Congressman Gaetz Demands Answers from DHS on Big Tech Censorship of Trump Assassination Attempt

Image

Washington, D.C.- Today, U.S. Congressman Matt Gaetz (FL-01) sent a letter to Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas asking whether his department, with its pattern of coercion of and collusion with Big Tech, assisted with the social media "erasure" or discussion of search results for the July 13, 2024, assassination attempt on President Donald Trump.

Facebook and Google have already acknowledged censoring both the "raised fist" photograph of President Trump and the public's ability to search for information about the assassination attempt. DHS has been the subject of committee hearingsand subpoenas in the House and has been conclusively provedto have interfered in the 2020 Presidential election.

Full text of Congressman Gaetz's letter to Secretary Mayorkas can be found HERE. Additionally, exclusive coverage of the letter by Daily Caller can be found HERE.

LETTER TEXT

Secretary Mayorkas:

As you are no doubt aware, your department is embroiled in two ongoing controversies. First, a pattern of coercion of and collusion with social media companies to censor information and interfere, unconstitutionally, with the 2020 Presidential election. Specifically, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has been the subject of House investigations, which have uncovered serious and troubling, and as yet uncorrected, actions by that component of your department.

Second, the Director of the United States Secret Service (USSS) recently tendered her resignation due to the failures of that agency to adequately service their protectee, Donald Trump, who was the target of the most serious assassination attempt on a United States political figure in a generation or more on July 13, 2024. On July 29, 2024, an unnamed USSS counter sniper emailed your department personnel complaints that the USSS is not being cleaned up and that the resignation of a single high-level supervisor was not adequate to address deep structural concerns.

These two major scandals at DHS have a single focal point right now, which is the apparent Big Tech censorship and the digital "erasing" of the assassination attempt on Donald Trump. Numerous news outlets have reported various irregularities in search results and home pages. For example, Facebook has acknowledged that it censored an authentic photograph of Donald Trump as "false information" and Google has acknowledged that it excludes and does not autocomplete results for searches relating to the Trump assassination attempt.

Given your department's self-interest in keeping this story under wraps and your department's history of strong-arming tech organizations to censor, please provide my office with the following information by August 16, 2024:

1. All communications, whatever the form, between any DHS personnel (including detailees) and Facebook, Meta, Twitter, or Google from July 13, 2024, to July 31, 2024, referencing or relating to the assassination attempt on President Trump on July 13, 2024; and
2. Any communications between DHS personnel and any other federal or state government employee from July 13, 2024, to July 31, 2024, relating to online commentary and the assassination attempt on President Trump on July 13, 2024.

Sincerely,

Matt Gaetz

Member of Congress

###

For updates, subscribe to Congressman Gaetz's newsletter here.