This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

A new federal report has found that the Federal Trade Commission was “weaponized” against Twitter on Elon Musk’s takeover, and it made “more than 350 specific demands … on matters outside of the FTC’s mandate.”

The report, called “The Weaponization of the Federal Trade Commission: An agency’s overreach to harass Elon Musk’s Twitter,” was an interim staff report of the Committee on the Judiciary and the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government in the U.S. House.

It follows the active “weaponization” of various federal agencies under Democrat leadership against Christians, parents, conservatives, and others across America.

Famously, the FBI and the Department of Justice were weaponized under the Barack Obama administration against then-candidate and later President Donald Trump. They worked with Democrats to fabricate the “Russia collusion” conspiracy theory, which since has been debunked.

Then the Washington Deep State tried to portray parents concerned about their public schools as domestic terrorists.

Now a report from Just the News explains the report “notes various requests for information the agency made of the platform, which the subcommittee asserts occurred without ‘logical reason.'”

“Consisting of over a dozen FTC demand letters to Twitter that – in the span of less than three months following Musk’s acquisition – make more than 350 specific demands, this information shows how the FTC has been attempting to harass Twitter and pry into the company’s decisions on matters outside of the FTC’s mandate,” the report said.

“The timing, scope, and frequency of the FTC’s demands to Twitter suggest a partisan motivation to its action,” it continued. “When Musk took action to reorient Twitter around free speech, the FTC regularly followed soon thereafter with a new demand letter.”

That issue – Musk’s announced intention to restore the concept of free speech to the social media platform – enraged Democrats and triggered socialists and progressives who insisted the government somehow stop him. In fact, they insisted that only their approved messaging be allowed.

“In particular, the House lawmakers observed FTC requests for information regarding which journalists engaged with the platform, the creation of Twitter Blue, and nearly all matters related to Musk himself,” Just the News reported.

“There is no logical reason, for example, why the FTC needs to know the identities of journalists engaging with Twitter,” the subcommittee explained. “There is no logical reason why the FTC, on the basis of user privacy, needs to analyze all of Twitter’s personnel decisions. And there is no logical reason why the FTC needs every single internal Twitter communication about Elon Musk.”

The report explained, “Freedom of speech is among the most important rights guaranteed to every American.”

It noted Musk’s acquisition of Twitter “served to revitalize this fundamental freedom in the digital age.” But, it said, the FTC “is orchestrating an aggressive campaign to harass Twitter and deluge it with demands about its personnel decisions… every internal communication relating to Elon Musk, and even Twitter’s interactions with journalists.”

It said, “These demands have no basis in the FTC’s statutory mission and appear to be the result of partisan pressure to target Twitter and silence Musk.”

Continued the report, “The timing, scope, and frequency of the FTC’s demands to Twitter suggest a partisan motivation to its action. When Musk took action to reorient Twitter around free speech, the FTC regularly followed soon thereafter with a new demand letter. The ostensible legal basis for the demand letters – including monitoring Twitter’s privacy and information security program under a revised consent decree between the company and the FTC – fails to provide adequate cover for the FTC’s action. A number of the FTC’s demands have little to no nexus to users’ privacy and information.”

The report also noted that some of the demands to Twitter were coming solely from avowed leftists in Congress including Sens. Dick Blumenthal, Dianne Feinstein, Ben Lujan, Elizabeth Warren, Ed Markey, Cory Booker, and Robert Menendez.

The report’s allegations were supported by nearly 100 pages of evidence. It concluded, “The FTC wields the enormous authority to regulate large swaths of the modern American economy. The information presented in this interim staff report demonstrates the threat posed by the wildly inappropriate use of this power. The FTC has no business demanding to know with which journalists a private company is communicating. The FTC has no need for all of Twitter’s communications related to its CEO. And yet, on the basis of an existing consent decree about user privacy, the FTC made these demands—and more—of Twitter.

“These demands should be exposed for what they are: pure and absolute attempts to harass, intimidate, and target an American business.”