{"id":1917377,"date":"2023-04-20T22:57:21","date_gmt":"2023-04-21T02:57:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/weaponization-committees-top-dem-threatens-twitter-files-journalist-with-jail-time\/"},"modified":"2023-04-20T23:00:20","modified_gmt":"2023-04-21T03:00:20","slug":"weaponization-committees-top-dem-threatens-twitter-files-journalist-with-jail-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/weaponization-committees-top-dem-threatens-twitter-files-journalist-with-jail-time\/","title":{"rendered":"Weaponization Committee&#8217;s Top Dem Threatens &#8216;Twitter Files&#8217; Journalist With Jail Time"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">22<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fweaponization-committees-top-dem-threatens-twitter-files-journalist-with-jail-time%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1917377&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div>\n<figure><figcaption> \t\t\t\tMatt Taibbi (L) and Stacey Plaskett (R)\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div>\n<p>The top Democrat on the House Weaponization subcommittee threatened a journalist with prison time over his congressional testimony that exposed the government\u2019s attempt to influence Twitter.\t<\/p>\n<p>Congresswoman Stacey Plaskett (D., V.I.) made the threat in <a href=\"https:\/\/democrats-judiciary.house.gov\/uploadedfiles\/2023-04-13_sep_to_taibbi_redacted.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">a letter<\/a> to reporter Matt Taibbi, who testified on March 9 about his &#8220;Twitter Files&#8221; series, which revealed details of interactions between the FBI, federal agencies, and Twitter executives. Plaskett, noting a discrepancy in Taibbi&#8217;s testimony, warned him in the letter that providing false information to Congress is &#8220;punishable by up to five years imprisonment.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Plaskett took issue with Taibbi&#8217;s claim that the Cybersecurity &#038; Infrastructure Security Agency pressured\u00a0 Twitter to censor various news articles on its platform. While the agency did correspond with Twitter regarding the censorship of content on the platform, Taibbi acknowledged in a television interview that he mixed up the federal agency with the Center for Internet Security, a nonprofit that receives federal funding, during his testimony.<\/p>\n<p>Plaskett\u2019s threat is another instance of government backlash to Taibbi&#8217;s testimony. IRS agents visited Taibbi&#8217;s home in New Jersey while he was in Washington delivering the testimony that spurred Plaskett&#8217;s threat. In a letter to the IRS and Treasury Department last month, House Judiciary Committee chair Jim Jordan (R., Ohio) said his committee would investigate &#8220;whether the visit was a thinly-veiled attempt to influence or intimidate a witness before Congress.&#8221; The Weaponization Committee Plaskett sits on was created to investigate the use of government agencies such as the Congress, the IRS, and FBI.<\/p>\n<p>Taibbi\u2019s reporting has pulled back the curtain on federal agencies\u2019 efforts to censor conservative content at Twitter. One of Taibbi\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/media\/fbi-official-casts-doubt-on-twitters-rationale-for-censoring-hunter-biden-laptop-story\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">revelations<\/a> was that James Baker, a former FBI official who worked at Twitter, advised the company in October 2020 to censor an article about emails from Hunter Biden\u2019s abandoned laptop.<\/p>\n<p>Other documents from the &#8220;Twitter Files&#8221; show federal agencies pressuring Twitter to moderate content related to the coronavirus vaccines, Russia, and the January 6 attack on the Capitol.<\/p>\n<p>Some reporters called for Plaskett to resign over the letter.\t<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;She should resign from Congress for this and at minimum should be removed from the committee,&#8221; <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ryangrim\/status\/1649083309232644097\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">said<\/a> <em>The Intercept<\/em>\u2019s Ryan Grim. &#8220;The press is not the enemy of the people and threatening reporters with prison\u2014especially as we work to free Evan in Moscow\u2014is reckless and dangerous.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Plaskett\u2019s office did not respond to a request for comment. Taibbi did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Matt Taibbi (L) and Stacey Plaskett (R) The top Democrat on the House Weaponization subcommittee threatened a journalist with prison time over his congressional testimony that exposed the government\u2019s attempt to influence Twitter. Congresswoman Stacey Plaskett (D., V.I.) made the threat in a letter to reporter Matt Taibbi, who testified on March 9 about his<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":155,"featured_media":1917378,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[544],"tags":[12872,5365,6244,5665,5471,6794,4622,5073,4253],"class_list":["post-1917377","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-free-beacon","tag-weaponization","tag-committees","tag-dem","tag-files","tag-jail","tag-journalist","tag-threatens","tag-time","tag-twitter"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1917377","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/155"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1917377"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1917377\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1917378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1917377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1917377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1917377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}