{"id":22895,"date":"2023-05-08T16:50:42","date_gmt":"2023-05-08T16:50:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/107236678"},"modified":"2023-05-08T16:50:42","modified_gmt":"2023-05-08T16:50:42","slug":"house-judiciary-chair-threatens-to-hold-google-in-contempt-of-congress-for-failing-to-produce-subpoenaed-documents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/house-judiciary-chair-threatens-to-hold-google-in-contempt-of-congress-for-failing-to-produce-subpoenaed-documents\/","title":{"rendered":"House Judiciary chair threatens to hold Google in contempt of Congress for failing to produce subpoenaed documents"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"HighlightShare-hidden\"><\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"InlineImage-imageEmbed\" id=\"ArticleBody-InlineImage-107226343\" data-test=\"InlineImage\">\n<div class=\"InlineImage-wrapper\" readability=\"9.5\">\n<div readability=\"14\">\n<p>Representative Jim Jordan, a Republican from Ohio and chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, during a field hearing in New York, April 17, 2023.<\/p>\n<p>Stephanie Keith | Bloomberg | Getty Images<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"group\" readability=\"87.456068949006\">\n<p>House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, threatened enforcement action against <span class=\"QuoteInBody-quoteNameContainer\" data-test=\"QuoteInBody\" id=\"RegularArticle-QuoteInBody-1\"><span class=\"waslinkname\">Google<\/span><span class=\"QuoteInBody-inlineButton\"><span class=\"AddToWatchlistButton-watchlistContainer\" id=\"-WatchlistDropdown\" data-analytics-id=\"-WatchlistDropdown\"><button class=\"AddToWatchlistButton-watchlistButton\"><span class=\"AddToWatchlistButton-addWatchListFromTag\"><\/span><\/button><\/span><\/span><\/span> that could include holding the company in contempt of Congress for failing to produce documents the committee subpoenaed to learn about communications between tech companies and the Biden administration.<\/p>\n<p>In a letter to a lawyer for Google shared exclusively with CNBC, Jordan called the company&#8217;s compliance so far &#8220;insufficient&#8221; and demanded it hand over more information. If the company fails to comply fully by its new May 22 deadline, Jordan warned, &#8220;the Committee may be forced to consider the use of one or more enforcement mechanisms.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Jordan <span class=\"waslinkname\">issued subpoenas<\/span> to the CEOs of Google parent <span class=\"QuoteInBody-quoteNameContainer\" data-test=\"QuoteInBody\" id=\"RegularArticle-QuoteInBody-3\"><span class=\"waslinkname\">Alphabet<\/span><span class=\"QuoteInBody-inlineButton\"><span class=\"AddToWatchlistButton-watchlistContainer\" id=\"-WatchlistDropdown\" data-analytics-id=\"-WatchlistDropdown\"><button class=\"AddToWatchlistButton-watchlistButton\"><span class=\"AddToWatchlistButton-addWatchListFromTag\"><\/span><\/button><\/span><\/span><\/span>, <span class=\"QuoteInBody-quoteNameContainer\" data-test=\"QuoteInBody\" id=\"RegularArticle-QuoteInBody-4\"><span class=\"waslinkname\">Amazon<\/span><span class=\"QuoteInBody-inlineButton\"><span class=\"AddToWatchlistButton-watchlistContainer\" id=\"-WatchlistDropdown\" data-analytics-id=\"-WatchlistDropdown\"><button class=\"AddToWatchlistButton-watchlistButton\"><span class=\"AddToWatchlistButton-addWatchListFromTag\"><\/span><\/button><\/span><\/span><\/span>, <span class=\"QuoteInBody-quoteNameContainer\" data-test=\"QuoteInBody\" id=\"RegularArticle-QuoteInBody-5\"><span class=\"waslinkname\">Apple<\/span><span class=\"QuoteInBody-inlineButton\"><span class=\"AddToWatchlistButton-watchlistContainer\" id=\"-WatchlistDropdown\" data-analytics-id=\"-WatchlistDropdown\"><button class=\"AddToWatchlistButton-watchlistButton\"><span class=\"AddToWatchlistButton-addWatchListFromTag\"><\/span><\/button><\/span><\/span><\/span>, <span class=\"QuoteInBody-quoteNameContainer\" data-test=\"QuoteInBody\" id=\"RegularArticle-QuoteInBody-6\"><span class=\"waslinkname\">Meta<\/span><span class=\"QuoteInBody-inlineButton\"><span class=\"AddToWatchlistButton-watchlistContainer\" id=\"-WatchlistDropdown\" data-analytics-id=\"-WatchlistDropdown\"><button class=\"AddToWatchlistButton-watchlistButton\"><span class=\"AddToWatchlistButton-addWatchListFromTag\"><\/span><\/button><\/span><\/span><\/span> and <span class=\"QuoteInBody-quoteNameContainer\" data-test=\"QuoteInBody\" id=\"RegularArticle-QuoteInBody-7\"><span class=\"waslinkname\">Microsoft<\/span><span class=\"QuoteInBody-inlineButton\"><span class=\"AddToWatchlistButton-watchlistContainer\" id=\"-WatchlistDropdown\" data-analytics-id=\"-WatchlistDropdown\"><button class=\"AddToWatchlistButton-watchlistButton\"><span class=\"AddToWatchlistButton-addWatchListFromTag\"><\/span><\/button><\/span><\/span><\/span> in February, demanding they hand over communication with the U.S. government to &#8220;understand how and to what extent the Executive Branch coerced and colluded with companies and other intermediaries to censor speech.&#8221; Jordan requested the companies comply by March 23. He made the request after initially asking the companies to <span class=\"waslinkname\">hand over the information voluntarily<\/span>, but said they had not sufficiently complied.<\/p>\n<p>While several other tech giants were subpoenaed in connection with the committee&#8217;s investigation, the other companies have so far appeared more responsive than Google to the demands, according to a source familiar with the matter who declined to be named in order to speak freely.<\/p>\n<p>Congress <span class=\"waslinkname\">can hold individuals in contempt<\/span> for refusing to provide information requested by a committee. Doing so requires a committee vote and then a floor vote, with a simple majority. Republicans currently hold the majority in the House <span class=\"waslinkname\">222-213<\/span>.<\/p>\n<p>Criminal contempt cases can be referred to the Justice Department, or Congress could seek a civil judgement from a federal court to try to enforce the subpoena, according to a 2017 <span class=\"waslinkname\">paper<\/span> from the Congressional Research Service.<\/p>\n<p>The committee may also seek to take other actions against Google, like deposing the company&#8217;s management or trying to restrict federal dollars from going to Google in future legislation.<\/p>\n<p>In the letter, Jordan laid out several ways Alphabet has failed to adequately comply with the committee&#8217;s demands.<\/p>\n<p>He said that Alphabet &#8220;has frustrated the Committee&#8217;s review of the responsive material by unilaterally redacting key information necessary to understand the context and content of the material.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Alphabet didn&#8217;t assert that those redactions included privileged information, according to Jordan, and the committee requires unredacted documents to be handed over.<\/p>\n<p>The company has recently placed some documents in a &#8220;reading room,&#8221; Jordan said,&nbsp;&#8220;in a form and manner that prevents and frustrates the Committee&#8217;s understanding and use of those documents and fails to comply with the terms of the subpoena without the Committee&#8217;s consent.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>He wrote that Alphabet had produced 4,000 pages of documents in response to the subpoena. But those documents have yet to include an &#8220;appreciable volume&#8221; of several types of communications the committee assumes Google would have. Those include communications with other social media platforms about content moderation, documents from Alphabet&#8217;s other subsidiary companies, communications over messaging services other than email and communications between employees about any contact with the executive branch of the U.S. government.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The release of the Twitter Files has shown just how extensively the Executive Branch communicated and coordinated with technology companies regarding content moderation,&#8221; Jordan wrote, referring to reports on internal documents that Twitter owner Elon Musk made available to a hand-selected group of journalists when he took over the company. &#8220;We are skeptical that Alphabet&#8217;s interactions with the federal government where pressure was applied were any less concerning than those of Twitter.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>In a statement, a Google spokesperson said the company has been &#8220;producing relevant documents in response to the committee&#8217;s requests&#8221; since December and &#8220;will continue to work constructively with them.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"waslinkname\"><em><strong>Subscribe to CNBC on YouTube.<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"waslinkname\">WATCH: Can China&#8217;s ChatGPT clones give it an edge over the U.S. in an A.I. arms race?<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div role=\"region\" aria-labelledby=\"Placeholder-ArticleBody-Video-107225936\">\n<div role=\"button\" tabindex=\"0\" id=\"Placeholder-ArticleBody-Video-107225936\" class=\"PlaceHolder-wrapper\" data-vilynx-id=\"7000294952\" data-test=\"VideoPlaceHolder\">\n<div class=\"InlineVideo-videoEmbed\" id=\"InlineVideo-0\" data-test=\"InlineVideo\">\n<div class=\"InlineVideo-wrapper\" readability=\"4.5909090909091\">\n<div class=\"InlineVideo-inlineThumbnailContainer\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"InlineVideo-videoThumbnail\" src=\"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/house-judiciary-chair-threatens-to-hold-google-in-contempt-of-congress-for-failing-to-produce-subpoenaed-documents.jpg\" alt=\"Can China's ChatGPT clones give it an edge over the U.S. in an A.I. arms race?\"><span class=\"InlineVideo-videoButton\"><\/span><span><\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Representative Jim Jordan, a Republican from Ohio and chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, during a field hearing in New York, April 17, 2023. Stephanie Keith | Bloomberg | Getty Images House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, threatened enforcement action against Google that could include holding the company in contempt of Congress for failing &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22896,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"hashtags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22895"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22895"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22895\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22895"},{"taxonomy":"hashtags","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtags?post=22895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}