Two California Democratic Congressmembers, Senator Diane Feinstein and Representative Adam Schiff, made the request after the companies “provided an incomplete response” to an initial query over #Releasethememo – a social media campaign to make Republicans release the data alleging surveillance abuses by the FBI.
“It is unclear from your responses whether you believe any of the Russian-linked accounts involved in this influence campaign violated your respective user policies,” Senator Dianne Feinstein said in a joint statement on Wednesday.
The letter says that Facebook failed to indicate if it had analyzed the possible links between Russian sponsors and the 2016 presidential campaign. Twitter also declined to answer the question of whether Russian sources had promoted the #Releasethememo hashtag.
The senators also urged the companies to “take necessary steps to expose and deactivate” accounts if they violate user policies.
The classified memo behind the #ReleaseTheMemo effort was prepared by Republicans and alleges that the FBI and the Justice Department had abused their powers by extending surveillance of an ex-Trump campaign associate amid the so-called Russian probe.
The House Intelligence Committee has earlier voted to make the memo public. The Republicans on the committee said that the release of the memo could shed the light on whether the Russian probe was biased in the first place. Texas Republican Rep. Mike Conaway said that the memo doesn’t pose threat to national security.
Schiff said following the vote that there was nothing in the memo that could vindicate President Trump. On the contrary, he stressed that the “misleading narrative” that House Intelligence Committee David Nunes is pursuing will undermine the FBI and special counsel Robert Mueller, who are investigating the alleged Russian meddling into the 2016 presidential election.
Four separate investigations have been launched into the alleged Russian interference in 2016 US election, which saw the victory of Donald Trump.
Moscow has repeatedly denied the allegations of collusion, while Trump described the probe as the “single greatest witch hunt” in US history.