Parler, a social-media platform that attracted conservatives, has been deplatformed and is experiencing turmoil in management with the ouster of its CEO.
Now Congress is investigating.
Business Insider reported the House Oversight and Reform committee announced it was looking into the company’s “potential ties” to foreigners. Russians.
Following the Democrats’ obsession with Russia collusion, the Democratic-led committee is looking into “Russian disinformation” during the 2020 election.
Then there are reports that representatives for Donald Trump held discussions about whether he could buy an ownership stake in Parler while he still was president.
And its alleged that links to the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol are under review.
The committee is demanding that Parler CEO Jeffrey Wernick deliver to members information about the company’s creditors, owners, Russian ties, communications with Trump and stakeholders.
A letter sent from Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney said a news report discussed the Trump Organization negotiating with Parler, and affirmed the committee wants to know the details.
Former CEO John Matze, who since has been removed from the company, claimed that Trump was thinking about setting up an account calling himself “Person X,” but Matze said he didn’t want to work with Trump in the company.
Parler has separately sued Amazon, Apple and Google for allegedly conspiring to shut down the social-media website.
The case was filed in U.S. District Court in Florida by Freedom Watch, a nonprofit political-interest group run by former DOJ lawyer Larry Klayman.
Parler was shut down by its host, Amazon Web Services, after President Trump and thousands of conservatives were banned from social-media platforms.
The loss of Parler is damaging many, the complaint claims.
“PARLER and FREEDOM WATCH have been and will continue to be severely injured by [Amazon’s] malicious and pretextual shutdown of PARlER’s social networking platform because, during the period that PARLER is offline, many of its users will migrate to other online social networking platforms which are available on the Internet,” the complaint states.
“On information and belief, once PARLER users have migrated to another platform, many of them will not return to PARLER, and FREEDOM WATCH followers who migrate from PARLER will be lost by FREEDOM WATCH.”
The complaint notes the extent of the problem cannot be determined because the number of followers cannot be determined while Parler is offline.
Buzzfeed reported legal experts said Trump may have violated anti-bribery laws by discussing an ownership stake.
Parler was growing exponentially in the runup to the Joe Biden inauguration on Jan. 20, but that was derailed by the Amazon shutdown order.
The members of Congress, in their letter, charged that Parler users “actively took to the platform to call for violence and even ‘civil war.'”
Further, they charged that “Parler reportedly allowed Russian disinformation to flourish on its platform prior to the November 2020 election, facilitating Russia’s campaign to sow chaos in the American electorate.”
Maloney also provided instructions for “responding to this request.”
She previously insisted that the FBI investigate Parler.
Via Wnd