Sen. Cruz demands answers from Coca-Cola after it scrubbed support of Black Lives Matter from site

"It is important for Congress to understand Coca-Cola’s purpose in deleting this information from its website," Cruz wrote in a letter.

By Charlotte Hazard

Published: November 4, 2023 3:50pm

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Tx., sent a letter to Coca-Cola earlier this week, demanding answers on why the company scrubbed its support of Black Lives Matter from its website.

"Coca-Cola’s attempt at erasing the evidence of its publicized donation is a tacit admission that criticisms of the Black Lives Matter movement—and of Sprite’s support for it—have merit," Cruz wrote in the letter addressed to James Quincey, the CEO of Coca-Cola.

"Coca-Cola evidently wants the public to forget how it propped up a far-left group that has refused to condemn the Hamas terrorist organization and whose representatives have openly advocated since at least 2015, well before Sprite’s June 2020 donation, 'to end the imperialist project called Israel,'" the letter continues.

The Chicago chapter of BLM received immense backlash after posting a picture of a paraglider with the caption, "I stand with Palestine," shortly after Hamas terrorists paraglided into a music festival in Israel on Oct. 7 and killed hundreds of people in attendance.

The BLM post has since been deleted.

On his podcast, "The Verdict," Cruz called out Coca-Cola and other companies for their support of BLM. A few days later, Coca-Cola, which owns Sprite, deleted a paragraph from a 2020 post on its website where it used language to support the left-wing activist group.

"It is important for Congress to understand Coca-Cola’s purpose in deleting this information from its website," Cruz's letter reads. "The Standing Rules of the Senate provide the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation the authority to 'review and study, on a continuing basis' matters of interstate commerce and consumer affairs."

Cruz went on to request information from the company, including financial commitments to Black Lives Matter, and answers as to why Coca-Cola didn't distance itself from Black Lives Matter before he called them out.

He requested that the records be provided no later than Nov. 15.