Congress, the IRS visit and the FTC

On March 9, 2023, Taibbi and Shellenberger testified before the new subcommittee. The ranking Democrat, Del. Stacey Plaskett, attacked them as Musk’s “so-called journalists.” Republicans called them whistleblowers. [1] A month earlier, former Twitter executives had told the Oversight Committee that blocking the laptop story was a mistake but denied any government order. [2] Testimony and documents entered that day showed Twitter had also logged requests from Republicans and the Trump White House. [3]

In November 2023 Taibbi and Shellenberger testified again, this time on CTIL and the wider network. [4] The subcommittee’s December 2024 final report ran about 17,000 pages and concluded that the federal government had pressured platforms to censor Americans. [5]

The hearings put a large documentary record into the public domain, much of it useful. They did not produce a single finding by a neutral fact-finder. Both parties used the same exhibits to tell opposite stories.

While Taibbi testified on March 9, 2023, an IRS revenue officer left a note at his New Jersey home. The IRS later told him his 2018 and 2021 e-filings had been flagged for identity theft. Taibbi said the problems were not monetary and that the IRS owed him money. [1]

Records the IRS gave Congress, with Taibbi’s consent, showed the examination of his 2018 return opened on December 24, 2022. That was a Saturday, Christmas Eve, and the day Taibbi published Part 9. The IRS said it had mailed him letters in 2019 and 2020; Taibbi said he never received them, and the IRS did not produce them. [2] The case was closed in March 2023 with nothing owed. [2]

The timing is extraordinary and Jordan’s questions were fair. No document produced shows anyone directing the visit because of the Files. [3] In July 2023 the IRS ended most unannounced revenue-officer visits for its own stated reasons. [4]

Twitter was under a 2022 FTC privacy consent order. After Musk’s takeover, FTC staff sent demand letters, including a December 2022 request to identify every journalist given access to internal records. The House report names Weiss, Taibbi, Shellenberger and Abigail Shrier among them. Republicans called this harassment of the press. [1][2] In February 2024 the FTC concluded Twitter had not violated the order, largely because security staff had refused Musk’s instruction to give the writers full access and instead had employees pull material for them. [3][4]

Under Chairman Andrew Ferguson the FTC reversed course. In February 2025 it opened a public inquiry into “tech censorship,” asking banned, shadow-banned and demonetized users for complaints. [5] In May 2025 it sent a sweeping civil investigative demand to Media Matters, the group X was suing over its advertiser reports, as part of a probe into advertiser “boycotts.” [6]

A federal judge blocked the demand in August 2025, finding Media Matters likely to win on First Amendment retaliation, and the D.C. Circuit refused to stay that order. [7][8] The agency Republicans accused of harassing a platform for its speech was now itself found likely to be retaliating against a critic of that platform.

On his first day back, Trump signed Executive Order 14149, which bars federal officials from abridging protected speech and orders a review of past “censorship.” [1][2] The same day he ordered the clearances of the 2020 laptop-letter signers revoked. [3]

In September 2025 FCC Chairman Brendan Carr publicly warned ABC and its affiliates over Jimmy Kimmel’s remarks about Charlie Kirk’s killing, saying “we can do this the easy way or the hard way.” ABC suspended the show within hours and restored it days later. [4] Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, no Kimmel fan, compared the threat to a mafioso. [5]

Murthy’s standard is coercion: a government threat that turns a private choice into state action. [6] It applies to whoever holds power. Anyone who found the Biden White House’s 2021 pressure on Facebook alarming should find a regulator threatening a broadcaster’s licenses alarming too, and the reverse.