GOP Lawmakers React to Latest “Twitter Files” Release – Say FBI Has “A Lot to Answer for”
Republican lawmakers have promised to take action after the sixth and latest installment of the “Twitter Files” alleged members of the FBI coordinated with Twitter executives to censor users and their tweets.
Substack writer Matt Taibbi dropped dozens of tweets about the new “Twitter Files” Friday that detailed the FBI’s ties with the social media platform — a connection Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Florida, said he will be asking the FBI about.
“[The] FBI has a lot to answer for after the latest drop of Twitter Files 6,” Gaetz tweeted Friday.
U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Florida, speaks as Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, Rep. Mark Meadows, R-North Carolina, and Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-NY) listen during a news conference May 22, 2018 on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. Rep.
(Alex Wong/Getty Images)
During a segment of “Hannity,” Rep. James Comer, R-Kentucky, similarly blasted the FBI.
TWITTER FILES PART 6 REVEALS FBI’S TIES TO TECH GIANT: ‘AS IF IT WERE A SUBSIDIARY’
“Anyone that cares about free speech should be outraged,” Comer said. “Whether you’re a Republican or a Democrat, this has to stop.”
The GOP House Judiciary Committee account, which is managed by Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, added: “Does anyone still trust the FBI?”
Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Missouri, speculated the FBI’s alleged interactions with Twitter could suggest they were working with Google and Facebook as well.
Taibbi began the thread on Friday sharing screenshots of emails between former Twitter Trust and Safety Chief Yoel Roth and members of the FBI.
“The #TwitterFiles are revealing more every day about how the government collects, analyzes, and flags your social media content. Twitter’s contact with the FBI was constant and pervasive, as if it were a subsidiary,” Taibbi wrote. “Between January 2020 and November 2022, there were over 150 emails between the FBI and former Twitter Trust and Safety chief Yoel Roth… a surprisingly high number are requests by the FBI for Twitter to take action on election misinformation, even involving joke tweets from low-follower accounts.”
Reps. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, left, and Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., in the Rayburn Building on Wednesday, July 17, 2019.
(Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call)
Taibbi highlighted the FBI’s own social media task force, which was established after the 2016 presidential election, assigned as many as “80 agents” to monitor social media activity in an effort to locate potential election interference.
The journalist shared an email from November 5, 2022, from the FBI’s National Election Command Post to the agency’s field office in San Francisco, where Twitter Headquarters is located, with a lengthy list of Twitter accounts that “may warrant additional action” as the accounts were “being utilized to spread misinformation about the upcoming election.”
Federal Bureau Of Investigation emblem is seen on the headquarters building in Washington D.C., United States, on October 20, 2022.
(Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Another email on Nov. 6, shows FBI Agent Elvis Chan forwarded the list to “Twitter folks.”
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Taibbi also shared a Nov. 10 email sent to “Twitter contacts” from an FBI official listing multiple Twitter accounts that “may potentially constitute violations of Twitter’s Terms of Service.”
Some of the accounts included tweets that were posted as jokes, Taibbi highlighted, but they were apparently banned.
In response to the “Twitter Files,” a spokesperson for the FBI told Fox News Digital, their communication was part of an effort to ensure national security but that the FBI only offered the information to Twitter and allowed the private company to make its own decisions.
“The FBI regularly engages with private sector entities to provide information specific to identified foreign malign influence actors’ subversive, undeclared, covert, or criminal activities,” the spokesperson wrote. “Private sector entities independently make decisions about what, if any, action they take on their platforms and for their customers after the FBI has notified them.”
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House Republicans will get an opportunity to further question the FBI and intelligence officials, as well as others, when they are sworn in as the majority in January 2023. At that time, Republicans will lead committee majorities and gain the power to launch House investigations.
Fox News’ Joseph Wulfsohn contributed to this report.
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