House Republicans held their first hearings into Twitter’s handling of the New York Post’s 2020 story on Hunter Biden’s laptop on Wednesday and CNN’s Inside Politics didn’t see what the big deal was. Host John King sarcastically commented that it “sounds quite ominous, right?” while correspondent Donie O’Sullivan claimed “we haven’t seen the smoking gun of alleged collusion between the FBI and Big Tech.”
After introducing the hearing, King played a clip of Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer at the hearing declaring, “Immediately following the story’s publication, America witnessed a coordinated campaign by social media companies, mainstream news, and the intelligence communities to suppress and delegitimize the existence of Hunter Biden's laptop and its contents. That morning, Twitter and other social media companies took extraordinary steps to suppress that story.”
King responded to that summation by dismissing it, “Sounds quite ominous, right? But our CNN reporting says allegations of this collusion to suppress the story remain unsupported. No evidence. Half a dozen tech executives and senior staff along with multiple federal officials have denied any directive and they did so again today.”
After introducing O’Sullivan, King repeated himself, “Donie, you’ve spent a lot of time on this, if you listen to Chairman Comer, the media, the government, Twitter, all colluded, it's a big allegation, so far though, he hasn't been able to connect the dots.”
O’Sullivan began his response by proclaiming that Republicans are focusing on the wrong issue, “That's right, John, and look, there is a discussion to be had here and-- but it doesn't look like Comer is having that discussion today which is a discussion of how should platforms, particularly after 2016, when they saw that foreign interference from Russia, you know, setting up fake groups and profiles pretending to be Americans, how should they handle tips from government who might have insight into that.”
CNN should've discussed that more, considering over 50 "experts" claimed the Hunter laptop story was disinformation, but following a clip Twitter lawyer and former FBI general counsel Jim Baker, O’Sullivan continued:
Now, the two other former Facebook executives who were there today, they said that they thought it was a mistake for Twitter to initially for, you know, a day or so, restrict the sharing of that infamous New York Post Hunter Biden story. But what we've also heard, you know, is we've seen so much the past few months from the Twitter Files and so forth, but ultimately, we haven't seen the smoking gun of alleged collusion between the FBI and Big Tech, to censor the Hunter Biden story.
While the FBI’s fingerprints may not be directly on this story, this is real life and smoking guns are not always readily available. Head of Trust and Safety Yoel Roth has claimed that Twitter was part of a "tabletop exercise" on a Hunter “hack-and-dump” and that he was conditioned by the government to view such stories as potential Russian disinformation. We also know that the Hunter Biden laptop story is not the only FBI-related part of the Twitter Files.
Minutes later, King and O’Sullivan would conclude by recalling from the hearing that one former executive testified that the FBI would send them tweets that they thought were foreign, but weren’t. King conceded this would be “worth exploring,” but instead of exploring it, he went to commercial.
This segment was sponsored by Consumer Cellular.
Here is a transcript for the February 8 show:
CNN Inside Politics
2/8/2023
12:16 PM ET
JOHN KING: You see the live picture right there, right now, a House committee grilling former top Twitter executives. It's the Republican majority’s first major hearing into their investigation into president Biden's son Hunter. Republicans accused Twitter of working with the federal government to suppress stories about Hunter Biden's laptop ahead of the 2020 election.
JAMES COMER: Immediately following the story’s publication, America witnessed a coordinated campaign by social media companies, mainstream news, and the intelligence communities to suppress and delegitimize the existence of Hunter Biden's laptop and its contents. That morning, Twitter and other social media companies took extraordinary steps to suppress that story.
KING: Sounds quite ominous, right? But our CNN reporting says allegations of this collusion to suppress the story remain unsupported. No evidence. Half a dozen tech executives and senior staff along with multiple federal officials have denied any directive and they did so again today.
Let’s get more with CNN's Donie O’Sullivan joins us. Donie, you’ve spent a lot of time on this, if you listen to Chairman Comer, the media, the government, Twitter, all colluded, it's a big allegation, so far though, he hasn't been able to connect the dots.
DONIE O’SULLIVAN: That's right, John, and look, there is a discussion to be had here and-- but it doesn't look like Comer is having that discussion today which is a discussion of how should platforms, particularly after 2016, when they saw that foreign interference from Russia, you know, setting up fake groups and profiles pretending to be Americans, how should they handle tips from government who might have insight into that.
But that is not what we're seeing today and that is not what Comer and his colleagues are alleging and we heard from Jim Baker, formerly of the FBI, he went on to work for Twitter as a lawyer after that, he testified under oath today, this is what he said.
JIM BAKER: I'm 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. Even though many disagree with how Twitter handled the Hunter Biden matter, I believe that the public record reveals that my client acted in a manner that was fully consistent with the First Amendment.
O’SULLIVAN: Now, the two other former Facebook executives who were there today, they said that they thought it was a mistake for Twitter to initially for, you know, a day or so, restrict the sharing of that infamous New York Post Hunter Biden story. But what we've also heard, you know, is we've seen so much the past few months from the Twitter Files and so forth, but ultimately, we haven't seen the smoking gun of alleged collusion between the FBI and Big Tech, to censor the Hunter Biden story.
