The top Republican on the House Oversight Committee said that Twitter staff involved in suppressing the Hunter Biden laptop story ahead of the 2020 presidential elections will face Congress and testify about their actions.
Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), the GOP ranking member on the Committee, made the remarks in a Friday appearance on Fox News after Twitter’s new owner Elon Musk dropped part one of the so-called “Twitter Files,” an expose of the inner workings of Twitter’s censorship machine.
“Every employee at Twitter who was involved in suppressing the Hunter Biden laptop story will have an opportunity to come before Congress and explain their actions to the American people,” Comer told program host Sean Hannity.
Musk and independent journalist Matt Taibbi on Friday unveiled a series of internal Twitter communications that give insight into steps taken by staff at the social media platform around suppressing the New York Post’s Hunter Biden laptop story.
Republicans have long accused Twitter—and some media outlets—of suppressing the Hunter Biden laptop story, which included reporting that bolstered claims that the president lied when he said he had no involvement in his son’s overseas business dealings.
‘Marking This as Unsafe’
In order to suppress the Hunter Biden report, Twitter executives marked it as “unsafe,” limiting its spread and even blocking it from being directly shared via the platform’s direct message function, Taibbi said in comments on the disclosures. He noted that such extreme restrictions were reserved for content such as child pornography.
Messages between executives in Twitter’s communications and policy departments, shared by Taibbi in screenshots, show some confusion about the actions taken, with a communications executive writing: “I’m struggling to understand the policy basis for marking this as unsafe.”
The disclosures show that both Democrats and Republicans had access to Twitter’s censorship system and each side lodged various requests and complaints with the social media platform’s staff. But because of Twitter employees’ predominantly left-leaning political convictions, Democrats had more avenues to press their case, Taibbi said.
The Epoch Times has been unable to independently verify the content of the disclosures shared by Musk and detailed by Taibbi.
‘Just the Beginning’
Comer, in his interview on Fox News, said that the Twitter Files expose shows that the New York Post’s reporting on the Hunter Biden laptop is “being vindicated.”
“But this story is just the beginning,” Comer said, “because we’re going to have every single person at Twitter that was involved in this in front of the House Oversight Committee as soon as possible.”
The Epoch Times has reached out to Twitter with a request for comment on Comer’s remarks.
In his thread, Taibbi noted that there was “much more to come” and promised answers to questions around issues like “shadow-banning, boosting, follower counts, the fate of various individual accounts, and more.”
Musk said a second “episode” of the disclosures would be released on Saturday.
Caden Pearson contributed to this report.
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Tom Ozimek is a senior reporter for The Epoch Times. He has a broad background in journalism, deposit insurance, marketing and communications, and adult education.
