When Kate Starbird got word that Missouri's attorney general wanted her to turn over three years of her emails, she didn't know what to think.
A Seattle-based professor at the University of Washington, Starbird co-founded the UW Center for an Informed Public, which researches misinformation online.
Why would an elected official 2,000 miles away be interested in her emails, she thought. Even more puzzling, Starbird says she doesn't even know many of the dozens of people Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt is demanding she turn over communications with.
"For me," Starbird said, "as a person who studies conspiracy theories, I was just trying to figure out what was the working conspiracy theory that he has for me and the work that I do."
As it turns out, Starbird is caught up in one of the spate of lawsuits Schmitt has filed against the federal government.
Schmitt is seeking her emails as part of "ongoing research to aid in our lawsuit against the federal government for allegedly colluding with social media giants to suppress freedom of speech," said Chris Nuelle, the attorney general's spokesman.
Starbird was targeted because she serves on an advisory board for the federal government's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.
Schmitt, who was elected to a seat in the U.S. Senate earlier this month, filed the lawsuit with Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry in May.
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