House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Jim Jordan (R-OH) and 17 other Republicans on Friday told Twitter board chairman Bret Taylor to preserve any documents relating to Elon Musks’s attempt to buy the social media giant.

The 18 House Republicans told the Twitter chairman in a letter:

As Congress continues to examine Big Tech and how to best protect Americans’ free speech rights, this letter serves as a formal request that you preserve all records and materials relating to Musk’s offer to purchase Twitter, including Twitter’s consideration and response to this offer, and Twitter’s evaluation of its shareholder interests with respect to Musk’s offer.

You should construe this preservation notice as an instruction to take all reasonable steps to prevent the destruction or alteration, whether intentionally or negligently, of all documents, communications, and other information, including electronic information and metadata, that is or may be potentially responsive to this congressional inquiry.

The demand for preserving documents signals they could launch an investigation into Twitter and its bid to block Musk from purchasing the company. If Republicans were to take control of the House after the 2022 midterm elections, Jordan would likely become the Judiciary chairman, and he could subpoena Twitter about its internal discussions about Musk’s fight to purchase the company.

Musk, now Twitter’s largest shareholder, declared last week free speech is “important to the future of civilization.”

“My strong intuitive sense is that having a public platform that is maximally trusted and broadly inclusive is extremely important to the future of civilization,” he remarked.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk is pictured as he attends the start of the production at Tesla’s “Gigafactory” on March 22, 2022 in Gruenheide, southeast of Berlin. (PATRICK PLEUL/POOL/AFP via Getty)

Musk even said he would tend to allow for more free speech when discussing content moderation.

“If in doubt, let the speech — let it exist. If it’s a grey area, I would say, let the tweet exist,” he said.

Musk said rhetorically, “A good sign as to whether there’s free speech is, is someone you don’t like allowed to say something you don’t like? If that is the case then we have free speech.”

Sean Moran is a congressional reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter @SeanMoran3.