Oversight Chairman Comer says Google should not receive tax dollars over censorship concerns

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer said Wednesday lawmakers are discussing restraining Google’s government business and its liability protections because of the continued evidence of its involvement with censorship.

"When Google takes federal tax dollars and they use it against conservatives [and] they get involved in free speech, then they should be held accountable," Comer said on the "Just the News, No Noise" TV show. "At the very least, they shouldn't receive any federal tax dollars."

The committee recently announced it had opened a probe into whether Google misled Americans about the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump last month.

Comer revealed that his staff was told by Google that search engine's autocomplete feature "omitted the Trump assassination attempt" from relevant searches because the firm failed to update "a safety protocol" against violence to recognize the former president had, in fact, been shot July 13 during an assassination attempt in Butler, Pa.

"We're going to try to do everything we can as a committee to see that they are held accountable. Whether it be with the revenue they get from the federal government [or] whether it be with the liability protections they get that protects them from being sued for doing exactly what they're doing," Comer said. 

He said that he is in talks with House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan about ideas to hold the search engine accountable.