Newly installed Sen. Eric Schmitt said he will use his new position to scrutinize Big Tech and its relationship with the government.
The Missouri Republican told the Washington Examiner that he intended to focus on the relationships between companies including Twitter and Google with federal agencies such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the FBI.
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He has experience targeting the nexus between government and Silicon Valley. As Missouri's attorney general, Schmitt filed a lawsuit in partnership with Louisiana's attorney in an attempt to hold the agencies accountable for what he called free speech violations.
Schmitt said he was newly motivated by the "Twitter Files," a series of posts released by allies of Elon Musk based on internal Twitter documents detailing interactions between the social media platform and federal agencies regarding content moderation.
"I think [the Twitter Files] confirms what we knew and what we uncovered in the lawsuit," Schmitt told the Washington Examiner. He said findings from the suit confirmed that members of the CDC were regularly communicating with Twitter and Facebook about COVID-19-related misinformation. The suit also discovered that there were regular meetings between Big Tech and FBI agent Elvis Chan over election-related misinformation. That relationship is why a "laserlike focus on decoupling government from Big Tech" is integral to protecting free speech, Schmitt said.
Schmitt filed a lawsuit against the Biden administration in May, accusing it of colluding with Big Tech to censor content. The suit has revealed several emails and communications confirming that Facebook and YouTube executives regularly communicated with members of the CDC over COVID-19 misinformation.
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Schmitt was elected last November to represent Missouri. The freshman senator made a strong push to serve on the Judiciary Committee, a key committee that could have allowed him discretion over Big Tech-related policy. He was denied the position but placed on the Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee, which will provide oversight of Big Tech issues.
The Twitter Files have detailed an assortment of communications between Twitter executives and federal agencies. These include emails discussing the removal of election content, a push by Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) to remove QAnon-adjacent content, and additional information on how federal employees reported offending tweets to the platform.