The House panel probing the "weaponization" of the federal government will hear from the journalists given access to Twitter's internal communications as it explores alleged collusion between social media companies and the executive branch.
Matt Taibbi and Michael Shellenberger will testify before the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government next Thursday, March 9, about their findings in the "Twitter Files," a person familiar told the Washington Examiner. Twitter CEO Elon Musk handed over the communication logs to prominent writers shortly after he bought the social media giant.
SEVEN TAKEAWAYS FROM THE HOUSE GOP'S FIRST 'WEAPONIZATION' HEARING
Taibbi published the first part of the Twitter Files on Dec. 2, detailing the company's handling of the New York Post's story about Hunter Biden's laptop. He also reported the third round of files, which made public the internal lead-up to suspending former President Donald Trump from the platform. In the sixth file drop, Taibbi reported how the FBI reported accounts to Twitter's Trust and Safety team for alleged misinformation.
Shellenberger published part four, which recounted how Twitter employees reacted to the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot. Their decisions eventually played into the move to ban Trump. The seventh installment, which Shellenberger also reported, showed Twitter's interactions with the intelligence agencies to suppress the New York Post's laptop story.
This first weaponization subcommittee hearing set the stage for a two-year investigation into the federal government's attitude toward free speech, especially regarding conservatives. Twitter will be a major target as House Republicans seek to demonstrate the ways intelligence agencies improperly directed social media coverage of political events.
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Democrats denounced the hearing as a partisan show, though they have members on the panel as well. The witness list for next week's hearing is not yet finalized.
Sarah Westwood contributed to this report.