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Twitter filed a lawsuit against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in a California federal court Monday and asked a judge to halt the state's top lawyer from investigating the company.
The social media giant's court filings include a request for a temporary restraining order that would keep Paxton and his office from enforcing a demand that seeks documents revealing the company's internal decision making processes for banning users, among other things.
<p>Paxton, a fervent supporter of former President Donald Trump, sent the company a civil investigative demand after it banned Trump from its platform following January's deadly siege at the U.S. Capitol.</p><p>Twitter wrote that it seeks to stop Paxton from "from unlawfully abusing his authority as the highest law-enforcement officer of the State of Texas to intimidate, harass, and target Twitter in retaliation for Twitter's exercise of its First Amendment rights." The company claimed Paxton's "retaliatory" investigation violated the First Amendment as an inappropriate use of government authority.</p><p>A spokesperson for Paxton did not immediately respond for comment.</p><p>The attorney general is among <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2021/01/21/texas-republicans-big-tech-social-media-insurrection/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Texas Republican leaders who have launched a campaign against technology and social media companies</a> after officials and followers faced repercussions for sowing the election doubts that fueled the Capitol insurrection.</p><p>Twitter is one of five tech and social media firms to which Paxton issued civil investigative demands to learn about the procedures such companies use to regulate postings or user accounts.</p><p>Paxton, who <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2021/01/07/texas-ken-paxton-trump-supporters/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">attended</a> the rally that preceded the attack on the U.S. Capitol, criticized companies' moves after the siege, which included Twitter banning Trump from its platform.</p><p>"The seemingly coordinated de-platforming of the President of the United States and several leading voices not only chills free speech, it wholly silences those whose speech and political beliefs do not align with leaders of Big Tech companies," Paxton said in a Jan. 13 <a href="https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/news/releases/ag-paxton-issues-civil-investigative-demands-five-leading-tech-companies-regarding-discriminatory" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">news release</a>.</p><p>In its filings Monday, Twitter detailed their suspension of multiple accounts, including Trump's personal account, which they banned for his false claims about the presidential election and the Jan. 6 attacks on the U.S. Capitol. Five days after the president's Twitter account was suspended on Jan. 8, Paxton issued the <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2021/01/21/texas-republicans-big-tech-social-media-insurrection/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">civil investigative demands to Twitter</a> and four other tech and social media firms.</p><p>In the lawsuit, Twitter said while the company "strives for transparency," the public disclosure of such documents would "compromise Twitter's ability to effectively and efficiently moderate content on its platform."</p><p>Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms have come under fire for enabling misinformation spread and propagating violence like the Jan. 6 attacks. Last year, Democratic lawmakers presented a Congressional bill that would hold social media companies accountable for amplifying such content, but the proposal gained little traction.</p>
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Trump starts boycott -- wants supporters to donate to him instead of GOP committees: report
March 08, 2021
Donald Trump on Monday lashed out at RINOs -- "Republicans in Name Only."
"No more money for RINOS," Trump said in announcing a boycott despite speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference on so-called "cancel culture."
<p>"They do nothing but hurt the Republican Party and our great voting base—they will never lead us to greatness. Send your donation to Save America PAC at DonaldJTrump.com," Trump urged. "We will bring it all back stronger than ever before!" </p><p>Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times correspondent Maggie Haberman summed up Trump's power place.</p><p>"He didn't start his own party, which is complicated to do and be competitive, but Trump is trying to set himself up as the place where money for Republicans should go as opposed to GOP committees," Haberman tweeted.</p>
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<div style="margin:1em 0">He didn’t start his own party, which is complicated to do and be competitive, but Trump is trying to set himself up… https://t.co/j4ugk1dmLw</div> — Maggie Haberman (@Maggie Haberman)
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Yet another Republican in Congress is in a scandal involving their stock trades.
"Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) did not buy or sell any stocks in his first 13 months as a congressman. That changed in March 2020, when he made half a dozen buys as the largest economic relief package in history was written and debated. Five of those purchases came in the three days between March 25 and 27, as the Senate and House voted on the CARES Act and former President Trump signed it into law. Crenshaw, who supported the bill, did not initially disclose the transactions, in violation of the STOCK Act, a law that requires members of Congress to tell the public when they engage in securities trades," The Daily Beast reported Monday. "Months later he amended his records to reflect the purchases."
<p>"The trades, which are listed only in a range of values, add up to a maximum of $120,000, and do not compare in size or volume to the kinds of headline-grabbing transactions executed ahead of the pandemic by Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue," The Beast reported. "The timing, however, along with Crenshaw's own trading history and connections to the industry, raises questions about why he made the purchases and failed, twice, to disclose them."</p><p>"Crenshaw, elected in 2018, had never traded individual stocks in office until that crisis struck, according to public records. Then, when global markets crashed on March 12, Crenshaw bought between $1,001 and $15,000 in Amazon," The Beast reported. "While it's unclear why Crenshaw did not initially disclose the transactions, they came as an increasing number of high-profile lawmakers were getting snared in an insider-trading scandal. Except for the Amazon purchase, all of Crenshaw's transactions came a week after ProPublica <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/senator-dumped-up-to-1-7-million-of-stock-after-reassuring-public-about-coronavirus-preparedness" target="_blank">reported</a> that Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC) had sold up to $1.72 million on the heels of private coronavirus briefings. On March 20, The Daily Beast <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/sen-kelly-loeffler-dumped-millions-in-stock-after-coronavirus-briefing" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">reported</a> that Loeffler and her husband had sold off seven figures worth of stock following her first confidential briefings on the pandemic. Scrutiny soon fell on trades executed by Sens. David Perdue (R-GA), Jim Inhofe (R-OK), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and John Hoeven (R-ND), spurring investigations by the Justice Department, the Senate Ethics Committee and the Securities and Exchange Commission. None of the lawmakers faced criminal charges. Perdue and Loeffler lost their re-election bids to Democratic challengers Jon Ossoff and Rev. Raphael Warnock in runoff elections this January."</p><p>Read the <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/texas-rep-dan-crenshaw-decided-the-covid-19-pandemic-was-the-perfect-time-to-buy-and-not-disclose-stocks" target="_blank">full report</a>.</p><p><br/></p>
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