House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) on the Breitbart Fight Club said that the Republicans were “eager” to go after the censorship regime because Breitbart News and other outlets were being targeted for “giving the truth.”
Jordan, the former Freedom Caucus cofounder, spoke during the Breitbart Fight Club Roundtable with Breitbart News Editor-in-Chief Alex Marlow about the Judiciary Committee’s efforts to hold the censorship cartel accountable.
A Breitbart Fight Club member asked Jordan about how the Judiciary Committee’s investigations and oversight can hold those being investigated accountable.
Jordan said, “One of the reasons we were so eager to go after this whole censorship regime last Congress: because it was impacting you and other outlets and publications and communications companies that were giving the truth and being hit by the crazy left censorship operation, or the censorship industrial complex, as one of our witnesses said.”
He said that many Judiciary Committee investigations have yielded drastic results.
Jordan said on Breitbart Fight Club, “I can’t prosecute anyone. All I can do is oversight and get the facts and then get that information to the public, and in some cases, do criminal referrals, which we’ve done. In some cases, we’ve actually pursued impeachment, like we did against Mr. Mayorkas in the last administration. So we can just do our duty and get the facts out there, and then the rest is up to the Justice Department.”
He continued, noting that, in other cases, the Judiciary Committee investigations also lead to a “change in behavior.”
The Buckeye State conservative said last August that he got a letter from Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, admitting they were pressured by the Biden administration to censor and that they would change their policies on fact-checking content.
Jordan said, “You know why Mark Zuckerberg finished the letter, because we had deposed 12 people from Meta, and Mark Zuckerberg didn’t want to be the 13th.”
Jordan said of Breitbart News, “Your reporting, your broadcast, everything you were doing was so helpful, too, in getting this message out.”
Jordan and Marlow discussed the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM), a now-defunct cross-industry initiative that pushed advertisers not to advertise on certain outlets, which included Breitbart News.
Jordan said, “They were telling companies, ‘do not advertise on Breitbart. That’ll be a reputational risk to your brand. Go ahead and advertise on CNN,’ who, for four years, told us Joe Biden was just fine. There’s no problem here. And now, of course, the guy who was telling us that then writes a book saying, ‘Oh, he wasn’t fine.’ I mean, that’s how ridiculous it was. You guys were giving the truth, oh, that’s a reputational risk. You’re misleading Americans? You can advertise. I mean, that’s how wrong these people were.”
John Montgomery, the then-executive vice president of Global Brand Safety, wrote to Rob Rakowitz, the leader of GARM:
There is an interesting parallel here with Breitbart. Before Breitbart crossed the line and started spouting blatant misinformation, we had long discussions about whether we should include them on our exclusion lists. As much as we hated their ideology and bullshit, we couldn’t really justify blocking them for misguided opinion. We watched them very carefully and it didn’t take long for them to cross the line[.] [Emphasis added]
This revelation came as the result of a Judiciary Committee investigation.
Sean Moran is a policy reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on X @SeanMoran3.
