U.S. Rep. James Comer (R-KY), Chairman of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, speaks at a media occasion on the National Press Club on January 30, 2023 in Washington, DC.
Kevin Dietsch | Getty Images
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., effusively praised Twitter proprietor Elon Musk on Wednesday, saying Musk was “being transparent” concerning the tech platform.
“God bless Elon Musk,” Comer mentioned in an interview on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.” He referred to as the controversial tycoon “a great American.”
Comer’s feedback got here simply days after Musk visited Washington and met for over an hour with House Republican leaders, a gaggle that included Comer.
They additionally got here only a week earlier than Comer is about to chair the primary large congressional listening to on Twitter since Musk purchased the corporate in October and since Republicans took management of the House.
On Feb. 8, the House Oversight Committee will hear from three former Twitter executives about what Comer referred to as “the role the government played in suppressing the Biden laptop story.”
Notably, Comer didn’t say he can be investigating Twitter’s function within the alleged suppression.
Musk’s attraction offensive on Capitol Hill seems to have been restricted to Republicans and White House officers.
Musk initially claimed that he “met with” Democratic House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, of New York.
“Just met with @SpeakerMcCarthy & @RepJeffries to discuss ensuring that [Twitter] is fair to both parties,” Musk tweeted Jan. 26.
But an aide to Jeffries later mentioned that this isn’t what occurred.
Jeffries had merely ran into Musk on his method out of McCarthy’s workplace and been launched to him, the aide mentioned. So whereas McCarthy and Republicans met with Musk for over an hour, Jeffries actually simply “met” him.
Twitter’s decision-making through the 2020 presidential marketing campaign has been a key topic of the so-called “Twitter files,” a collection of unprecedented exposes of Twitter’s inner company communications that have been licensed by Musk himself.
Musk hand-picked a gaggle of impartial journalists and gave them a curated set of Twitter’s inner messages from earlier than Musk purchased the corporate. The emails and Slack chats appeared to point out Twitter executives debating how one can deal with the laptop computer story and different politically delicate occasions.
Comer lauded Musk’s resolution to publicize his firm’s inner deliberations, saying Wednesday that “he’s done a great service to every American who cares about free speech.”
Republicans have been up in arms over Twitter’s resolution in 2020 to restrict the distribution of a New York Post story revealed in October 2020, claiming {that a} “Smoking-gun” e-mail proved then-Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden had as soon as been launched to a Ukrainian vitality govt by his son, Hunter.
The Post mentioned its reporting was based mostly on knowledge recovered from a laptop computer that Hunter Biden had dropped off at a Delaware pc restore retailer however by no means picked up.
The Biden marketing campaign emphatically denied the Post report, saying Biden’s official schedules from the time of the alleged assembly confirmed nothing about it “ever took place.”
Facebook and Twitter each restricted distribution of the story, with Twitter taking the extremely uncommon step of blocking hyperlinks to the article altogether. At the time, the corporate mentioned the article violated its hacked materials coverage.
The resolution induced an uproar amongst Republicans who blasted Twitter, saying it censored conservatives, a declare they’ve lengthy maintained regardless of the corporate’s denials.
Twitter later backtracked on the choice, permitting hyperlinks to the Post story. Then-CEO Jack Dorsey referred to as the preliminary alternative to dam hyperlinks with little rationalization “not great.” Twitter additionally up to date its hacked supplies coverage to solely take away hacked content material whether it is shared straight or in live performance with hackers.
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Source: www.cnbc.com