Sen Ted Cruz has written AG Bill Barr and Secretary of the Treasury Steve Mnuchin asking them to investigate Twitter for violating the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. He is talking about President Trump’s Executive Order # 13876. That is the one where businesses are not supposed to work with countries that are under US sanctions. In this particular case, it’s with Iran.
Rep Matt Gaetz is going to file a complaint with the FEC (Federal Election Commission) charging them with interfering in the election for their censorship of conservative voices. Twitter does not even to pretend to be fair anymore. On top of everything else, President trump issued an Executive order meant to put a stopper on the censoring of conservatives on Twitter and the other social media platforms.
Cruz wrote to Barr and Mnuchin:
“The letter spelled out in detail how Twitter is in violation of IEEPA. It explained that the President invoked his powers under IEEPA to issue E.O. 13876, which prohibits ‘the making of any contribution or provision of… goods or services’ to persons designated pursuant to that order. It then cited two specific and active Twitter accounts belonging to individuals designated pursuant to E.O. 13876 – Ali Khamenei (@khamenei_ir), the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic, and Javad Zarif (@JZarif), the Iranian Foreign Minister – and called on Twitter to come into compliance with United States law by ceasing to provide services to these individuals.”
“First and foremost, Twitter argues that its corporate values require it to provide these accounts. Twitter stated that it will not eliminate these accounts because ‘to deny our service to [Iran’s] leaders at a time like this would be antithetical to the purpose of our company,’ and because Twitter’s ‘goal is to elevate and amplify authoritative health information as far as possible. The position cannot be aligned with Iranian policy as it actually exists or with how designated Iranian officials use Twitter. Iranian officials ban Iranian citizens from accessing Twitter. In early April, Khamenei and Zarif used their Twitter accounts to post anti-American disinformation and conspiracy theories, not authoritative health information. They use their accounts provided by Twitter to threaten and taunt their enemies real and imagined. In any event, Twitter’s corporate values and grave misapprehension of the threat that Khamenei and Zarif pose are irrelevant. An American person’s disagreement with IEEPA or E.O. 13876 is no excuse for noncompliance.”