Sen. Hawley Considers Criminal Referral for Zuckerberg After Ex-Facebook Employee's 'Extraordinary' Revelation
Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri said that revelations that Facebook was willing to give China access to the user data of Americans could lead to a criminal referral against Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
On Wednesday, Sarah Wynn-Williams, Facebook’s former director of global public policy who worked for the company from 2011 to 2017, said Zuckerberg did everything and anything he could to cozy up to China, according to Roll Call.
Wynn-Williams told a Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Counterterrorism hearing that Zuckerberg sought “to win favor with Beijing and build an $18 billion business in China.”
What our investigation has revealed – Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg did business with the Chinese Communist Party, built censorship tools for them, and turned over user data – and lied about it to Congress & the American people. Now it’s time for consequences pic.twitter.com/cJwAYJ2sgj
— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) April 10, 2025
She said those steps included briefings with Chinese officials on artificial intelligence technology.
“There’s a straight line you can draw from these briefings to the recent revelations that China is developing AI models for military use,” she said.
She also noted that China was given access to user data of Americans who interfaced with Chinese citizens whose data was kept by the Chinese government.
And here you have it, straight from a former Facebook employee . . .
Meta was willing to store data in China & give the Chinese government access to it
To hell with Americans’ user data and personal information
It’s always been profit & power for Meta pic.twitter.com/zgd4f3LQ7a
— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) April 9, 2025
“And here you have it, straight from a former Facebook employee … Meta was willing to store data in China & give the Chinese government access to it … To hell with Americans’ user data and personal information,” Hawley posted on social media platform X.
“It’s always been profit & power for Meta,” he wrote.
“This is extraordinary. This is exactly contrary to what Facebook has represented for years,” Hawley said in a video shared with his post.
“Here they’re willing to build data centers [to] store data in China. They’re willing explicitly to give the Chinese government access to it,” he said
“And if that means that American user data is also compromised, they’re willing to do that, too. All for profits in China. There was virtually nothing they weren’t willing to do.”
Hawley said he thinks there is more to learn about how Meta kowtowed to China.
“They’re flying CCP officials to the United States and doing meetings, I mean, that is something. So I think it’s just the tip of the iceberg,” Hawley said, according to NOTUS.
“We may need to refer him to the Department of Justice. We’ll look and see if there are other instances that we need to be pursuing in that regard,” Hawley said.
He said past testimony from Zuckerberg about Meta’s partnership with China was “at best highly misleading.”
Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut was also irked, saying the “American people are going to be pretty outraged that Mark Zuckerberg sold out America with China, that he imperiled our national security.”
Hawley revealed in a post on X that he has written Zuckerberg to testify about Facebook’s cozy relationship with China.
“After yesterday’s shocking revelations, it’s time for Mark Zuckerberg to come to Capitol Hill, take an oath, and answer to America for how he has sold out our country’s security for China profits,” Hawley posted on X, along with a copy of his letter to Zuckerberg.
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