MSNBC Guest Demands FBI Investigations Of Big Tech, Social Influencers, MSM, Billionaires, Senators & Reps to Battle – Authoritarianism

A frequent MSNBC guest on Friday delivered a lengthy black list of targets he demands the FBI investigate, including “mainstream media,” “internet platforms,” certain “influencers,” as part of “a battle between authoritarianism on the one hand and democracy on the other.”

That guest, founding partner in a now-closed equity firm and author of an anti-Facebook book Roger McNamee, also said tech CEO Elon Musk should be “prosecuted” over a failure to “moderate his speech in the interest of national security” in posts on X, which Musk owns.

On Friday’s The Last Word on MSNBC, guest host Ali Velshi first brought up YouTube’s recent banning of right wing channels to a wide-reaching Russian disinformation scheme that saw indictments handed down for two employees of another channel, RT this week.

McNamee, in his reply, immediately broadened the scope beyond that incident, saying that this “kind” of thing has been going on for years, and that the FBI has to launch widespread investigations and prosecutions across all sectors of society to root out people “aligned with Russia, but also those with “enthusiasm for authoritarianism” or who have “broken down the traditional role” their institutions’ “would play in our democracy.”

After listing the many groups and individuals this government purge should target to fight authoritarianism, he added, in answer to a Velshi question about Elon Musk allegedly spreading “disinformation” on X, McNamee advocated prosecution, on the grounds that some of Musk’s companies have government contracts while he’s “actively undermining” the administration with his personal opinions on the platform.

“Somewhere in there is a legal case that needs to be prosecuted,” McNamee cryptically advised.

MCNAMEE: You know, the Department of Justice and the FBI have a lot of work to do. They need to be investigating members of Congress and the Senate. They need to be investigating internet platforms. They need to be investigating, obviously, these influencers. But they also need to be paying a visit to some of the members of of mainstream media who have also aligned with Russia.

And I think the way to think about this, the way our viewers should think about this, is it’s really a battle between authoritarianism on the one hand and democracy on the other. And Russia may have triggered the initial enthusiasm for authoritarianism, and they did it by appealing to fundamentalist Christians in the United States. But over time, that has brought to it billionaires from Silicon Valley. It’s brought to it media moguls. It’s brought all kinds of people who have broken down the traditional role that these institutions would play in our democracy.

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MCNAMEE: So the critical element in thinking about Elon Musk is, like any American, he has a right to his own opinion, and he has a right to express his opinion. However, that right is not unlimited, and he is under some special limitations that wouldn’t apply to normal people. Because his companies, specifically Starlink and SpaceX X, are government contractors, and as such, he has obligations to the government that would for any normal person and should for him, require him to moderate his speech in the interest of national security. So what you have is somebody who runs a really strategic defense and aerospace projects for the federal government who’s actively undermining the government, which is paying him. And somewhere in there is a legal case that needs to be prosecuted.

Watch the clip above via MSNBC.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.

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