The House Committee on Homeland Security on Wednesday subpoenaed Jim Watkins, the owner of 8chan, the website where the suspected El Paso shooter allegedly posted a hateful anti-Hispanic manifesto.
Committee chairman Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS) and ranking member Rep. Mike Rogers (R-AL) announced the subpoena issued to the 8chan site owner in a joint statement.
“At least three acts of deadly white supremacist extremist violence have been linked to 8chan in the last six months,” they said. “We have questions on what is being done to counter this trend so we can be sure it is being properly addressed.”
Thompson and Rogers said Watkins’ testimony is “critical” to combating extremist content online.
Watkins currently lives in the Philippines.
The committee sent a letter to Watkins in early August requesting that he testify in front of Congress after law enforcement began investigating the massacre in El Paso, Texas as a hate crime.
8chan, which has been taken offline, was notorious for being a breeding pool of white supremacist content.
