A majority wants Congress to investigate FBI over social media censorship

Most Americans want the new Congress, whose new members take office in January, to investigate the FBI's involvement in censorship on social media. According to a survey from Rasmussen Reports, 63% distrust the Federal Bureau's activity in the media. This includes potential interference of manipulation in certain cases of great public interest such as the Hunter Biden laptop scandal and whether they were aiming to censor certain political ideas. Only 22% of those surveyed were opposed to an investigation.

A few days ago, Elon Musk revealed the FBI's extensive ties to the former Twitter board, releasing more than 150 emails sent from January 2020 to November 2022.

The GOP has already announced that it wants to find out more about the FBI's actions during that time. Sorted by political affiliation: 52% of Democrats, 75% of Republicans and 63% of unaffiliated voters indicated that Congress should launch an investigation against the FBI. On the other hand, 41% of those who approve of Joe Biden and 88% of those who criticize the president approved of an investigation.

The amount of respondents with a previously neutral opinion of the FBI is virtually on par with those who hold a negative opinion of the agency (50% to 46% respectively). In fact, a quarter of Americans (26%) rate the FBI's activity very negatively.

More than half think the FBI is "Joe Biden's personal Gestapo"

One of Donald Trump's advisors, Roger Stone, claimed in an interview on WABC 770 AM radio just over a year ago that there is "a group of politicized thugs at the top of the FBI who are using the FBI … as Joe Biden‘s personal Gestapo."

Rasmussen Reports asked citizens whether they agreed with that assertion. A majority (53%) said yes, that the current FBI is "Joe Biden's personal Gestapo," while 38% disagreed. Among the percentage who agreed with Stone, 37% said they "strongly agreed."

Sorted by party: 72% of Republicans, 52% of independents and 35% of Democrats share the opinion of former President Trump's advisor.

Most Democrats support the FBI

Beyond wanting or not wanting Congress to investigate the FBI's alleged tampering with social media, the agency has a more favorable rating from Democrats than Republicans.

Seventy-four percent of progressives have a positive view of the FBI, compared to just 34% of Republicans and 40% of independents.