Congresswoman Tenney Presses for Congressional Oversight of Big Tech Censorship and Election Interference

Washington, DC – Congresswoman Claudia Tenney (NY-22), co-chair of the House Election Integrity Caucus, today sent a letter to Speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, demanding congressional oversight of Facebook’s censorship of the New York Post’s story on Hunter Biden’s ‘Laptop from Hell’ in the runup to the 2020 presidential election, which recently made news after Meta Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Mark Zuckerberg admitted that Facebook slowed sharing of the article at the behest of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

On an episode of the “Joe Rogan Experience” podcast last month, Mr. Zuckerberg revealed that Facebook slowed sharing of the story at the urging of the FBI. The October 2020 story on Hunter Biden’s laptop revealed explosive information that could have had a meaningful impact on the outcome of the 2020 presidential election, as multiple surveys have since shown. The story alleged that a laptop belonging to Hunter Biden, the son of then-candidate Joe Biden, contained damning emails from Hunter. These correspondences showed how he exploited his connections to his then-Vice President father to profit and further his career, leveraging his father’s position and connections for massive paychecks from foreign entities.

When the article was first published, Facebook acted to limit the article’s reach, and Twitter worked to suspend the New York Post’s account and stopped sharing of the article altogether. These decisions were made based on the completely unsubstantiated claim that the information was part of a “Russian disinformation” effort. After months of denying or refusing to report on the story, The New York Times and other mainstream media outlets recently confirmed the existence of Hunter Biden’s laptop.

Polling from the Media Research Center found that more than 45% of Biden voters in swing states were entirely unaware of the New York Post’s reporting on Hunter’s laptop. The same survey also found that nearly 10% of Joe Biden voters would have chosen a different candidate had they known about the story prior to the election.

Tenney wrote in part, “To ensure this federal abuse of power never happens again, I ask that you direct relevant House Committee chairs to uphold their responsibility to the American people and exercise their oversight powers to get to the bottom of the allegations made by Mark Zuckerberg, as well as other troubling attempts to politicize the FBI. As the body tasked with overseeing the Executive Branch, it is imperative we bring accountability to those responsible. With confidence in elections already at an all-time low, we have a duty to make certain that our elections system is safe and secure and that federal agencies are not inappropriately interfering in the process.”

The full text of the letter is available here.

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