The White House reacted on Monday to Friday evening’s first installment of the “Twitter Files” revelations outsourced by Elon Musk to independent journalist Matt Taibbi by calling the censorship story merely “old news” and a “distraction.”
Taibbi’s lengthy tweet thread analyzed internal Twitter documents that Musk took possession of when he completed the purchase of the social media platform for $44 billion in October. The reporting indicates that top executives with the firm coordinated with the 2020 Biden campaign and the Democratic National Committee just days before the election to suppress the coverage of the contents of Hunter Biden’s infamous abandoned laptop.
Fox News White House correspondent Jacqui Henrich asked Biden administration press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre at Monday’s press briefing about the story. Henrich mentioned the rationale provided by Twitter at the time in light of the new revelations. Twitter said before Musk took over that it believed the laptop story was based on “hacked information” and was likely “Russian misinformation.”
.@JacquiHeinrich: Because you guys said you're keeping a close eye on Elon Musk's ownership… is it the White House's view that decisions were made appropriately to censor reporting ahead of the election?
KJP: You mischaracterized what I said… pic.twitter.com/PSkjMeeDtG
— Media Research Center (@theMRC) December 5, 2022
Henrich asked: “Is it the White House view that these decisions were made appropriately in light of what has come out?”
In her standard dissembling style, Jean-Pierre said the Twitter Files reporting was a “coincidence” because Musk decided to “so haphazardly push this distraction that is full of old news, if you think about it.”
She attempted to deflect by saying, “At the same time, Twitter is facing real and very serious questions about the rising volume of anger, hate, and anti-Semitism on that platform and how they’re letting it happen.”
Without providing any evidence or citing any reporting of any evidence of her claims, she said Joe Biden believes that “more leaders need to speak out and reject this, and it’s very alarming and very dangerous.”
In an attempt to quickly change the subject, Jean-Pierre jumped into: “Our focus right now is helping the American family.” She then ran back to her standard list of administration talking points.
Musk has promised that there will be further reports in a series of “Twitter Files” stories. The internal Twitter emails already released describe the true motivations for censoring the explosive laptop story.
It was also revealed that the “Biden team” sent specific lists to Twitter containing posts and stories that it wanted to be scrubbed from the platform in the lead-up to the 2020 election. Rather than making any objections, Twitter executives obeyed their instructions.
