Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) delivered a biting preview of what Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg can look forward to as he prepares to face off against a Senate committee this week following bombshell whistleblower claims over the company’s associations with China.
“These allegations are explosive,” Hawley said. “The public deserves to hear every single detail and they’re going to hear it on Wednesday.”
The Missouri lawmaker – a staunch supporter of Donald Trump and his MAGA agenda – made the critical remarks about one of the president’s top billionaire supporters Monday during a Fox News appearance on “The Will Cain Show.”
“I've had Mark Zuckerberg testify in front of me many times and he has said over and over that they never work with China, they've never made any concessions to Chinese Communist Party, they would never censor, etcetera, etcetera. By the way, we know all that's false,” Hawley said. "They've censored right here in the United States – the Hunter Biden laptop story, I mean hello – and now as it turns out, they were working hand in glove with the CCP.”
Hawley, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Counterterrorism, also put Zuckerberg on notice that he could be slapped with criminal charges over the matter.
“If he's committed perjury, Congress has access that we can take, we can hold him in contempt of Congress, we can refer him to the Department of Justice for investigation and prosecution – that I just want to emphasize – our investigation is just beginning,” Hawley said.
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He went on to tell host Will Cain that what was “really astounding” to him was Facebook’s reported work with Beijing to “build censorship tools” that he said could be used against American users. That includes facial recognition implementations, a “special kill switch” to suppress news, and other mechanisms that he said would allow the social media giant to “track dissidents,” according to Hawley.
“This is incredible stuff,” he said. “All of it has been denied by Facebook, and that is what is so explosive here. It appears that Facebook has been lying to the public and lying to Congress for years now."
“We’re going to get the truth on Wednesday,” Hawley concluded, adding that the whistleblower is cooperating fully with his committee.
“We are going do a full scale investigation, and I can tell you, as a prosecutor, we will follow the facts wherever they go and we will give the truth and we will make it to available to the American people,” he said.