Senate Intel plans to haul in execs from Facebook, Twitter and Google for testimony

The Senate Intelligence Committee is planning on holding a hearing in the fall with executives from Facebook, Twitter and Google, a spokesperson for the panel’s chairman confirmed Wednesday.

Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr (R-N.C.) is pushing for top officials from each company to attend the hearing, which is expected to be held the first week of September.

The Hill previously reported that the committee’s top Democrat, Sen. Mark Warner (Va.), was in the process of pushing the panel to hold a hearing with such tech companies.

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A source with knowledge of the hearing planned for early September told The Hill that Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg have both confirmed they will attend the hearing. The source said that Google CEO Sundar Pichai has been invited to testify, as well.

Another source with knowledge of the hearings maintained that formal invitations had not yet been sent to all the companies.

Representatives for Twitter and Facebook both declined to comment on the hearings. Google did not respond to The Hill’s request for comment.

BuzzFeed News first reported on the details of the hearing.

The hearing is a follow-up to the panel’s hearing in November, in which lawmakers grilled lawyers from each firm for how their platform was manipulated by Russian trolls seeking to influence the election.

In April, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg testified before the Senate Commerce and Judiciary committees and the House Energy and Commerce Committee to speak on his company’s relationship with the now-defunct British political research firm Cambridge Analytica.