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President Donald Trump at CPAC 2017Steve Jalsevac/LifeSIte

PETITION: Break up Big Tech tyrants and defend free speech! Sign the petition here.

WASHINGTON D.C., July 31, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) – President Donald Trump has said that he will issue executive orders to “bring fairness to Big Tech” if Congress fails to act. 

“If Congress doesn’t bring fairness to Big Tech, which they should have done years ago, I will do it myself with Executive Orders. In Washington, it has been ALL TALK and NO ACTION for years, and the people of our Country are sick and tired of it!” Trump tweeted as Wednesday’s antitrust hearing at the U.Sa. House of Representatives began.

In May, Trump signed an executive order suggesting the federal government will begin to interpret much more narrowly the legal immunities social media companies currently enjoy.

During Wednesday’s hearing on technology and antitrust, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) accused Google of election interference through the blacklisting of conservative news websites from its online search results after Google CEO Sundar Pichai admitted that the creation of lists of blocked sites “can involve a manual portion.”

Gaetz’s accusation came after Breitbart News released data this week that it says show that “Google is deliberately working to interfere with the reelection of Trump in 2020” through purging Breitbart and other conservative websites from search results.

Following Wednesday’s hearing, Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson challenged Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), the highest ranking Republican on the committee hosting the hearing, as to why he has accepted large donations from Google.

“It seems very difficult for any candidate or party to win anything if all the information about the race is controlled by people who are working for the other side, which is where we are now,” Carlson said. 

Jordan insisted that the money he has received from Google has not influenced him politically.

“Look, if they want to exercise their First Amendment liberties and give me money, I raised $3 million last quarter – if Google gives me a few thousand-dollar check, God bless them,” he replied. 

“That doesn’t change who I am. You saw that today in the committee, I went after them for the very issue you just raised.”

Carlson had previously challenged Jordan as to why more action hasn’t been taken against the anti-conservative bias exercised by big tech companies.

“Lawmakers are tasked with running the country and passing our laws by definition, and these companies operate with a special carve-out provided them by Congress, and Congress has never done anything to rein them in and so we’ve got, what, 96 days until the election,” Carlson said. 

“Are there going to be any consequences until then?”

Earlier this week, LifeSiteNews joined with other conservatives in an open letter challenging the CEO of Google over the removal of conservative websites from online search results.

Prior to Wednesday’s antitrust hearing, independent journalist Mike Cernvoich released what is apparently a leaked internal Republican memo penned by Jordan, which Cernovich says “sells out Conservatives to Big Tech.” 

The 39-page memo indicates that Republicans in Congress will not take any significant action against the internet giants.

“Even if this hearing suggests that Google, Amazon, Apple, or Facebook have acted unlawfully, that would not necessarily mean underlying antitrust law needs an overhaul,” the memo reads.

A Republican spokesperson has responded to the memo, which was also covered in Politico, saying that it was simply a “guidance memo” intended as an “information and learning tool,” and that it doesn’t represent the official GOP position.

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“Guidance memos are created to present all sides of the equation for members of Congress to learn about issues before the committee, and this leaked document has been wildly mischaracterized,” the spokesman said. “These memos are regularly created for every hearing to show every argument that might come up in a hearing. These memos are NOT meant to serve as a plan of attack for any hearing.”

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When LifeSiteNews searched online for the leaked memo earlier this week, a Google search for the words “Cernovich antitrust memo transcript” failed to bring up Mike Cernovich’s website, where the memo was posted. Even after clicking a link provided by Google to “repeat the search with the omitted results included,” Cernovich’s website still did not appear in the search results at all.

The exact same search entered into DuckDuckGo brought up Cernovich’s website as the second result. 

LifeSiteNews has contacted Jordan’s Washington office requesting further comment on the memo, but has not received a response.