Last updated on January 13th, 2021 at 03:26 am
Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) called for the Justice Department to open a RICO investigation after tech companies banned Parler.
Video:
Rep. Devin Nunes calls for a RICO investigation into tech companies for banning Parler and whines that Republicans can no longer communicate with each other. In other words, where can a Republican go to mount the violent overthrow of the government without Parler? pic.twitter.com/QaHz0g0Vzt
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— Sarah Reese Jones (@PoliticusSarah) January 10, 2021
Nunes said:
The effect of this is that there’s no longer a free and open social media company or site for any American to get on any longer because these big companies, Apple, Amazon, Google, they have just destroy destroyed, Parler is likely a billion-dollar company, poof it’s gone. Republicans don’t have a way to communicate. It doesn’t matter if you’re Republican or conservative, if you don’t want to be regulated by left-wingers in Instagram, they get to decide what’s violent and not violent. It’s preposterous.
I don’t know where the hell the Department of Justice is at right now or the FBI. This is clearly a violation of antitrust, civil rights, the RICO statute, there should be a racketeering investigation on all the people who coordinated this attack on not only a company but on all of those like us, like me, like you, Maria, I have 3 million followers on Parler. Tonight I will no longer be able to communicate with those people and they are Americans and unlike the fake social media sites, we know that everybody that’s on Parler because you get certified. It’s actually a very safe platform and if you break the law on Parler, the FBI can subpoena to find out who those people are.
Private businesses deciding that they don’t want to have anything to do with a website where people gather to plan violent attacks on the United States government is free-market capitalism, not a violation of antitrust law.
All of these companies gave Parler the option of cleaning up their act to stay on their platforms, and they declined, so Parler isn’t going to be available through Apple or Google, and their Amazon web hosting.
Rep. Nunes sees a violation of free speech where everyone else sees a place where domestic terrorists gather.
The abuse of power instinct is a reflex in the Republican Party that Trump will be leaving behind. Republicans are no longer the party of small government and the free market. They are authoritarians who want to trample capitalism in the name of free speech.
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Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
