Judicial Watch Sues Federal Trade Commission for Communications about Twitter Owner Elon Musk

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that it filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) for communications of its chair, Lina Khan, regarding Twitter and Twitter’s owner Elon Musk (Judicial Watch Inc. v. Federal Trade Commission (1:23-cv-00692 (ABJ)) 

Judicial Watch sued after the Federal Trade Commission failed to respond to a November 14, 2022, FOIA request for:

Records and communications maintained by Lina Khan, Chairperson, U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) including memoranda, reports, briefings, hand-written notes, email communications, email chains, email attachments and other form of records or communications exchanged regarding or referring to Mr. Elon Musk, CEO, Twitter, or the company Twitter with the below named individuals:

(a)            Commissioner Noah Joshua Phillips

(b)            Commissioner Christine S. Wilson

(c)            Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter

(d)            Commissioner Alvaro Bedoya

 Khan, nominated by President Biden in March 2021, has reportedly been aggressive in investigating Twitter after its purchase by Elon Musk in October 2022. According to the New York Post:

The Federal Trade Commission has asked Twitter to turn over internal communications related to owner Elon Musk, detailed information about layoffs and other business decisions as part of an investigation into the social media company, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday citing documents.

The FTC, chaired by Lina Khan, sent 12 letters to Twitter and its lawyers since Musk’s takeover in October. It also asked the company to “identify all journalists” who were granted access to company records and to provide information about the launch of the revamped Twitter Blue subscription service, the report said.

The Wall Street Journal reported that the Federal Trade Commission’s letters to Twitter “were obtained by the Republican-led House Judiciary Committee, which published excerpts of them Tuesday in a staff report about the FTC’s investigation.” 

“The leftists now running the Biden administration don’t hesitate to use the power of the state to silence their critics,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said. “And we will use the power of the courts to expose them.”

Judicial Watch is heavily involved in countering government and big tech censorship.

In February it filed a FOIA lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for records of communication related to the work of the Election Integrity Partnership that could detail coordinated censorship activities.

In a separate lawsuit, Judicial Watch is suing the DHS for all records of communications between the Cybersecurity and Information Security Agency (CISA) and the Election Integrity Partnership (EIP), which was reportedly active during the 2022 midterm elections. Among the news outlets flagged by EIP were websites for Just the News, New York Post, Fox News, Washington Examiner, The Washington Times, The Epoch Times and Breitbart.

Judicial Watch recently sued the DOJ for records of communications between the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and social media sites regarding foreign influence in elections, as well as the Hunter Biden laptop story.

In September 2022, Judicial Watch sued the Secretary of State of the State of California for  censoring a Judicial Watch election integrity video.

In April 2021, Judicial Watch published documents revealing how California state officials pressured social media companies (Twitter, Facebook, Google (YouTube)) to censor posts about the 2020 election.

In May 2021, Judicial Watch revealed documents showing that Iowa state officials pressured social media companies Twitter and Facebook to censor posts about the 2020 election.

In July 2021, Judicial Watch uncovered records from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which revealed that Facebook coordinated closely with the CDC to control the COVID narrative and “misinformation” and that over $3.5 million in free advertising given to the CDC by social media companies.

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