Sen. Rand Paul is one of the most vociferous and principled defenders of liberty in the Senate, a staunch fighter for freedom who is more than willing to take on even the most powerful of regime apparatchiks such as Dr. Fauci and FBI Director Christopher Wray in the Senate chamber and court of public opinion. Recently he did so yet again, sparring with Director Wray over the FBI’s attempts to get social media companies to censor speech on their platforms.
During the hearing, Sen. Paul repeatedly questioned Director Wray over whether the FBI had used its power and influence to pressure the social media companies to censor speech, an allegation which Wray refused to directly confront.
That was not for lack of effort on Sen. Paul’s part to ask the question plainly. He did so from the start, asking Director Wray whether he would “repeat under oath that there was never any discussion of the FBI to take down constitutionally protected speech.”
Continuing, the pro-liberty Senator then added, “You think it’s all national security, child pornography, sex trafficking [and] no discussion of [moderating] constitutionally protected speech.” He next added, “[T]his is all going to come out. A lot of it is already in depositions. But you’re saying that there was never any discussion by any of your agents in any of these meetings of constitutionally-protected speech being taken down?”
Director Wray, despite Sen. Paul’s straightforward line of questioning, refused to give a straightforward answer. Instead, he said, “To my knowledge, our agents conducted themselves in compliance with the law throughout.”
Sen. Paul didn’t back down. Continuing, he asked whether the FBI is “still meeting with social media companies,” Director Wray admitted that they are “having some interaction with social media,” but tried to qualify that admission by saying, “all of those interactions have changed fundamentally in the wake of the court’s rules.”
Watch that here:
PAUL: "Is the FBI still meeting with social media companies?"
WRAY: " We're having some interaction with social media companies but all of those interactions have changed fundamentally in the wake of the courts rulings." pic.twitter.com/D0JTngN1gG
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) October 31, 2023
Sen. Paul also pressed Director Wray over what was revealed in the Twitter files, saying, “The ‘Twitter Files’ and other indications as well as Missouri v. Biden list many cases of both DHS and FBI discussing constitutionally protected speech, vaccine efficacy, mask efficacy, people who said ‘my brother got the vaccine and died yesterday’ and the brother actually did die … But taking down posts like that was part of the discussion in these meetings.”
For reference, the Missouri v. Biden lawsuit is an attempt to stop government agencies from pressuring companies to censor constitutionally protected speech. In a court filing for the lawsuit, the DOJ admitted that about half of FBI attempts to get the companies to censor speech succeeded.
In any case, Director Wray again didn’t give an answer about the real issue at hand, its pressuring the social media companies to censure speech, and instead tried to harp on one issue, saying, “Not by the FBI. We would not have been engaging with social media companies about vaccine efficacy, to my knowledge, certainly.“
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