On Wednesday, Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) subpoenaed Andrew Slavitt, President Biden’s former White House Senior Advisor for the Covid response, and Robert Flaherty, former Director of Digital Strategy for the Biden White House, to appear for a deposition as part of the investigation by the Committee and the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government into how and to what extent the Executive Branch has coerced and colluded with companies and other intermediaries to censor speech.
The Committee and Select Subcommittee have obtained documents that demonstrate the central role that Slavitt and Flaherty played in communicating the Biden White House’s censorship efforts to social media companies, including the White House’s demands to censor true information, memes, satire, and other constitutionally protected forms of expression. The information possessed by the former Biden White House officials about the White House’s censorship efforts is specialized and unavailable through other means. Testimony from Slavitt and Flaherty will inform the Committee’s and Select Subcommittee’s legislative reforms aimed at preventing the Executive Branch from wielding its immense power to pressure social media platforms to censor disfavored viewpoints.
The Committee and Select Subcommittee are authorized to conduct oversight of matters involving civil liberties to inform potential legislative reforms, and to date, both Andrew Slavitt and Robert Flaherty have failed to comply with the Committee’s request voluntarily.
Read the subpoena cover letter to Andrew Slavitt here.
Read the subpoena cover letter to Roberty Flaherty here.
