The House Judiciary Committee has sued an FBI agent for disobeying a subpoena to testify on alleged efforts by the federal government to suppress free speech online.
It has been noted on Tuesday that the Republican-led House Judiciary Committee filed a complaint in the U.S. District Court for Washington D.C., seeking a judge’s order compelling FBI agent Elvis Chan to appear before the committee.
Mr. Chan has been working as an employee with the FBI for 17 years. Currently, he holds the position of assistant special agent in charge of the cyber branch for the San Francisco Division.
The House committee has identified Mr. Chan as a central figure in the FBI’s interactions with major social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter (now known as X). He is also considered a potentially knowledgeable source for allegations that certain elements of the federal government pressured social media platforms to suppress specific online content.
Mr. Chan was previously named as a co-defendant in Missouri v. Biden, an ongoing federal lawsuit brought by Republican attorneys general for Missouri and Louisiana.
As per the lawsuit, members of the Biden administration have been accused of violating First Amendment rights by exerting pressure on social media platforms to censor content that raises doubts about the COVID-19 vaccines and policies aimed at controlling its spread.
They have also allegedly targeted posts that question the security of the 2020 election and the legitimacy of its outcome, as well as online content that is critical of the Biden administration and parody accounts that mock his family members.
Mr. Chan’s interactions with Facebook and Twitter also coincided with efforts by those social media platforms to suppress the New York Post’s reporting about the contents of a laptop President Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, reportedly abandoned at a Delaware computer repair shop. The laptop’s contents indicated some level of interaction between Mr. Biden’s international business partners and his father, despite President Biden’s claims on the 2020 campaign trail that he never discussed business matters with his son.
