Dr. Baric testified that the DARPA PREEMPT solicitation — which called on researchers to learn what makes a virus jump between species “down to the nucleotide level” — could only be understood one way: “That's a gain-of-function experiment. There's no other way to think about it.” As for DEFUSE, the proposal he submitted with Peter Daszak, President of EcoHealth Alliance, and Zhengli Shi of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, Baric confirmed that inserting a furin cleavage site into a viral backbone would be done by him, directly admitting, “That part would be done by me.” The furin cleavage site is the very feature of SARS-CoV-2 that first drew lab-origin scrutiny.

US Funded NGOs Shaped UK's Online Safety Act The UK media is currently panicking about "American interference": a tiny slice of the State Department budget funding free speech groups. Don't be fooled. They love "American interference" when it's pro-censorship 🧵

I asked Claude to map out European countries that don't prosecute their citizens for 'hatespeech' and Claude refused, arguing it will not help people evade hatespeech convictions. How long before Claude will actively help governments prosecute users for thoughtcrimes?

I want to congratulate Adam Candeub on his nomination to serve as Assistant Attorney General at the DOJ. From his time serving at the FCC as General Counsel, to his prior government service at the Commerce Department and Justice Department, Candeub has always brought a thoughtful and fair minded approach to his jobs. As a professor and former law clerk, Candeub’s grounding in academic literature and research is a benefit to all that work with him. Congratulations Adam!

“We faced a thousand years of darkness over this.” @MikeBenzCyber underscored at ADF Summit 2026 the high stakes if we don’t stop the spread of politically and economically institutionalized censorship.

Receiving some media queries about a draft joint statement on free expression which my office circulated in the margins of OECD — so I thought I’d address this directly: When it comes to freedom of speech, there’s a lot of attention paid to viral controversies dividing America and Europe. But face-to-face conversations tell a different story: allied democracies support free expression, disclaim any intent to censor political debate, and emphasize that except for edge cases such as swastikas, their internet regulations aim to protect consumers and kids rather than chill speech. We love hearing this, and wanted to memorialize it. So in the margins of productive OECD talks, we drafted a joint statement with the aim of promoting transparency and driving consensus. The statement is intended as an expression of comity and common values, and also as a source of interpretive guidance for American speech companies complying with overseas laws. A diplomatic statement can’t override laws like the DSA — and this one doesn’t try. But it does provide color regarding countries’ values and concerns. Signatories affirm that they don’t intend to censor, e.g., satire (like the Charlie Hebdo cartoons), statistics about topics like crime or mass migration, or nonviolent dissent against government policy. American companies deserve to know this — so they don’t over-comply by suppressing the exact speech everyone agrees is protected. Stay tuned!

Digital Trade: Brazilian courts have issued secret orders directing U.S. technology companies, including X, Meta, and Google, to remove certain political content, suspend accounts belonging to U.S. residents, and prohibit the platforms from disclosing these orders to profile owners. To enforce compliance, Brazilian courts have also subjected U.S. technology companies to daily non-compliance fines or required them to cease operations in Brazil.

Today, President Trump directed USTR to impose a 25% tariff on most Brazilian imports. Let there be no confusion about why: President Lula and his government have not negotiated with the US in good faith. His economic policies are bad for Americans and bad for Brazilians. For the past year, Lula has put his own ego ahead of making a deal for the welfare of the Brazilian people, and these tariffs are the price for that.

NEW: Chairman @Jim_Jordan sent a letter to U.K. Secretary of State for Culture, Media, and Sport Lisa Nandy requesting a briefing on the U.K.’s proposed social media reforms. Europeans are trying to censor American speech on American social media companies again. Now, the U.K. government wants to require American social media platforms to boost government-approved news sources while stifling smaller and independent ones. Read more:

Brazil has been trying to censor American speech on American platforms for years. Now it's going after American companies and consumers too. Foreign or abroad, the Committee won't let these attacks go unchecked.