Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) is joining in on the House Weaponization of the Federal Government Subcommittee’s investigation into the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) after a report released by the subcommittee last week revealed the agency may have engaged in a “harassment campaign” against Twitter.
Cruz, ranking member of the Senate Commerce Committee, and Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), chairman of the weaponization subcommittee, demanded numerous documents and communications from the FTC in a letter on Friday in response to the report.
They charged in the letter, addressed to FTC chairwoman Lina Khan, that the FTC sent “inappropriate and burdensome demands” to Twitter after Elon Musk bought the company in October 2022.
The FTC “harassed Twitter in wake of Mr. Musk’s acquisition,” Cruz and Jordan wrote.
“The strong inference” from the FTC’s demands to Twitter “is that Twitter’s rediscovered focus on free speech is being met with politically motivated attempts to thwart Elon Musk’s goals,” the subcommittee report stated.
The FTC sent a dozen letters containing more than 350 demands to Twitter in a ten-week span after Musk completed his purchase of the company, the report found.
The demands were sweeping and included, according to the report:
- The names of all journalists given access to the Twitter Files
- Every communication in email, Slack, and elsewhere “relating to Elon Musk”
- An explanation for Musk’s firing of former FBI general counsel Jim Baker, who allegedly had a role in suppressing the Hunter Biden laptop story in 2020 and who, according to Twitter Files journalist Matt Taibbi, “vett[ed] the first batch of ‘Twitter Files’” without Musk’s knowledge
- Approximately 60 requests about Twitter Blue, including a demand to know when Musk “first conceived of the concept” of it
- Information about whether Twitter was “selling its office equipment”
The FTC attributed its demands, at least in part, to past legal settlements between Twitter and the agency, according to the report. However, “the ostensible legal basis for the demand letters … fails to provide adequate cover for the FTC’s action,” the subcommittee wrote.
The settlements date back to 2011, when Twitter and the FTC first entered into a consent agreement as a result of numerous privacy and security breaches by Twitter. The FTC then found in May 2022, prior to Musk taking ownership of the company, that Twitter had violated the agreement by allowing advertisers access to users’ emails and phone numbers, and a new settlement was reached to institute additional privacy and security measures.
Compounding matters when Musk took over were staffing cuts the new owner made, resignations of top security officials, and a chaotic rollout of Twitter Blue that saw accounts with new “verified” checkmarks impersonating well-known figures, as detailed in Politico.
The turbulent company takeover led to the FTC issuing a statement that it was “tracking recent developments at Twitter with deep concern” and “prepared to use” its authority to address said concern. Its slew of demand letters and requests followed, according to the subcommittee report.
“The protection of Americans’ personal data is important, and the FTC has a role in ensuring that companies do not mislead consumers about how their information is handled,” Cruz and Jordan wrote. “But the FTC’s legal authority does not include dictating entire swaths of corporate behavior under the guise of consent decree enforcement. Nor could it justify infringing on the First Amendment.”
The Republicans asked that the FTC respond to their requests by March 24.
Write to Ashley Oliver at aoliver@breitbart.com. Follow her on Twitter at @asholiver.