Chairman Williams Issues Subpoena to State Department and Global Engagement Center (GEC) for Refusal to Comply with Investigation into Censorship

Summary

Press release dated June 17, 2024 saying Congressman Roger Williams (TX-25), Chairman of the House Committee on Small Business, subpoenaed the State Department and the Global Engagement Center (GEC) for documents. The Committee's investigation concerns government funding of companies that interfere with the ability of American small businesses to compete online because of their lawful speech. Williams says the GEC failed to provide documents in a timely manner and did not comply with repeated oversight requests, leaving no other option. The release adds that the investigation has been open for one year with very little progress by State and the GEC.

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Chairman Williams Issues Subpoena to State Department and Global Engagement Center (GEC) for Refusal to Comply with Investigation into Censorship

June 17, 2024

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Last week, Congressman Roger Williams (TX-25), Chairman of the House Committee on Small Business, subpoenaed the State Department and GEC for documents related to the Committee’s investigation into government-funding of companies who interfere with the ability of American small businesses to compete online because of their lawful speech. These actions were necessary because of the GEC’s failure to provide documents in a timely manner and comply with legitimate oversight document requests. Chairman Williams issued the following statement.

“For over a year, the Committee has been investigating the government’s use of taxpayer dollars to interfere with American small businesses’ ability to compete online,” said Chairman Williams. “All Americans deserve a fair shot to compete in the marketplace, and the government should not be tipping the scales against any business for their legal speech on the internet. The refusal to comply with repeated document requests is unacceptable, especially when the livelihoods of many small businesses are on the line. While the Committee does not take issuing a subpoena lightly, the GEC’s repeated failure to comply with our requests has left us with no other option.”

Read the story here.

Read the Subpoena to the GEC here.

Background:

The House Committee on Small Business is investigating the U.S. government’s censorship-by-proxy and revenue interference of American small businesses. The purpose of this investigation is to evaluate legislative solutions to federal funds being used to demonetize, tarnish, or ultimately censor domestic small businesses on the basis of their lawful speech.

The Committee launched its investigation on June 7, 2023. Over the course of the Committee’s 12-month investigation, the GEC has slow-rolled document production and ignored legitimate oversight document requests, while the Committee has repeatedly accommodated the GEC with extra time and scoped down requests. In fact, the State Department has produced a total of 12 pages, all of which are heavily redacted.

The investigation has now been officially open for one year, with very little progress made on behalf of State and the GEC, despite repeated accommodations by the Committee in both allotted time and narrowed scope. This is exactly why the Committee had to escalate the issue at hand and issue the subpoena.

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