A bipartisan committee of Texas senators voted unanimously on Wednesday to authorize subpoenas for several prominent tech companies to investigate whether they may have interfered with elections.
According to a document posted on X by State Sen. Paul Bettencourt (R-Houston), the Texas Senate Committee on State Affairs authorized subpoenas for Alphabet, the parent company of Google; Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram; X, TikTok, and other “relevant” companies or entities.
“Today, I made the motion to authorize ‘Big Tech’ subpoenas based upon the State Affairs committee’s experience with similar subpoenas in a Marshall, Texas hearing about #ESG, and testimony in today’s Senate Hearing. As explained by Chairman @SenBryanHughes, those were not needed in 75% of the cases as companies voluntarily complied with the requests and I hope that is the case here too!” Bettencourt posted on X.
During the Senate hearing on May 29, a Project Veritas whistleblower, Ryan Hartwig, who went undercover inside Facebook for nine months, testified that several Facebook personnel admitted to committing election interference, reported The Texan.
Hartwig told the committee that “the company took a particular interest in politics, and would often bend or break their own rules — for example, newsworthy exceptions.”
“What I observed at Facebook includes interference with U.S. election activities, along with influence from foreign countries,” Hartwig added, per The Texan.
The “Motion to Authorize Subpoenas” document does not specify what type of records are being requested from the companies.
The conversation regarding tech companies on elections has been ongoing for several years, particularly since the Twitter Files were released in 2022, reported The Texan. The Twitter Files revealed how the social media company suppressed the Hunter Biden laptop story and how its employees reacted to the January 6 protests.
The Dallas Express reached out to each committee member for comment but did not receive a response by the time of publication.