The FBI paid Twitter $3 million in taxpayer dollars while pressuring the platform to silence conservative speech during the Biden years.
A civil rights group just dragged the FBI into federal court demanding to see the payment records.
The FBI's response to the judge directly contradicts three years of the bureau's own public admissions.
Twitter Files Revealed FBI Paid Twitter Millions to Censor Conservative Speech and Now the Bureau Claims Those Records Do Not Exist
The Twitter Files, released by journalist Michael Shellenberger in December 2022, revealed FBI agents met regularly with Twitter executives, flagged specific accounts for removal, and paid the platform approximately $3.4 million during the Biden years.
The bureau's own former general counsel, Jim Baker, had left the FBI to become Twitter's deputy general counsel – and was personally involved in the decisions to suppress the Hunter Biden laptop story.
The FBI never disputed any of it – an official told Fox News the payments were "reimbursement for reasonable costs and expenses associated with their response to a legal process" – then added that the bureau does not only reimburse Twitter.
American tax dollars were flowing to other social media platforms too – and the bureau would not say which ones or how much.
Three years later, the FBI is telling a federal judge those payment records might not even exist.
Rather than conduct any search for records, the bureau rejected NCLA's request outright.
The New Civil Liberties Alliance has been fighting since January 2023 to find out what that $3.4 million actually purchased.
Now NCLA litigation counsel Casey Norman is naming the contradiction in open court: "The FBI is effectively saying: 'We will not search, we will not explain, and we also will not acknowledge the existence of records that we've already acknowledged exist.'"
The FBI produced 51 heavily redacted pages in response to the FOIA request.
NCLA says those pages contain "little beyond dates" and fail to touch the core question.
The bureau's legal strategy invokes a "Glomar response" – a tool designed for genuine national security secrets that allows agencies to neither confirm nor deny the existence of certain documents.
That exemption exists to protect intelligence sources and covert operations – not to shield a payment ledger from the Americans who funded it.
Even Under Trump the FBI Is Still Hiding Its Role in Censoring Conservative Speech
In February 2026, a federal district court sided with the FBI in a similar FOIA case brought by Judicial Watch – finding the payments to Twitter were routine reimbursements for processing legal requests.
That ruling only addressed legality – NCLA wants to know what the bureau actually paid for, and specifically whether taxpayer money compensated social media platforms for restricting speech at the government's request.
The Twitter Files documented that the Biden government demanded Twitter suspend more than 250,000 accounts – including accounts belonging to journalists.
FBI agents met with Twitter executives just four days before the 2022 midterm elections to discuss those censorship decisions, and the government made those demands while simultaneously paying the platforms with taxpayer money.
In March 2026, the Trump administration obtained a consent decree in the Missouri v. Biden lawsuit – the government formally acknowledging the Biden administration had pressured social media platforms to suppress constitutionally protected speech.
Now the FBI is fighting in court to keep the payment records sealed.
The bureau told Fox News it paid Twitter, and those statements are on the record – yet the same FBI is now invoking quasi-national-security privileges before a federal judge to claim those payment records may not exist.
The question NCLA is forcing into open court is the one the FBI will do anything to prevent from being answered: did American tax dollars fund the silencing of American citizens?
If the bureau routed taxpayer money not just for lawful legal compliance but to financially incentivize platforms to bury conservative speech, that is not a FOIA technicality.
That is one of the most consequential First Amendment violations in modern American history – and the people who ran it are still inside that building.
Sources:
- NCLA, "NCLA Urges D.C. Court to End FBI's Stonewalling over Payments to Social Media Platforms," nclalegal.org, June 30, 2026.
- NCLA, "NCLA Asks D.C. Court to Order FOIA Disclosure of FBI Payments to Social Media Platforms," nclalegal.org, April 2, 2025.
- Michael Shellenberger, Twitter Files, December 2022.
- Staff, "Rights Group Claims FBI Stonewalling FOIA Request Regarding Payments in Twitter Files," The Epoch Times, September 2026.
- Staff, "FBI Responds to Twitter Censorship Allegations," Fox News, December 2022.
