A new House Justice Department report concludes that the FBI worked with Ukrainian intelligence to pressure social media platforms to censor Americans, ignoring Russian informants’ infiltration of the agency. rice field.

The FBI’s Task Force on Foreign Influence (FITF) worked with the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) to counter allegations of Russian disinformation, and from March 2022, shortly after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Ukraine’s Volodymyr It began identifying and censoring posts on social media months before President Zelensky. Purged Russian collaborators from the SBU. The House Judiciary Report states:. (Related: Twitter censor chief also ‘baffled’ by FBI demands)

🚨🚨🚨 The FBI, on behalf of the compromised Ukrainian intelligence agency, has demanded the removal of the US State Department verified accounts and US journalists.

Read what’s new @weaponize Please report here: https://t.co/8OsplRW2Jf pic.twitter.com/ManNgQp1DP

— House Judiciary Republican 🇺🇸 (@JudiciaryGOP) July 10, 2023

“The commission investigation found that the FBI, the federal law enforcement agency responsible for thwarting foreign influence, facilitated censorship requests against American social media companies on behalf of infiltrated Ukrainian intelligence agencies linked to Russia. By doing so, the FBI could violate the First Amendment rights of Americans and potentially undermine our nation’s national security,” the report said. summarizing.

FBI Special Agent Aleksandr Kovzanets was the conduit for the SBU’s social media censorship demands and worked closely with FBI Agent Erwin Chan, who coordinated meetings with the FITF and social media companies ahead of the 2020 presidential election. did, the report claims.

On March 1, Kovzanets emailed Meta representatives two spreadsheets full of Instagram and Facebook accounts that the SBU flagged for alleged Russian misinformation. (Related: Facebook blocked Tucker Carlson video that didn’t violate content policy after White House request, judge says)

“I have a little more Instagram, [Facebook] According to SBU, the account that spread Russian disinformation. Please consider and act as you see fit,” Kovzanets told Meta employees in an email published in the House judiciary report.

One of his spreadsheets contained 15,865 pieces of content and another had a registry of 5,165 Facebook accounts. The spreadsheet listed specific information about the content and provided URLs where the meta worked. His spreadsheet listed the countries of his social media accounts, and on behalf of Ukraine, Kovsanets’ censorship demands also included active U.S. residents, the report found.

The next day, Kovzanets sent Meta additional Instagram accounts that the SBU sought censorship, including the official Russian-language account of the US State Department and a US journalist. According to the report, Kovzanets sent at least 10 additional censorship requests to the same Meta employee in March 2022 using an account highlighted by SBU.

A social media post supporting the Ukrainian government in the war against Russia was among those the SBU warned the FBI to send to social media companies, and the House Justice Department said the FBI did not properly scrutinize the SBU’s request. I came to the conclusion that

“These examples show either that the FBI did not meaningfully scrutinize the SBU’s list, or that the FBI knowingly approved that the SBU’s censorship request included accounts of U.S. persons.” the report said.

The SBU was also found to have informed the FBI of accounts critical of the leadership and challenging its power, according to the House Justice Department.

In July 2022, President Zelensky dismissed the head of the SBU and said that 60 treason charges were filed against law enforcement officers of the SBU and the Prosecutor General of Ukraine. He revealed that 651 treason charges have been filed against individuals in Ukrainian law enforcement agencies. New York Post reported.

Kobzanets has sent similar censorship requests from SBU to Google and YouTube to remove content from video-sharing platforms, the report details. A senior Google cybersecurity team official told the commission that the Ukrainian government, other European governments, the European Union and the European Commission have called for censorship through the Justice Ministry.

The House Justice Department also cited internal Twitter documents from a “Twitter Files” report showing that the Cabzanets had asked the platform to censor American and Canadian journalists warned by the SBU.the documents are first reported Far-left journalist Aaron Mate wrote for Substack.

The House Judiciary Committee and the Federal Weaponization Task Force continue to investigate the FBI’s efforts to censor Americans on social media.

Meta, FBI and SBU did not respond to requests for comment.