Legal groups are pressing federal courts to disclose records involving FBI payments to social media companies and a sealed warrant targeting former Trump adviser Michael Caputo.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
Government watchdogs are pursuing separate legal fights in Washington, D.C., federal court over FBI payments to social media companies and a sealed search warrant targeting Michael Caputo, a longtime ally and former adviser to President Donald Trump.
The cases center on allegations that federal agencies were used to influence online speech and target political opponents, according to a report by Just the News.
In one case, the New Civil Liberties Alliance is challenging the FBI’s refusal to release records related to payments made to social media companies, including the former Twitter. In another, Judicial Watch is asking U.S. District Judge James Boasberg to unseal materials connected to a November 2024 search warrant for Caputo’s Google-hosted records.
The FBI has argued that records related to its payments to social media platforms are exempt from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act because they were “compiled for law enforcement purposes.” NCLA says that position is too broad and cannot be applied to every record involving FBI payments to private companies.
The civil liberties group filed a motion for summary judgment arguing that the FBI has already acknowledged payments to Twitter and other companies, meaning the bureau cannot use a blanket refusal to confirm or deny the existence of related records.
The former Twitter is known to have received more than $3 million to process censorship requests, according to the submitted material.
NCLA says its Freedom of Information Act request sought records related to FBI payments to Twitter and “comparable entities” for time spent processing “any” FBI requests. That included records involving efforts “to induce, facilitate, or compensate other actions intended to limit speech,” not only routine legal compliance.
The group argues the FBI improperly narrowed the request, producing only a limited set of heavily redacted documents that duplicated and slightly expanded a previous production from another FOIA case.
According to NCLA, that “illiberal interpretation” of the request led to an inadequate search for records. The group says the FBI failed to determine whether payments may have been connected to content-moderation recommendations, informal takedown requests or efforts to influence algorithms in ways that served federal interests.
The FBI has relied on what is known as a Glomar response, a refusal to confirm or deny the existence of records when doing so could reveal protected law-enforcement information.
NCLA says that response is improper because the FBI has publicly acknowledged that it pays companies for costs related to legal process. Then-FBI Director Chris Wray testified to Congress three years ago that the 1986 Stored Communications Act requires the bureau to “pay companies for their costs in responding to a legal process.”
The group also cites D.C. Circuit precedent barring agencies from invoking FOIA exemptions when they have already officially acknowledged otherwise exempt information through prior disclosure.
NCLA’s lawsuit is pending before U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols. The government’s response to the group’s motion is due Aug. 14.
The lawsuit is part of a broader set of watchdog inquiries into Biden administration communications with Big Tech. Those include cases involving meetings between the FBI and Twitter and records related to communications uncovered after Elon Musk gave journalists access to company files. Those files revealed extensive exchanges between Twitter, federal officials and outside speech-policing groups over COVID-19, elections and Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop, according to Just the News reporting.
Congress has also examined the issue. The FBI payment revelations helped spur 2023 legislation to impose a one-year moratorium on taxpayer funding from the Department of Justice to social media companies, along with an audit of DOJ payments to Big Tech dating back to 2015.
Lawmakers are now considering whether to prohibit “jawboning,” a term used to describe government pressure on private parties to take actions the government could not constitutionally take itself.
Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Ron Wyden, D-Ore., introduced the JAWBONE Act last month. The measure would allow victims of government-directed censorship to sue federal agencies or employees, regardless of whether the pressure succeeded, and seek monetary damages. Agencies would also have to disclose “certain communications with companies” to Congress, the senators said.
Cruz said the bill would stop the Biden administration’s use of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency “to pressure Big Tech into ‘canceling’ Americans who spoke out against vaccine mandates and election fraud.” Wyden said “the most blatant example” was Trump “threatening cable companies because he doesn’t like their late-night shows.”
A separate watchdog fight involves Caputo, a political consultant and documentary filmmaker who investigated Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings before joining Trump’s third presidential campaign.
Caputo learned he had been targeted in a criminal investigation only after the probe ended, according to letters between Congress and the FBI reviewed by Just the News. The FBI targeted him two weeks after he joined the campaign, seeking an email account that contained campaign “private strategies and deliberations,” the correspondence said.
Judicial Watch asked Judge Boasberg to allow Caputo to intervene in the sealed legal process and unseal materials related to the Nov. 18, 2024, warrant for his Google records. The motion describes the warrant as “sweeping” and says it covered Caputo’s “entire online private life,” including email, banking records, calendar information and search history.
Boasberg, who authorized the warrant, also barred Google from notifying Caputo while the company responded. Caputo says he was kept unaware of the process for a year.
The motion asks the court to recognize the public’s qualified First Amendment and common law right of access to judicial records. Judicial Watch argues the government has no compelling reason to keep the materials sealed and says Caputo has a strong interest in learning why he was targeted and what evidence supported the warrant.
The filing also points to Judicial Watch’s previous efforts to obtain records tied to FBI and DOJ investigations of Trump and his associates, arguing that the Caputo warrant should be viewed within that broader context.
Judicial Watch says continued secrecy is unjustified because there is no ongoing prosecution, Caputo intends to make the materials public and the case raises public interest in whether the warrant was used “to target a political opponent’s ally.”
The group argues that the government “retained whatever it extracted, and never charged him with any crime.” Without access to the warrant materials, Judicial Watch says, Caputo cannot determine whether to seek the return of his property or challenge the warrant as constitutionally defective.
Boasberg ordered the government to respond to the motion by July 16.
The Caputo request comes as Boasberg is facing separate scrutiny after an appeals court faulted him for “abuse of discretion” in a contempt investigation involving the Trump administration’s deportation flights.
Together, the cases reflect growing legal and congressional scrutiny over federal interaction with private technology platforms, the use of sealed warrants against political figures and the transparency of government actions that watchdogs say affected speech and political activity.
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