, if someone shared those viewpoints, that would be lawful speech, wouldn't
It? You'd be allowed to say that in social media and based on the,
Not if Mr. Flaherty we're in charge.
<laugh>. That's, that is the difference. And in fact, what happened was you had a day fatto suppression of many, many views, including truthful views, political organization at the behest to White House officials and other federal officials.
And, and I would suggest Mr. Chairman, that when you have these intensely powerful people with the ability to control so many things, even a suggestion is coercive and problematic and worthy of the committee's review, I yield back.