Ex-Twitter officials deny political motive in limiting Hunter Biden story

WASHINGTON — House Republicans failed in the opening salvo of their investigation into the finances of Joe Biden’s family to produce evidence substantiating their claims that U.S. intelligence officials worked with Twitter Inc. to suppress an unflattering 2020 news story on the president’s son.

Former Twitter Inc. officials testified Wednesday that their decision to limit the spread of the New York Post story about Hunter Biden’s now-infamous laptop and his overseas business dealings was, in hindsight, a mistake. But they said they weren’t directed by the FBI or other U.S. intelligence officials, and the action wasn’t politically motivated.

Many of the documents Republicans displayed at the hearing were from the so-called “Twitter Files,” a series of reports shared by journalists who were invited by Elon Musk to examine Twitter’s handling of controversial decisions made under the company’s previous leaders. The first installment of the Twitter Files focused on the company’s treatment of the New York Post story.

Musk handpicked several journalists and gave them access to company emails and Slack messages, and many of those messages were then published on Twitter. Most of the reports suggest without evidence that Twitter made decisions based on demands or pressure from the FBI and the Biden campaign.

“I think you guys wanted to take it down,” House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, who also sits on the Oversight committee, said of the story, which was published just weeks before the 2020 election that then-President Donald Trump lost to Biden. “I think you got played by the FBI.”

Republicans repeatedly asked witnesses to recall years-old emails, the contents of which the former employees said they no longer have access to and do not recall the details. At one point, the power in the room went out and the panel had to recess, stretching the hearing into the afternoon.

James Baker, a former lawyer for Twitter who also previously worked for the FBI, said he didn’t act “as an agent or an operator of the government” while working for the social media company. Baker said the company’s actions were “fully consistent with the First Amendment.”

“I am aware of no unlawful collusion with, or direction from, any government agency or political campaign on how Twitter should have handled the Hunter Biden laptop situation,” Baker told the panel.

Committee chair James Comer and other Republicans asserted that the FBI advised senior Twitter executives to question the validity of any Hunter Biden story. Comer also alleged that the federal government used a private company “to accomplish what it constitutionally cannot: limit the free exercise of speech.”

“We owe it to the American people to provide answers about this collusion to censor information about Joe Biden’s involvement in his family’s business schemes,” Comer said.

Florida Democrat Jared Moskowitz demanded that his Republican counterparts produce evidence.

“Why haven’t we seen the hard drive?” he asked of Hunter Biden’s laptop. “Why don’t you share it with the American people?”

The witnesses did acknowledge regular meetings with law enforcement in the months ahead of the 2020 election, but those were focused on worries about foreign interference and misuse of social media.

The New York Post had claimed that information from Hunter Biden’s laptop showed he introduced a top executive from Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company, to his father while he was vice president and overseeing the Obama administration’s Ukraine policy. Hunter Biden also served on Burisma’s board.

Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the top Democrat on the committee, called the hearing “tragic,” pointing, as several other Democrats did, to the proliferation of right-wing messaging on social media that ultimately led to the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

“If our colleagues wanted to examine a serious problem involving American democracy and social media, it is staring U.S. in the face right now,” Raskin said. “Twitter and other social media companies acted as central organizing and staging grounds for the Jan. 6 violent insurrection against Congress and the vice president.”

Vijaya Gadde, a former top lawyer at Twitter, testified that when the New York Post first tweeted articles about Hunter Biden’s laptop, some of images or information “looked like they may have been obtained through hacking.”

Gadde said the company applied its 2018 policy to prevent Twitter from being a “dumping ground for hacked materials” and blocked links to articles embedding the source materials.

Twitter, she said, reversed course within 24 hours and should have acted sooner. But “at no point did Twitter otherwise prevent tweeting, reporting, discussing or describing the contents of Mr. Biden’s laptop,” she said.

The former officials’ testimony didn’t sit well with Republicans. “You exercised an amazing amount of clout and power over the American electorate,” Republican Andy Biggs said, even if just for a short period.

Some of the GOP questions were far-ranging and combative — including complaints from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene that her own personal Twitter account had been shut down after warnings. Rep. Nancy Mace focused on Twitter suppression of COVID-19 information that questioned guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“House Republicans are making it their top priority to stage a bizarre political stunt” instead of working with Biden on issues he laid out in the State of the Union address, White House spokesman Ian Sams said in a statement before the hearing.

Midway through it, the White House brushed it off completely.

“It’s happening today?” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said.

With assistance from Jordan Fabian and Kurt Wagner.