Loomer Campaign Calls on DOJ to Investigate Twitter for Illegal In-Kind Contributions

The Laura Loomer congressional campaign has written a letter to Attorney General Bill Barr calling for a DOJ investigation into Twitter for discrimination against conservative political candidates, which it alleges is an illegal in-kind contribution to Democrats.

The Federal Election Commission defines an in-kind contribution as any kind of “non-monetary contribution.”

“Goods or services offered free or at less than the usual charge result in an in-kind contribution,” says the FEC.

In-kind contributions to a candidate are permissible, but they must be acknowledged and disclosed to the FEC. Twitter and other social media platforms have neither acknowledged nor disclosed its censorship of conservative political candidates as in-kind contributions to Democrats.

Loomer, who is the frontrunner in the race to become the GOP congressional candidate for Florida’s 21st district, has been banned from Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Skype, Venmo, Uber, and Lyft.

“The DOJ has authority over this matter, and should promptly investigate Twitter’s illegal conduct against Ms. Loomer and the Campaign,” says the letter to the DOJ. “First, there is no dispute that Twitter’s conduct is knowing and willful. Twitter is well-aware of this Complaint, as it is FEC policy to notify respondents within 5 days of receiving a Complaint. Despite having the knowledge of its violation of FECA, Twitter still continues to prohibit the Campaign from having access to its platform.”

The letter was sent to the DOJ by prominent FEC attorney Charlie Spies, who is representing the Loomer campaign.

4823-3170-1440 v2 LLFC DOJ Referral FEC Complaint

Joe Gruters, chairman of the Republican Party of Florida and state senator, has also called for the DOJ to investigate Twitter for illegal in-kind contributions.

I condemn the illegal corporate in-kind contributions that social media companies such as Facebook and Twitter are making to @RepLoisFrankel’s campaign by allowing her use of their platform while at the same time banning the campaign of Republican Laura Loomer, who

— Joe Gruters (@JoeGruters) June 23, 2020

Federal Election Commission and US Department of Justice of the complaint pending against Twitter and Lois Frankel’s campaign.

— Joe Gruters (@JoeGruters) June 23, 2020

Gruters has also introduced a bill into the Florida state legislature that would give a private right of action to people who are banned from social media platforms for illegitimate reasons. Gruters announced the bill alongside Loomer at a press conference in January, as Breitbart News reported at the time:

The bill, which can be read in full at the Florida Senate website, awards a minimum of $75,000 in damages against social media companies that: “Deletes or censors the user’s religious speech or political speech; or uses an algorithm to disfavor or censure the user’s religious speech or political speech.”

The bill also prohibits social media companies from using “the social media website user’s alleged hate speech as a basis for justification or defense of the social media website’s actions at trial.”

Damages may be mitigated if a social media company “restores from deletion or removes the censoring of a social media website user’s speech in a reasonable amount of time.”

Breitbart Tech will continue to report on this update.