[House Hearing, 118 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
PROTECTING SPEECH FROM GOVERNMENT
INTERFERENCE AND SOCIAL MEDIA BIAS,
PART I: TWITTER'S ROLE IN SUPPRESSING.
THE BIDEN LAPTOP STORY
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON
OVERSIGHT AND ACCOUNTABILITY
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
FEBRUARY 8, 2023
__________
Serial No. 118-3
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Accountability
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available on: govinfo.gov,
oversight.house.gov or
docs.house.gov
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
50-898 PDF WASHINGTON : 2023
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COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND ACCOUNTABILITY
JAMES COMER, Kentucky, Chairman
Jim Jordan, Ohio Jamie Raskin, Maryland, Ranking
Mike Turner, Ohio Minority Member
Paul Gosar, Arizona Eleanor Holmes Norton, District of
Virginia Foxx, North Carolina Columbia
Glenn Grothman, Wisconsin Stephen F. Lynch, Massachusetts
Gary Palmer, Alabama Gerald E. Connolly, Virginia
Clay Higgins, Louisiana Raja Krishnamoorthi, Illinois
Pete Sessions, Texas Ro Khanna, California
Andy Biggs, Arizona Kweisi Mfume, Maryland
Nancy Mace, South Carolina Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, New York
Jake LaTurner, Kansas Katie Porter, California
Pat Fallon, Texas Cori Bush, Missouri
Byron Donalds, Florida Shontel Brown, Ohio
Kelly Armstrong, North Dakota Jimmy Gomez, California
Scott Perry, Pennsylvania Melanie Stansbury, New Mexico
William Timmons, South Carolina Robert Garcia, California
Tim Burchett, Tennessee Maxwell Frost, Florida
Marjorie Taylor Greene, Georgia Becca Balint, Vermont
Lisa McClain, Michigan Summer Lee, Pennsylvania
Lauren Boebert, Colorado Greg Casar, Texas
Russell Fry, South Carolina Jasmine Crockett, Texas
Anna Paulina Luna, Florida Dan Goldman, New York
Chuck Edwards, North Carolina Jared Moskowitz, Florida
Nick Langworthy, New York
Eric Burlison, Missouri
Mark Marin, Staff Director
Jessica Donlon, Deputy Staff Director and General Counsel
James Mandolfo, Chief Counsel for Investigations
Jake Greenburg, Deputy Chief Counsel for Investigations
Mallory Cogar, Deputy Director of Operations and Chief Clerk
Contact Number: 202-225-5074
Julie Tagen, Minority Staff Director
Contact Number: 202-225-5051
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C O N T E N T S
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Page
Hearing held on February 8, 2023................................. 1
Witnesses
Mr. James Baker, Former Twitter Deputy General Counsel; Former
FBI General Counsel
Oral Statement................................................... 6
Ms. Vijaya Gadde, Former Twitter Chief Legal Officer
Oral Statement................................................... 8
Mr. Yoel Roth, Former Twitter Senior Director, Head of Trust &
Safety
Oral Statement................................................... 10
Ms. Anika Collier Navaroli (Minority Witness), Former member of
Twitter's U.S. Safety Policy Team
Oral Statement................................................... 11
Opening statements and the prepared statements for the witnesses
are available in the U.S. House of Representatives Repository
at: docs.house.gov.
INDEX OF DOCUMENTS
----------
* Tweet from Rep. Raskin; submitted by Rep. Fallon.
* Article, The New York Post, ``Twitter Refused to Remove Child
Porn Because It Didn't `Violate Policies' ''; submitted by
Rep. Gosar.
* Article, New York Post, ``Latest `Twitter Files' Reveal
Secret Suppression of Right-Wing Commentators''; submitted by
Rep. Higgins.
* Memo, Timeline of Hunter Biden's Business Dealings and Joe
Biden's Official Actions; submitted by Rep. Higgins.
* Graphic, Big Tech & Big Government Collusion; submitted by
Rep. Luna.
* Graphic, Correspondence; submitted by Rep. Luna.
* Article, Wall Street Journal, ``The Twitter Blacklisting of
Jay Bhattacharya''; submitted by Rep. Mace.
* Report, Anti-Defamation League, ``Murder and Extremism in the
United States 2021''; submitted by Rep. Mfume.
* Report, U.S. Secret Service, ``Mass Attacks in Pubic Spaces
2016-2020''; submitted by Rep. Mfume.
* Article, The Washington Post, ``Now Warning About the Hunter
Biden Laptop Disinfo: The Guy Who Leaked It''; submitted by
Rep. Ocasio-Cortez.
* Study, Princeton University, ``Powered by Twitter? The
Taliban's Takeover of Afghanistan''; submitted by Rep.
Palmer.
* Article, Rolling Stone, ``Twitter Kept Entire `Database' of
Republican Requests to Censor Posts''; submitted by Rep.
Raskin.
* Statement for the Record by Rep. Gerald Connolly.
* Questions for the Record: to Mr. Baker; submitted by Rep.
Gosar.
* Questions for the Record: to Ms. Gadde; submitted by Rep.
Gosar.
* Questions for the Record: to Mr. Roth; submitted by Rep.
Gosar.
* Questions for the Record: to Mr. Roth; submitted by Rep.
Luna.
* Questions for the Record: to Mr. Baker; submitted by Rep.
Luna.
* Questions for the Record: to Ms. Gadde; submitted by Rep.
Luna.
The documents listed above are available at: docs.house.gov.
PROTECTING SPEECH FROM GOVERNMENT
INTERFERENCE AND SOCIAL MEDIA BIAS,
PART I: TWITTER'S ROLE IN SUPPRESSING
THE BIDEN LAPTOP STORY
----------
Wednesday, February 8, 2023
House of Representatives,
Committee on Oversight and Accountability,
Washington, D.C.
The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:01 a.m., in
room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. James Comer
(Chairman of the Committee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Comer, Jordan, Gosar, Grothman,
Palmer, Higgins, Sessions, Biggs, Mace, LaTurner, Fallon,
Donalds, Armstrong, Perry, Timmons, Burchett, Greene, McClain,
Boebert, Fry, Luna, Edwards, Langeworthy, Burlison, Raskin,
Norton, Lynch, Connolly, Krishnamoorthi, Mfume, Ocasio-Cortez,
Porter, Bush, Brown, Gomez, Stansbury, Garcia, Frost, Balint,
Lee, Casar, Crockett, Goldman, and Moskowitz.
Chairman Comer. The Committee on Oversight and
Accountability will come to order. I want to welcome everyone.
Without objection, the Chair may declare a recess at any
time.
I recognize myself for the purpose of making an opening
statement.
Today's hearing is the House Oversight and Accountability
Committee's first step in examining the coordination between
the Federal Government and Big Tech to restrict protected
speech and interfere in the democratic process. Social media
platforms are increasingly the place where Americans go to
express their views, debate issues, and gather news and
information. These platforms are the virtual town square.
However, many social media platforms are under the control of
people who are hostile to the fundamental American principles
of free speech and expression protected in the U.S.
Constitution.
We have witnessed Big Tech autocrats wield their unchecked
power to suppress the speech of Americans to promote their
preferred political opinions. Twitter was once one of these
platforms until Elon Musk purchased the company a few months
ago. Mr. Musk has pledged to end censorship that goes beyond
the law. He has pledged to allow Americans' voices be heard,
not quashed. In this hearing, we will examine the actions taken
by Twitter prior to Mr. Musk's ownership.
Many of these actions were carried out by the witnesses
before us today. Prior to Mr. Musk's take over the company,
Twitter aggressively suppressed conservative elected officials,
journalists, and activists. This included shadow banning,
blocking accounts, and banning accounts altogether. In fact,
Twitter's previous management team de-platformed and suppressed
not just conservative voices, but anyone whose opinions strayed
from what they deemed acceptable, opinions such as that
students could and should attend school in person to curb
learning loss.
In the past, Twitter's leadership, including the previous
CEO, Jack Dorsey, claim the company did not limit the
visibility of certain accounts and tweets known as shadow
banning. He said this in front of Congress in 2018, but we now
know they did, even placing such accounts on search and trend
blacklists. Twitter's employees made censorship decisions on
the fly, often not following the company's own publicly stated
policies. It worked hand-in-hand with the FBI to monitor the
protected speech of Americans, receiving millions of tax
dollars to do so.
Twitter, under the leadership of our witnesses today, was a
private company the Federal Government used to accomplish what
it constitutionally cannot limit: the free exercise of speech.
We now know all this thanks to Elon Musk and the independent
journalists, who have contributed to what are known as the
Twitter Files. That brings us to the specific topic of today's
hearing: Twitter's censorship of a news article that shed light
on Joe Biden's involvement in his family's suspicious business
deals.
In the months leading up to the laptop story, the FBI
advised senior Twitter executives to question the validity of
any Hunter Biden story. We also know that one of the witnesses
before us today participated in an Aspen Institute exercise in
September 2020 on a potential hack-and-dump operation related
to Hunter Biden. Other Big Tech companies and reporters
attended as well. This exercise prepared them for their future
collusion to suppress and delegitimize information contained in
Hunter Biden's laptop about the Biden's family business
schemes.
On October 14, 2020, The New York Post published its first
story based on information contained in Hunter Biden's laptop.
The Post provided proof of the laptop's legitimacy by releasing
a computer repair store's signed receipt for the laptop and the
Federal subpoena used by the FBI to retrieve it in 2019. The
article revealed that a top executive at Burisma, who was
paying Hunter Biden $50,000 a month, had spent time with then
Vice President Biden in Washington, DC. Throughout his
Presidential campaign, Joe Biden assured the American people
that he had never spoken to his son about his overseas business
dealings. However, the details exposed in the Post article
indicate that Joe Biden lied to the American people.
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.
Twitter immediately removed the story and banned The New York
Post account. Twitter also banned accounts who shared the
story, including White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany,
and blocked its transmission via direct message. This episode
marked the first time Twitter directly limited the spread of
information from a mainstream news organization, and The New
York Post would not get its account back for two weeks. Twitter
would finally admit its mistake, but the damage had already
been done. On October 19, 51 former intelligence officials
published a letter that Hunter Biden's laptop was Russian
disinformation, which Joe Biden used as a talking point at a
Presidential debate on October 22, but we all know now this was
not Russian disinformation. It wasn't disinformation.
I want to make sure the American people truly understand
the timeline here, because it is very important. The Hunter
Biden laptop story was published on Wednesday. Twitter did not
acknowledge their mistake for at least 24 hours. Then on Monday
morning, 51 former intelligence officials published their
letter. That letter was then wholeheartedly accepted by
mainstream news as proof that the laptop was fake. Joe Biden
used that letter to brush aside the few questions he received
about the story. During that time, the mainstream media was
more concerned about what flavor of ice cream Joe Biden had
ordered on a particular day. All this happened two weeks before
the 2020 election. Two weeks.
One survey found that 70 percent of Biden voters would not
have voted for the Biden-Harris ticket if they had known about
the Biden laptop, but many Americans did not know about it
because of a coordinated cover up by Big Tech, the swamp, and
mainstream news. Now, mainstream media outlets have verified
the laptop, but the damage has been done.
Today we are joined by three former high-ranking employees
at Twitter: Vijaya Gadde, Twitter's former top lawyer; James
Baker, Twitter's former deputy general counsel; and Yoel Roth,
Twitter's former head of trust and safety. We are also joined
by Anika Collier Navaroli, Twitter's former head of trust and
safety, former member of Twitter's U.S. Safety Policy Team. Let
me get that right. I would like to thank you all for your
participation in today's hearing. We owe it to the American
people to provide answers about this collusion to censor
information about Joe Biden's involvement in his family's
business schemes.
With that, I yield to the Ranking Member for his opening
statement.
Mr. Raskin. Thank you kindly, Mr. Chairman. Last night in
his State of the Union address, over all the heckling,
President Biden reviewed significant achievements his
Administration and congressional Democrats are delivering for
the American people: the lowest unemployment rate in over 50
years; a manufacturing boom in clean energy, semiconductors and
infrastructure; expanding healthcare for veterans and lowering
prescription drug costs for seniors and people with diabetes;
beating the opioid epidemic and addressing our national mental
health crisis; and historic action on climate change. But this
morning, we returned not to focus on advancing this robust
agenda of progress, but instead to take up an authentically
trivial pursuit, all based on the obsessive victimology of
right-wing politics in America. The majority has called a
hearing to revisit a two-year-old story about a private
editorial decision by Twitter not to allow links to a single
New York Post article made for a two-day period that had no
discernible influence on anyone or anything.
The New York Post published the article in its own pages,
and it was carried by lots of other media outlets. It was
widely discussed, including on Twitter itself, even during the
brief moment in time when links weren't provided, and it was a
fixture in right-wing media for the next three weeks before the
election. I think even the Chairman and other Members of this
Committee were out on TV and social media talking about it. But
instead of letting this trivial pursuit go, my colleagues have
tried to whip up a full scandal about this two-day lapse in
their ability to spread Hunter Biden propaganda on a private
media platform. Silly does not even begin to capture this
obsession.
What is more, Twitter's editorial decision has been
analyzed and debated ad nauseam. Some people think it was the
right decision, some people think it was the wrong decision,
but the key point here is that it was Twitter's decision.
Twitter is a private media company. In America, private media
companies can decide what to publish or how to curate content,
however they want. If Twitter wants to have nothing but tweets
commenting on New York Post articles run all day, it can do
that. If such tweets mentioning New York Post never see the
light of day, they can do that, too. That is what the First
Amendment means. Twitter can ban Donald Trump for inciting
violent insurrection against the Union, as he was impeached by
the House of Representatives, and as 57 of 100 Senators found
he did, and he can also try to resurrect his political career.
Elon Musk just purchased Twitter and, therefore, controls
its editorial content. And among the first things he did was to
fire some people, hire some people, denounce some prior
decisions, and reinstate an unrepentant and still clearly lying
Donald Trump to the platform. Those decisions, however heroic
or imbecilic you think they might be, are protected by the
First Amendment in the United States of America.
Officially, Twitter happens to think they got it wrong
about that day or two period. In hindsight, Twitter's former
CEO, Jack Dorsey, called it a mistake. This apology might be a
statement of regret about the company being overly cautious
about the risks of publishing contents of potentially hacked or
stolen materials, or it may reflect craven surrender to a
right-wing pressure campaign. But, however you interpret it,
the apology just makes the premise of this hearing all the more
absurd. The professional conspiracy theorists who are heckling
and haranguing this private company have already gotten exactly
what they want: an apology. What more do they want, and why
does the U.S. Congress have to be involved in this nonsense
when we have serious work to do for the American people?
But what makes this hearing tragic is that if our
colleagues really wanted to examine a serious problem involving
American democracy in social media, my friends, it is staring
us in the face right now. Twitter and other social media
companies acted as central organizing and staging grounds
through the January 6 violent insurrection against Congress and
against Vice President Pence. Twitter became the national and
global platform for incitement to seditious violence against
our government and a forum on the day of attack through
coordinating logistical movements and tactical maneuvers in the
mob violence against our police officers.
In the lead-up to January 6, Twitter decided to allow
Donald Trump and countless MAGA extremists to use the platform
to spread Trump's ridiculous Big Lie and disinformation about
the election. And soon the internet was replete with incitement
for civil war, race war, insurrection, revolution, and mob
violence. Twitter did so despite increasingly desperate appeals
from its own employees to act in the interest of public safety
approaching January 6. The First Amendment is robust and
expansive, but it stops at this point. It does not protect
anyone's right to engage in incitement to imminent lawless
action and violent action against the government or against
other people. This is the Brandenburg principle.
There is no carveout to free speech for speech relating to
the New York Post, or Hunter Biden, or laptops, but there is a
significant carveout when the speech is deliberately calculated
to produce imminent violence and chaos against the government.
That is why Twitter's deliberate indifference to Trump's big
lies and incitement, its decision to ignore the pleas of its
own employees, to deal with the impending explosion against our
police and against Congress on January 6, are matters that
require real investigation and reflection. Rather than
conspiring to suppress right-wing MAGA speeches, my colleagues
astonishingly claimed Twitter and other media companies
knowingly facilitated Trump's spread of disinformation, or what
his own sycophantic Attorney General William Barr would come to
call bullshit, and gave voice to his followers, glorification
of violence, and calls for civil war.
Today we will hear from Anika Collier Navaroli, a former
Twitter employee turned corporate whistleblower and patriotic
hero, who raised the alarm inside Twitter about numerous
accelerating warning signs that she saw leading up to the
violent and catastrophic attack on the Capitol on January 6,
2021. Ms. Navaroli is here today to publicly testify about how
senior officials at Twitter resisted her efforts to put
policies in place or to enforce existing policies to promote
public safety and to defend our national security. Twitter
management, however, did not want to cross Donald Trump.
I don't know precisely how we will solve the problem of
private social media platforms being used for the organization
of coups and incitement of violent insurrection against the
United States, or Brazil, or any other country, but this is a
grave problem confronting democracy, not just America, but all
over the world. It is not a silly concocted partisan issue. We
must analyze it carefully and legislate effectively to address
it. And we must never forget that the enemies of democracy, led
by autocrat and war criminal, Vladimir Putin, are spending
hundreds of millions of dollars on social media propaganda and
disinformation to destabilize democracy all over the world,
even as they wage their genocidal, illegal aggressive war
against the people from Ukraine.
How are we going to prevent the liberal democracies from
being overrun by propaganda, disinformation, and violent
incitement? We will listen to Anika Collier Navaroli because
she has something important to say. She poses a problem that
would be worthy of a serious congressional hearing, and we
should have one. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Chairman Comer. The gentleman yields back. I want to thank
again the witnesses for appearing here today. Today's witnesses
are former Twitter employees, Vijaya Gadde, Twitter's former
General Counsel; James Baker, Twitter's former Deputy General
Counsel; Yoel Roth, Twitter's former Head of Trust and Safety;
and Anika Collier Navaroli, a former member of Twitter's U.S.
Safety Policy Team.
I want to remind everyone, you all are appearing under
subpoena by your own request. Pursuant to Committee Rule 9(g),
the witnesses will please stand and raise their right hands.
Do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony you are
about to give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but
the truth, so help you God?
[A chorus of ayes.]
Chairman Comer. Let the record show that the witnesses all
answered in the affirmative.
We will begin the five-minute question portion of our
hearing today. We will start with the opening statements, then
we will go to the questions. So, each witness will get a five-
minute opening statement, and we will begin with you, Mr.
Baker.
STATEMENT OF JAMES BAKER, FORMER DEPUTY GENERAL COUNSEL,
TWITTER
Mr. Baker. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, Ranking
Member Raskin, and Members of the Committee, thank you for the
opportunity to appear before you today. I hope that we will
have a useful conversation about matters that are of great
importance to the Nation and the world.
My main goals for this statement are simply to attempt to
set the record straight with respect to certain false
assertions that have been made about me in the public arena and
to offer a suggestion with respect to potential legislation in
the area of social media regulation. As the Committee is aware,
however, based on the advice of counsel, I believe in good
faith that I am constrained today by my legal and ethical
obligations as a former lawyer for Twitter, as well as by
certain non-disclosure agreements. Within those constraints,
however, I will endeavor to respond to the Committee's
questions as fully as I possibly can, and I believe I can make
the following statements.
First, I was not aware of and certainly did not engage in
any conspiracy or other effort to do anything unethical,
improper, or unlawful while I was at Twitter. Period. I did not
act unlawfully or otherwise inappropriately in any manner with
respect to Hunter Biden's laptop. Indeed, documents that
Twitter has disclosed publicly reflect that I urged caution
with respect to the matter and noted that we needed more
information to fully assess what was going on and to decide
what to do, hardly a surprising piece of advice from a
corporate lawyer.
Moreover, I am 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. I think that the best
reading of the law is that as a private entity, the First
Amendment protects Twitter and its content moderation
decisions. And I do not believe that the facts in the public
record indicate that Twitter became a state actor as that
concept is defined under existing precedent, such that the
First Amendment would have constrained it.
Second, I believe that at all times, I executed my duties
and responsibilities to my client, Twitter, lawfully and
ethically. At no time was I an agent or operative of the
government or any political actor when I worked at Twitter. To
the contrary, I believe that I worked zealously and diligently
within the bounds of the law in pursuit of my client's best
interests. Third, I did not destroy or improperly suppress any
documents at Twitter regarding information important to the
public dialog. At all times I sought to help my client
understand and comply with its legal obligations. It is worth
noting that the public record indicates that after I left the
company, attorneys or other unidentified third parties
collected and/or reviewed the contents of at least some of the
Twitter Files prior to their release.
Fourth, Twitter disclosed publicly emails between me and
Yoel Roth regarding one of Donald Trump's tweets about COVID. I
do not have access to my Twitter email, so I do not know if or
how I responded to Mr. Roth. To the best of my recollection, I
do not recall directing or urging him to take action with
respect to Mr. Trump's tweet. Instead, what I recall is that I
asked him a question so that I could better understand how he
and others were implementing Twitter's COVID misinformation
policy. Asking questions and learning more about what a
client's activities are is what I think good lawyers should do,
and again, hardly surprising.
Fifth, the Twitter Files referenced prior investigations of
me. It is true that the Department of Justice investigated
certain aspects of my conduct while I was employed by the FBI
related to the handling of certain information. Because I
believe in the accountability for government officials, I
cooperated with the Department, including sitting for lengthy
interviews. Eventually the Department closed the matter. No
adverse action was taken with respect to me, and my security
clearances while a government employee were never restricted
because of the matter.
In closing, Mr. Chairman, I want to return briefly to the
general topic of government interaction with social media
companies. The law permits the government to have complex,
multifaceted, and long-term relationships with the private
sector. Law enforcement agencies and companies can engage with
each other regarding, for example, compulsory legal process
served on companies; criminal activity that companies, the
government, or the public identify, such as crimes against
children, cybersecurity threats, and terrorism; and instances
where companies themselves are victims of crime. When done
properly, these interactions can be beneficial to both sides
and in the interest of the public.
As you, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Jordan, and others have proposed,
a potential workable way to legislate in this area may be to
focus on the actions of Federal Government agencies and
officials with respect to their engagement with the private
sector. Congress may be able to limit the nature and scope of
those interactions in certain ways, require enhanced
transparency and reporting by the executive branch about its
engagements, and require higher-level approvals within the
executive branch prior to such engagements on certain topics so
that you can hold Senate-confirmed officials, for example,
accountable for those decisions. In any event, if you want to
legislate, my recommendation is to focus first on reasonable
and effective limitations on government actors. Thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
Chairman Comer. Thank you, Mr. Baker. Ms. Gadde?
STATEMENT OF VIJAYA GADDE, FORMER CHIEF LEGAL OFFICER, TWITTER
Ms. Gadde. Chairman Comer, Ranking Member Raskin, and
Members of the Committee, thank you for this opportunity to
provide this opening statement.
After a decade as a corporate lawyer, I joined Twitter in
2011 as the first member of the corporate legal team. In 2013,
I was promoted to general counsel. In 2018, I became the chief
legal officer and continued in that role until October 2022.
During my time at Twitter, I had many distinct teams reporting
to me, including legal, trust and safety, public policy,
corporate security, and compliance.
I was drawn to work at Twitter because I was inspired by
how people were able to use the platform and awed by its
potential. Twitter enabled anyone to hear directly from any
individual instantly. People from around the world were coming
together on Twitter for an open and free exchange of ideas. The
work was challenging and fulfilling. After Jack Dorsey returned
to CEO in 2015, one of his top priorities became what we called
the health of the public conversation. This was based on
customer research, advertiser feedback, Twitter's declining
revenue, user growth, and stock price. Teams across Twitter
were focused on making the platform safer, better, and more
profitable. As an executive of the company, I also was
responsible for helping to achieve the corporate goals set by
Mr. Dorsey, and I was accountable to him, the board of
directors, and ultimately Twitter's public stockholders.
As we prioritized the health of the public conversation, we
did not lose sight of what Twitter was for most people: a place
to talk about their favorite things, topics that animated the
platform ranged from K-pop, to the World Cup, to video games
and movies. We needed to ensure that differences of opinion
would not cross the line, for example, into sending death
threats to soccer players who missed important goals,
distributing non-consensual intimate photos, or cyber bullying
so vicious that it could compromise a teenager's mental health.
Twitter's platform rules covered a wide range of conduct and
changed over time based on new behaviors and harms on the
platform and feedback from customers, regulators, governments,
advertisers, researchers, and others. This feedback led to a
principles-based approach, which we applied to an array of
difficult, yet equally complicated, situations around the
world. These rules were also benchmarked against industry
standards. We all knew how difficult it would be to design,
much less apply, one set of global rules for hundreds of
millions of accounts that shared billions of tweets a week.
While I was at Twitter, the company never lost sight of its
deep commitment to promoting and defending free expression
around the world. For example, to protect human rights
defenders, we fought for the right of people to use pseudonyms
on the platform. We litigated in courts around the world to
protect the rights of people to express their opinions, often
defending them against their own governments who were acting
unlawfully or violating international human rights. And we took
extra precautions to ensure we scrutinized or challenged and
never just acquiesced to government legal demands.
Defending free expression and maintaining the health of the
platform required difficult judgment calls. Most applications
of Twitter's rules were fact-intensive, subject to internal
debate, and needed to be made very quickly. We recognized that
after applying our rules, we might learn that some of them did
not work as we imagined and that we would have to update them.
We always remained open to new information from our customers
and critics regarding our policies and enforcement. At times,
we also reversed course.
For example, on October 14, 2020, the New York Post tweeted
articles about Hunter Biden's laptop with embedded images that
looked like they may have been obtained through hacking. In
2018, we had developed a policy intended to prevent Twitter
from becoming a dumping ground for hacked materials. We applied
this policy to the New York Post's tweets and blocked links to
articles embedding those source materials. At no point did
Twitter otherwise prevent tweeting, reporting, discussing, or
describing the contents of Mr. Biden's laptop. People could and
did talk about the contents of the laptop on Twitter or
anywhere else, including other much larger platforms, but they
were prevented from sharing the primary documents on Twitter.
Still, over the course of that day, it became clear that
Twitter had not fully appreciated the impact of that policy on
free press and others. As Mr. Dorsey testified before Congress
on multiple occasions, Twitter changed its policy within 24
hours and admitted its initial action was wrong. This policy
revision immediately allowed people to tweet the original
articles with the embedded source materials.
Relying on its longstanding practice not to retroactively
apply new policies, Twitter informed the New York Post that it
could immediately begin tweeting when it deleted the original
tweets, which would have freed them to retweet the same content
again. The New York Post chose not to delete its original
tweets, so Twitter made an exception after two weeks to
retroactively apply the new policy to the Post's tweets. In
hindsight, Twitter should have reinstated the Post's account
immediately.
There is no easy way to run a global communications
platform that satisfies business and revenue goals, individual
customer expectations, local laws, and cultural norms, and get
it right every time. Still, while I was at Twitter, we worked
hard every day to make Twitter a healthy platform, and
ultimately, a healthy business.
Thank you for your attention. I look forward to your
questions.
Chairman Comer. Thank you very much. Mr. Roth?
STATEMENT OF YOEL ROTH, FORMER GLOBAL HEAD OF TRUST & SAFETY,
TWITTER
Mr. Roth. Thank you, Chairman Comer, Ranking Member Raskin,
and Members of the Committee, for the opportunity to speak with
you here today.
In nearly eight years at Twitter, I worked in and led a
division called Trust and Safety. Trust and Safety's core duty
is content moderation, removing tweets that violate Twitter's
terms of service and suspending users who repeatedly break the
rules. This work is sometimes dismissed merely as censorship,
but it represents a key way that Twitter and other companies
live up to their responsibility to keep the users of their
products safe.
Much of this work is uncontroversial, for example, taking
down accounts that engage in child sexual exploitation or
promote terrorism. The gray area of this work, though, is when
Trust and Safety teams have to make decisions about so-called
``lawful, but awful material,'' content that may be legal in
many jurisdictions, but isn't something most people would want
to experience. Think of things like posting someone else's home
address without their permission or bullying somebody for a
disability or for how they look. A free speech absolutist might
say, yes, that kind of content is unpleasant, but it is not
against the law. What right do you have to remove it? The
answer is, the need to make Twitter an appealing product for
millions of people.
Consistently in its own research, Twitter found that users
were unhappy with the company's approach to content moderation,
and that this dissatisfaction drove people away from the
service. This has consequences for what we mean by free speech
on social media. Again and again, we saw the speech of a small
number of abusive users drive away countless others.
Unrestricted free speech paradoxically results in less speech,
not more, and it was our job in Trust and Safety to try to
strike an appropriate balance. But the importance of this work
goes far beyond Twitter's business prospects and into the realm
of national security.
In 2017, I led the team at Twitter that uncovered
significant interference in an American election by agents of
the Russian Government. Their mission was to stoke culture war
issues on social media to try to further divide Americans. My
team and I exposed hundreds of thousands of these accounts from
Russia, but also from Iran, China, and beyond. It is a concern
with these foreign interference campaigns that informed
Twitter's approach to the Hunter Biden laptop story.
In 2020, Twitter noticed activity related to the laptop
that at first glance bore a lot of similarities to the 2016
Russian hacking leak operation targeting the DNC, and we have
to decide what to do, and in that moment with limited
information, Twitter made a mistake. Under the distribution of
hacked material policy, the company decided to prevent links to
the New York Post stories about the laptop from being shared
across the service. I have been clear that in my judgment at
the time, Twitter should not have taken action to block the New
York Post's reporting.
In just 24 hours after doing so, the company acknowledged
its error, but the decisions here aren't straightforward, and
hindsight is 20/20. It isn't obvious what the right response is
to a suspected, but not confirmed, cyberattack by another
government on a Presidential election. I believe Twitter erred
in this case because we wanted to avoid repeating the mistakes
of 2016. And so, the basic job of trust and safety is to try to
strike this balance between the harms of restricting too much
speech and the dangers of doing too little. I will be the first
to admit that we didn't always get it right. Even rare mistakes
add up when you are carrying out content moderation at the
scale of hundreds of millions of unique posts per day.
While I was head of Trust and Safety at Twitter, I strove
to do this work with impartiality and with a commitment to the
fair enforcement of Twitter's written rules. But whether it is
me, or Elon Musk, or someone else in the future, someone will
have to make choices about the governance of online spaces.
Those decisions should not be made behind closed doors or based
on personal whims.
I hope that we can work together to find ways to bring
greater trust and transparency to social media, and I look
forward to answering the Committee's questions about any of
these topics to the best of my ability.
Chairman Comer. Thank you. Ms. Navaroli?
STATEMENT OF ANIKA COLLIER NAVAROLI, A FORMER MEMBER OF U.S.
SAFETY POLICY TEAM, TWITTER
Ms. Navaroli. Good morning, Chairman Comer, Ranking Member
Raskin, and Members of the Committee. Thank you so much for the
opportunity to speak with you all today. I am here because
there is an urgent need for us to understand the impact that
social media companies are having on our democracy.
I will be very clear. I was not involved in the decision
around Hunter Biden's laptop, but I was involved in decisions
that were made leading up to, during, and after the January 6
attack on the Capitol. If we are going to talk about social
media and the government, we need to talk about Twitter's
failure to act before January 6. I am here to tell you that
doing nothing is not an option. If we continue to do nothing,
violence is going to happen again.
My background is as a trained lawyer and journalist, and my
expertise over the past decade has been in the areas of media,
technology, law, and policy with a particular focus on social
media and free expression. I joined Twitter in 2019, and by
2020, I was the most senior expert on Twitter's U.S. Safety
Policy Team. My team's mission was to protect free speech and
public safety by writing and enforcing content moderation
policies around the world. These policies included things like
abuse, harassment, hate speech, violence, and privacy. So, if
no other algorithm or no other human could decide if a tweet
violated my team's policies, the Safety Team policy acted as
the final moderators. If a high-profile individual, like any
Member of this Committee or President Trump, tweeted something
controversial, it was sent to my team's desk. Every day, we had
to decide whether a particular piece of content equated to
yelling ``fire'' in a crowded theater.
My work at Twitter and subsequently at Twitch put me in the
middle of key events in history. What I have learned from them
is that social media played and continues to play a role in
these events, and two years after January 6, we still need to
better understand the role that Twitter played in order to
prevent it from happening again. So, what do we need to
understand? First, Twitter's leadership bent and broke their
own rules in order to protect some of the most dangerous speech
on the platform. I am going to talk a little bit about what
happened in the months leading up to January 6.
During this time, my team worked to try to minimize the
threat of violence that we saw coming. After President Trump
instructed the Proud Boys to ``stand back and stand by'' in a
debate, we considered the danger that that statement would have
if it was tweeted. So, we crafted what we called a coded
incitement to violence policy to address dog whistles like
this. Instead of approving it, management bent over backward to
find ways to not approve it. On January 5, when the policy was
still not approved, I led a meeting where one of my colleagues
asked management whether someone was going to have to get shot
before we were allowed to take down tweets. Another colleague
looked up live tweets and read them to management to try to
convince them of the seriousness of the issue. Still, no action
was taken. On the morning of January 6, I sent Twitter lawyers
a message warning them that our team was hamstrung by
leadership. Two days later when it looked like it was going to
happen all over again, I asked management whether they wanted
more blood on their hands. Only then did they act.
The second problem is that there is way too much power
concentrated in the hands of too few. With January 6 and many
other decisions, content moderators like me did the very best
that we could, but far too often there are far too few of us,
and we are being asked to do the impossible. For example, in
January 2020, after the U.S. assassinated an Iranian General
and the U.S. President decided to justify it on Twitter,
management literally instructed me and my team to make sure
that World War III did not start on the platform. No person,
people, or company should have that kind of unchecked power or
that kind of responsibility. The modern day public conversation
should not be susceptible to the whims of any one individual or
any one company.
Fixing the systemic issues that lead to bad decisions is
not going to be easy, but people like me who have been in the
trenches can help lead the way, but I must say coming forward
and offering this information is risky, and it is difficult.
Doxing and harassment are real, and people are afraid to tell
what they know, so we need to make sure that there are
protections for those who speak the truth. We need to create
space to hear from people on the front lines. We need to give
them protection so they can share their experiences. Only then
can we begin to understand the full scope of the problem and to
find solutions. There is far too much at stake for us to do
nothing. Thank you.
Chairman Comer. Thank you all. Excellent opening
statements. Now we will begin with the question portion. We
will begin by recognizing Mr. Biggs for five minutes.
Mr. Biggs. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Roth, within just
mere minutes or hours after the New York Post published its
story on the Hunter Biden laptop, at 8:51 a.m., you sent a
message to a team, part of your team, I assume. And you said,
``It isn't clearly violative of our hack materials policy,''
referring to the story, ``nor is it clearly in violation of
anything else''. Do you remember sending that message?
Mr. Roth. Thank you for the question, Congressman. I don't
recall that message specifically, but that does sound like my
judgment on that day, yes.
Mr. Biggs. OK. So, that was early on in the day, and yet,
shortly thereafter, Kayleigh McEnany, White House Press
Secretary, her account was locked. So, an inquiry was made the
next day by a person named Carolyn Strom. Do you know Carolyn
Strom?
Mr. Roth. Yes, sir, I do.
Mr. Biggs. Yes. Carolyn Strom asked what is going on here,
and somebody named Elaine Onsotto said, ``The user was bounced
by Site Integrity for violating our hacked materials policy.''
Do you remember that incident?
Mr. Roth. Yes, sir, I do.
Mr. Biggs. And somebody named Trenton Kennedy said, ``I am
struggling to understand the policy basis for marking this as
unsafe, and I think the best explainability argument''--now
that may be a technical term for you, but for me, it looks like
`we are trying to create a narrative here to cover our butt'--
``the best explainability argument for this, externally, will
be that we are waiting to understand that this story is the
result of hacked materials.'' Do you remember Mr. Kennedy's
communication?
Mr. Roth. Yes, I do.
Mr. Biggs. Yes. And so, then we get into a whole series of
things written by Mr. Baker going back and forth, and he says
on that same day, now at 9:26, which is about a half an hour
after your statement that you don't think that anything has
been violated here, he says, ``I have seen some reliable
cybersecurity folks question the authenticity of the emails in
another way.'' But by the way, that is almost inconceivable. I
mean, it just seems inconceivable that that would have happened
so quickly that he would have that.
And then you send out something right after that that said:
``The key factor in forming our approach is consensus from
experts monitoring election security and disinformation, that
this looks a lot like a hack-and-leak that learned from the
2016 WikiLeaks approach.'' I am wondering if you can name for
me today any of the experts that seemed to have a consensus at
10:12 a.m. on the morning of October 14 that you put out saying
that we are going to rely on some group of experts. Who were
they?
Mr. Roth. Thank you for the question. Twitter did not give
me access to any of my documents or emails to prepare for this
hearing, and so, unfortunately, I can't give you a direct
answer.
Mr. Biggs. Mr. Roth, were there experts? Were there people
that you consulted that were cybersecurity experts between 9
a.m. and 10:15 a.m. on that day?
Mr. Roth. My recollection is that we were following
discussions about this incident as they unfolded on Twitter, so
cybersecurity experts were tweeting about this incident and
sharing their perspectives, and that informed some of Twitter's
judgment here. But I want to emphasize, as I said in my
statement, I didn't think that the evidence or those
perspectives warranted removal, and I advocated against taking
that action.
Mr. Biggs. I understand. Let's look at one other document.
``Our teams made the determination that the materials fall
under our hacked materials policy.'' It is my understanding
from reports and internal sources that normally a hacked
material policy would require a government official or law
enforcement determination that there has actually been a hacked
account before that hack policy were to be in placed or
imposed.'' Is that accurate?
Mr. Roth. No, sir, it is not.
Mr. Biggs. So, the policy did not require that there be any
kind of official finding by a government source?
Mr. Roth. No. There were a number of different types of
evidence that we considered under the policy. Certainly,
government attribution would be a powerful one, but we also
look----
Mr. Biggs. So, that wasn't determinative is what you are
saying?
Mr. Roth. In that instance, we did not have any specific
information from any government source, no.
Mr. Biggs. OK. I am going to read something that applies to
this and several other things. From the Twitter stack that you
guys had, ``This might be an unpopular opinion, but one-off ad
hoc decisions like this that don't appear rooted in policy are,
in my humble opinion, a slippery slope and reflect an
alternatively equally dictatorial problem.'' Quite frankly,
that is what the essence of all four of your testimony--I
realize you are trying to fight against it--but you exercised.
You exercised an amazing amount of clout and power over the
entire American electorate by even holding them hostage for 24
hours, reversing your policy, and then hold it, and then they
are like, well, we want to go back to the originals. That is 24
hours or two weeks, that you imposed your will on the American
electorate. I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Comer. The gentleman's time has expired with 30
seconds over. I will give the Ranking Member an extra 30
seconds.
Mr. Raskin. You are very fair minded, Mr. Chairman. Mr.
Roth, let me start with you. Did I hear you correctly to say
that there were thousands or even hundreds of thousands of
counterfeit Twitter accounts set up by Russian propaganda and
disinformation for Vladimir Putin to pump his poison into the
bloodstream of American social media? Is that right?
Mr. Roth. That is right, sir, and that is not just past
tense. Those accounts are active on social media today. This is
an ongoing campaign.
Mr. Raskin. Well, we should have a hearing about that. I
appreciate your alerting to us what has taken place. Ms.
Navaroli, you have testified that in the months leading up to
the November 2020 election and then in the weeks before January
6, you were growing increasingly anxious about the violent
rhetoric and incitement that you saw posted on Twitter. Can you
describe specifically what made you so concerned during that
period, and did you raise your concerns with people at Twitter?
Ms. Navaroli. Thank you for that question. As I said in my
opening statement, after former President Trump and his debate
said the statement, ``stand back, stand by,'' to the Proud
Boys, my team, in discussion with other teams at Twitter,
realized that we had a gap in our policies and that that could
not be said on the platform because it would have gone too far.
What we did see continue to happen was those statements, in
addition to other coded incitement to violence, or dog
whistles, begin to spring up on the platform, and so, what was
once fringe ideology or fringe statements that were calling for
the overthrow of the government became a loud roar. And so, we
heard individuals beginning to say that they were locked and
loaded, that they were ready for Civil War part two, that they
were ready for another revolution, that they were ready for the
day of the rope in very clear English on Twitter.
Mr. Raskin. And on the January 6th Committee, we have tens
of thousands of statements like that being made on Twitter and
other parts of social media, so we got a little taste of what
you were experiencing on a daily basis. Now there was this
meeting on January 5 at Twitter. I don't think it was called
specifically to look at what was going to happen the next day.
That just happened to be a regular meeting. But at that
meeting, you and other employees raised urgently the problem of
what you saw coming on January 6. How did Twitter management
respond to the concerns that you raised?
Ms. Navaroli. That is a great question, and, yes, that
meeting was a regularly scheduled meeting. Within the meeting,
I believe I have referred to it in my testimony to the January
6th Committee as I was at my wit's end. I had argued, I had
asked questions, I had asked for clarification. We had found
dangerous tweets within the meeting, and yet the individual who
was the most senior leader within the team in that meeting told
us that we were not allowed to take that content down and that
we were not allowed to use the coded incitement to violence
policy. The reason that she gave us mirrored what we had been
told by the former head of Trust and Safety, Del Harvey, that
individuals might be saying things like ``locked and loaded''
or ``stand back and stand by'' in ways of self-protection. That
was not what we were seeing on the platform.
Mr. Raskin. So, when you were seeing things like ``locked
and loaded,'' and ``Civil War part two,'' and ``race war,'' and
so on, were you wanting your superiors at Twitter to know that
you thought there was going to be real violence, that this was
not hyperbole that was being spoken at that point?
Ms. Navaroli. Absolutely. I specifically told Del Harvey
herself that someone was going to get shot, as I testified to
the January 6th Committee.
Mr. Raskin. You stated that Donald Trump described his own
tweets as little missiles. Why did that stick in your mind?
Ms. Navaroli. Yes, the quote that you are referring to, I
don't remember exactly what news article that it was in, but it
was a news article that I had read in which the former
President said that he likes to send out his tweets like little
missiles. To me, that sounded exactly like weaponization of a
platform, in his own words, and yet Twitter was not concerned.
Mr. Raskin. All right. Well, again, this bears a complete
hearing on its own. This is a real issue, unlike something that
happened a couple years ago for 24 hours that has already
disappeared in the sands of time, but this is facing us today.
As you say, those right-wing violent forces are still out
there, and the social media can still be used as a channel for
incitement to violent action against state legislatures, school
boards, the Capitol of the United States, Congress, and so on.
How do we prevent this from happening in the future, and do you
think that Twitter is dealing with this problem effectively
now?
Ms. Navaroli. As I said in my opening statement, we have to
do something. There is too much at stake for us to continue to
do nothing, and this question of how do we prevent it is a big
one. Unfortunately, I do not believe that we are at a place
that we can come to solutions because we do not know how these
companies work. We must continue to hear from individuals like
myself. We must have a seat at the table to be able to share
our experiences because our experiences and the ways that we
have succeeded, the ways that we have failed, hold the key to
our futures and the key to our democracies.
Mr. Raskin. All right. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would
just say I was skeptical about revisiting the whole New York
Post thing where there have already been congressional hearings
and they have already apologized for their little lapse, but
this is a serious issue. And so, I am glad we at least have the
opportunity to begin to talk about it in public, and I yield
back to you. Thank you.
Chairman Comer. The gentleman yields back. I will recognize
myself now for questioning.
The Biden family investigation begins with the story of how
Big Tech, the media, former intelligence agents, and Biden
himself suppressed the story of Hunter Biden's laptop weeks
before the 2020 election. Today we are hearing from Twitter
executives who buried the New York Post laptop story claiming
it violated the platform's hacked materials policy. In reality,
the Twitter executives were hostile toward conservatives and
biased toward anyone who oppose their points of view. For
example, Mr. Roth, did you write this tweet?
Mr. Roth. I regret the language that I used in some of my
former tweets, but, yes, I did post that.
Chairman Comer. And I will read the tweet so it is in the
record. ``Yes, that person in the pink hat is clearly a bigger
threat to your brand of feminism than actual Nazis in the White
House.'' Mr. Roth, do you think all conservatives are Nazis?
Mr. Roth. Certainly not, sir.
Chairman Comer. What about the hundreds of people that
worked in the Trump Administration?
Mr. Roth. Certainly not.
Chairman Comer. Did Ms. Gadde or any other lawyer at
Twitter ever tell you to take down that tweet?
Mr. Roth. No. Twitter did not have a practice of
restricting employees sharing their personal viewpoints on the
service.
Chairman Comer. Turning back to the laptop, Ms. Gadde, are
you aware of that Hunter Biden's lawyers, as recently as last
week, wrote the Department of Justice about Hunter Biden's
laptop?
Ms. Gadde. I have seen some articles about that.
Chairman Comer. Yes, they did, and it appears that Hunter
Biden's attorney is admitting that the laptop and emails on it
are authentic. Ms. Gadde, on October 14, 2020, did Hunter Biden
report to Twitter that he was the victim of a hack?
Ms. Gadde. No, I don't believe he did.
Chairman Comer. Ms. Gadde, when the New York Post initially
broke the story about the laptop, did you call Hunter Biden's
lawyer to ask if it was authentic?
Ms. Gadde. No, I did not.
Chairman Comer. Isn't it correct that the Biden campaign
had contact with Twitter in the run-up to the 2020 election?
Ms. Gadde. Not to my knowledge.
Chairman Comer. And you are telling this Committee that you
didn't ask any Biden representative if the laptop was real or
for Hunter Biden's attorney's phone number to confirm its
authenticity?
Ms. Gadde. We did not speak to anybody related to that.
Chairman Comer. Mr. Baker, are you aware that the FBI had
Hunter Biden's laptop since December 2019?
Mr. Baker. I am sorry. Am I aware of that now?
Chairman Comer. Well, were you aware then?
Mr. Baker. Then? No, I don't believe sir. To the best of my
recollection, I don't think that I was aware.
Chairman Comer. But you are aware now.
Mr. Baker. I have heard that now, yes.
Chairman Comer. Mr. Baker, did you call any of your
contacts at the FBI to ask whether or not they knew if the
material had been hacked?
Mr. Baker. I don't recall contacting them about that on
that day.
Chairman Comer. Mr. Roth, Ms. Gadde, and Mr. Baker, it
appears to me that you failed at your jobs. You were entrusted
with the highest level of power at Twitter, but when you were
faced with the New York Post story, instead of allowing people
to judge the information for themselves, you rushed to find a
reason why the American people shouldn't see it. In a matter of
hours, you are deciding on the truth of a story that spans
years and dozens of complex international transactions. You did
this because you were terrified of Joe Biden not winning the
election in 2020. That is what it appeared. I can assure you,
this Committee will succeed in holding the Bidens accountable.
So much of the evidence of wrongdoing from this family is
located in that hard drive that you all led the American people
to believe was Russian disinformation when, in fact, it was
not.
Now I agree with Mr. Baker's opening statement. The concern
for me is the level of involvement the FBI had with not just
Twitter, but all of our social media platform companies. And I
think it kind of goes in the opposite direction whereby my
friend, the Ranking Member, was trying to take this in his
opening statement. This is something this Committee should be
concerned about. The government doesn't have any role in
suppressing speech, and that is something the media should be
very concerned about. What if there is a conservative president
that somehow cleans out our FBI and they put in conservatives
to suppress liberal speech? That is something that should never
happen. So, I look forward to more questions, and at this time,
I yield to the gentleman from Ohio.
Mr. Jordan. I thank the Chair for yielding. Mr. Baker, you
said you didn't talk with the FBI that day. Did you talk to the
FBI about the Hunter Biden laptop story prior to then or after
that day?
Mr. Baker. I am trying to make sure I can answer this
question consistent with the restrictions that I talked about
in my opening question.
Mr. Jordan. Simple question. Did you talk to the FBI about
the Hunter Biden story?
Mr. Baker. To the best of my recollection, I did not talk
to the FBI about the Hunter Biden story before that day.
Mr. Jordan. Did you talk to them after?
Mr. Baker. I don't recall.
Mr. Jordan. Your response is real specific to the chairman.
You said, I did not talk to the FBI about the Hunter Biden
laptop story that day. I assume that day is October 14. I don't
know if you talked to them on the 13th or before or if you
talked to them on the 15th and after.
Mr. Baker. Sitting here today, I don't recall speaking to
the FBI at all about the Hunter Biden matter.
Mr. Jordan. But why did you answer the way you did?
Mr. Baker. I beg your pardon?
Mr. Jordan. I yield back.
Chairman Comer. The Chair recognizes Ms. Norton for five
minutes.
Ms. Norton. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Like Benghazi before,
Republicans are on a taxpayer-funded expedition to attack their
political rivals, and they are feeding the flames of conspiracy
in the process. With the release of this so-called Twitter
Files, Donald Trump has seized the moment to further his own
conspiracies about the 2020 election, writing in December, ``Do
you throw the Presidential election results of 2020 out and
declare the rightful winner or do you have a new election? A
massive fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the
termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, and even
those found in the Constitution.''
Now it bears repeating that this is the same man who
incited an insurrection on January 6, and just last week,
reposted a message on Truth Social that suggested his
supporters will, and I am quoting it now, ``Physically fight
for him this time,'' and added, ``They got my six and we are
loaded, and I mean, loaded.''
This is a question for Ms. Navaroli. What did the phrase
``locked and loaded'' mean to you while you were at Twitter
prior to January 6?
Ms. Navaroli. Yes, thank you for that question. The way
that I read ``locked and loaded,'' to be interpreted by the
tweets that I saw coming on Twitter prior to January 6, was
that individuals were loaded or were armed, excuse me, and that
they were ready to commit violence.
Ms. Norton. Are you concerned that the use of this language
will continue to incite and legitimize political violence
leading to the next election?
Ms. Navaroli. Absolutely. We are sitting exactly one month
in which the exact same playbook was played in Brazil, and we
saw almost deja vu happening again. As I said in my opening
statement, unless we do something, this will continue to happen
again.
Ms. Norton. Thank you, Ms. Navaroli. Mr. Roth, you are no
stranger to the conspiracies and their real-world consequences.
If you don't mind, can you please describe for the Committee
how the release of the so-called Twitter Files has affected
your personal safety?
Mr. Roth. Thank you for the question, Congresswoman. The
Twitter Files, I would note first and foremost, didn't just
affect me, but affected much more junior employees at Twitter.
Employees as far away as Manila in the Philippines were doxed,
had their families threatened, and experienced harm equal to or
greater than what I have experienced. But concurrent with the
Twitter Files, Elon Musk also made the decision to share a
defamatory allegation that I support or condone pedophilia. And
this lie led directly to a wave of homophobic and antisemitic
threats and harassment against me, of which Twitter has removed
vanishingly little. And following the Daily Mail's decision to
publish where I live, ultimately, I had to leave my home and
sell it. Those are the consequences for this type of online
harassment and speech.
Ms. Norton. I must say those are very real consequences. By
legitimizing unsubstantiated conspiracy theories about the deep
state, Big Tech, and government censorship for political gain,
Committee Republicans are holding a match to a powder keg. We
all saw the consequences of this kind of rhetoric on January 6,
and we continue to see it play out as political violence and
hate crimes grip communities around the country, and I yield
back, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Comer. The gentlelady yields back. The Chair
recognizes Ms. Mace, for five minutes.
Ms. Mace. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Twitter Files were
not just about Hunter Biden's laptop. The Twitter Files make it
apparent Twitter worked overtime to suppress accurate COVID
information.
Dr. Jay Bhattacharya is a professor of medicine at
Stanford, who once tweeted an article he wrote about natural
immunity. Thanks to Elon Musk's release of the Twitter Files,
we learned some of his tweets were tagged with the label of
``Trends Blacklist.'' Apparently, the views of a Stanford
doctor are disinformation to you people. I, along with many
Americans, have long-term effects from COVID. Not only was I a
long hauler, but I have effects from the vaccine. It wasn't the
first shot, but it was the second shot that I now developed
asthma that has never gone away since I had the second shot. I
have tremors in my left hand, and I have the occasional heart
pain that no doctor can explain, and I have had a battery of
tests.
I find it extremely alarming Twitter's unfettered
censorship spread into medical fields and affected millions of
Americans by suppressing expert opinions from doctors and
censoring those who disagree with the CDC. I have great regrets
about getting the shot because of the health issues that I now
have that I don't think are ever going to go away, and I know
that I am not the only American who has those kinds of
concerns.
Another example of what Twitter has done to censor folks is
from Dr. Martin Kulldorff, a Harvard-educated epidemiologist,
who once tweeted, ``COVID vaccines are important for high-risk
people and their caretakers. Those with prior natural infection
do not need it, nor children.'' The Twitter Files reveal this
tweet was deemed false information because it ran contrary to
the CDC.
So, my first question this morning of Ms. Gadde, may I ask
of you, where did you go to medical school?
Ms. Gadde. I did not go to medical school.
Ms. Mace. I am sorry?
Ms. Gadde. I did not go to medical school.
Ms. Mace. That is what I thought. Why do you think you or
anyone else at Twitter had the medical expertise to censor a
doctor's expert opinion?
Ms. Gadde. Our policies regarding COVID were designed to
protect individuals. We were seeing----
Ms. Mace. You guys censored Harvard-educated doctors,
Stanford-educated doctors, doctors that are educated in the
best places in the world and you silenced those voices. Excuse
me. I have another chart I want to show you, Ms. Gadde.
[Chart]
Ms. Mace. I have another tweet by someone with a following
of a full 18,000 followers. This person put a chart from the
CDC on Twitter. It is the CDC's own data, so it is accurate by
your standards, and you all labeled this as misleading. You are
not a doctor, right, Ms. Gadde?
Ms. Gadde. No, I am not.
Ms. Mace. OK. What makes you think you or anyone else at
Twitter have the medical expertise to censor actual accurate
CDC data?
Ms. Gadde. I am not familiar with these particular
situations.
Ms. Mace. Yes, I am sure you are not, but this is what
Twitter did. They labeled this as inaccurate. It is the
government's own data. It is ridiculous that we are even having
to have this conversation today. It is not just about the
laptop. This is about medical advice that expert doctors were
trying to give Americans because social media companies like
Twitter were silencing their voices. I have another question,
my last one for you, Ms. Gadde. Did the U.S. Government ever
contact you or anyone at Twitter to pressure Twitter to
moderate or censor certain tweets? ``Yes'' or ``no.''
Ms. Gadde. We have a program----
Ms. Mace. Did the U.S. Government ever contact you or
anyone at Twitter to censor or moderate certain tweets? ``Yes''
or ``no.''
Ms. Gadde. We received legal demands to remove content from
the platform from the U.S. Government and governments all
around the world. Those are published on a third party website,
and anyone can read from it.
Ms. Mace. Thank God for Matt Taibbi, thank God for Elon
Musk for allowing to show us in the world that Twitter was
basically a subsidiary of the FBI, censoring real medical
voices with real expertise that put real Americans lives in
danger because they didn't have that information. I also want
to thank one of my colleagues, Ro Khanna, because as it turns
out, censorship isn't just an important issue to conservatives.
Some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, like Ro,
found this censorship very concerning and even wrote to you and
to folks at Twitter that he was concerned about the First
Amendment being censored. So, I want to thank him for speaking
up and speaking out about this issue because this should not be
a partisan issue. This should be an issue that is an American
issue.
Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to enter into the
record a Wall Street Journal article from December 9, 2022, by
Justin Hart entitled: ``The Twitter Blacklisting of Jay
Bhattacharya'' into the record, please, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Comer. Without objection, so ordered.
Ms. Mace. Thank you, and I yield back.
Chairman Comer. The Chair recognizes Mr. Lynch for five
minutes.
Mr. Lynch. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just want to go over
the chronology here. Mr. Roth, back in 2016, Russia and
Vladimir Putin engaged in what bipartisan Senate Intelligence
Committee investigators called a, ``aggressive, multifaceted
effort to influence the outcome of that year's Presidential
election.'' The campaign included hacking of the systems of a
major political party and leaking illegally obtained
information, scanning U.S. election systems for
vulnerabilities, and exploiting the weaknesses of social media
platforms to spread disinformation to the American people.
Again, in a 2017 declassified report, the U.S. intelligence
community assessed that Russia's 2016 election operations
signaled a ``new normal'' in Russian influence efforts and that
the Kremlin would ``apply lessons learned going forward against
the U.S. and its allies.''
Mr. Roth, in a December interview with journalist Kara
Swisher, you state that this declassified assessment was, and I
am quoting you, ``a watershed moment in the history of content
moderation and the Internet.'' You also stated in that
interview that Twitter discussed potential threats to the
integrity of the 2020 elections, and it was, and I am quoting
you again, ``obvious to think about the most influential thing
that impacted the 2016 election, which was the hack-and-leak
campaign organized by the Russian Government. We would have
been stupid not to think about that risk.'' Mr. Roth, why would
Twitter have been stupid to ignore that risk?
Mr. Roth. Thank you for the question, Congressman. I think
Twitter and the entire social media industry were, frankly,
caught with their pants down in 2016 and missed an opportunity
to do the critical work of protecting election security. This
isn't my judgment. This is the judgment of academics and
researchers who have spent years studying Russian active
measures, and most of their conclusions suggests that the No. 1
most influential part of the Russian active measures campaign
in 2016 was the hack-and-leak targeting John Podesta. It would
have been foolish not to consider the possibility that they
would run that play again.
Mr. Lynch. Right. And so, let me ask, was that top of mind
for Twitter? You are trying to measure the credibility of
incoming intelligence. Was that top of mind in regard to the
company's decision to temporarily limit the distribution of the
October 14 New York Post story that was delivered by Mayor
Giuliani?
Mr. Roth. Yes, that was one of the animating concerns for
us. For nearly two years, we had engaged in scenario planning
exercises for potential risks tied to the elections, and one of
them appeared to be happening that day. Now, again, I think the
facts were complicated. I do believe Twitter made a mistake
then, but our judgment was colored by the experience of 2016
and by the very real Russian activities that we saw play out
that year.
Mr. Lynch. Mr. Roth, then in the December 2020 sworn
declaration to the FEC, you said that starting in 2018, you
had, ``regular meetings with the Office of the Director of
National Intelligence, the Department of Homeland Security, the
FBI, and industry peers regarding election security.'' Is that
correct?
Mr. Roth. Yes, sir, it is.
Mr. Lynch. OK. You stated that during these meetings,
``Federal law enforcement agencies communicated that they
expected hack-and-leak operations by state actors that might
occur in the period shortly before the 2020 Presidential
election, likely in October,'' and that there were ``rumors
that a hack-and-leak operation would involve Hunter Biden.'' Is
that your recollection today?
Mr. Roth. It is, but I want to clarify that sentence
slightly.
Mr. Lynch. Sure.
Mr. Roth. I think it actually should have been two separate
sentences. It is true that in meetings between industry and law
enforcement, law enforcement discussed the possibility of a
hack-and-leak campaign in the lead-up to the election, and in
one of those meetings, it was discussed, I believe by another
company, that there was a possibility that that hack-and-leak
could relate to Hunter Biden and Burisma. I don't believe that
perspective was shared by law enforcement. They didn't endorse
it. They didn't provide that information in that yet.
Mr. Lynch. OK. Just to fast forward here, and, in fact, in
March 2021, four months after the election, the U.S.
intelligence community assessed that Russian President Putin
authorized a range of government organizations, conducted
influence operations aimed at denigrating President Biden's
candidacy in the Democratic Party, supporting former President
Trump, and undermining public confidence in the electoral
process, and exacerbating sociopolitical divisions in the U.S.
that obviously reared their head on January 6. Mr. Chairman, my
time has expired, and I yield back.
Chairman Comer. The gentleman yields back. The Chair
recognizes Mr. Jordan for five minutes.
Mr. Jordan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Roth, did the
government tell you that the Biden laptop story was fake?
Mr. Roth. No, sir, they did not.
Mr. Jordan. Did they tell you it was hacked?
Mr. Roth. No, sir, they did not.
Mr. Jordan. On October 14, 2020, Twitter blocks the New
York Post story on Hunter Biden and suspends their account. The
night before FBI Special Agent Elvis Chan sends you an email.
The email says this: ``Heads up. I will be sending a Teleporter
link for you to download 10 documents. It is not spam. Please
confirm receipt when you get it.'' Two minutes later, 6:24 p.m.
you respond back, ``Received and downloaded. Thanks.'' What
were those 10 documents?
Mr. Roth. Twitter didn't give me access to my laptop, but
Special Agent Chan has said publicly, and the FBI has
confirmed, that those documents did not relate to Hunter Biden,
and that is my recollection of that. That is all.
Mr. Jordan. What did they relate to?
Mr. Roth. My interactions with Agent Chan and with the FBI
almost entirely focused on what the FBI called malign foreign
interference, things like Russian troll farms and Iranian
involvement in the elections, not on any type of domestic
activity.
Mr. Jordan. Any of the information on there classified?
Mr. Roth. No, sir, I do not hold a security clearance, and
so I would not have received any classified information.
Mr. Jordan. Who does hold a security clearance? I just got
a second email here. I am just curious about this. ``What I
propose is that 30 days out from the election''--this is
another email to you from Mr. Chan--``that we get temporary
clearances. You pick who they are.'' Who were the people at
Twitter who had a security clearance?
Mr. Roth. To be honest, sir, I am not sure, and we never
ultimately followed through on this plan to get temporary
clearances.
Mr. Jordan. Did anyone at Twitter have a security
clearance?
Mr. Roth. It is my understanding that at least some current
or former employees did hold clearances, but I wasn't certain
about that.
Mr. Jordan. Ms. Gadde, do you know if anyone took up Mr.
Chan's offer to hand out security clearances 30 days before the
2020 election?
Ms. Gadde. Not that I am aware.
Mr. Jordan. So, we don't know how many people had security
clearances at Twitter. Do we know? Mr. Baker, Ms. Gadde, anyone
know how many people at Twitter had a security clearance in 30
days prior to the election?
Mr. Baker. I don't know the answer to that question, sir.
Mr. Jordan. Ms. Gadde?
Ms. Gadde. I do not know.
Mr. Jordan. Mr. Roth, you don't know?
Mr. Roth. No, sir.
Mr. Jordan. How about the last one? Ms. Navaroli, do you
know?
Ms. Navaroli. No.
Mr. Jordan. I mean, it seemed like the offer was sort of to
just hand them out like candy. I was just wondering who had
them?
[No response.]
Mr. Jordan. No one knows. OK. So, the FBI didn't tell you
that it was fake. They didn't tell you that it was hacked. And
Mr. Roth, did the story violate your policies?
Mr. Roth. In my judgment at the time, no, it did not.
Mr. Jordan. Yes, that is what you said. You said, ``It
isn't clearly a violation of our hack materials policy, nor is
it clearly a violation of anything else.'' So, I think what a
lot of people are wondering is, if it didn't violate your
policies and they didn't tell you it was fake, they didn't tell
you it was hacked, why did you take it down?
Mr. Roth. The company made a decision that found that it
did violate the policy. It wasn't my personal judgment at the
time that it did, but the decision was communicated to me by my
direct supervisor, and, ultimately, I didn't disagree with it
enough to object to the action.
Mr. Jordan. You know what I think happened, Mr. Roth? I
think you guys got played. I think you guys wanted to take the
tweet down. We saw that the Chairman put up where you said, you
know, everyone in the White House is a fascist. I think you
guys wanted to be taken down. I think you meet with these guys
every week. We know that has been established in the Twitter
Files. You had weekly meetings with Mr. Chan in the run-up to
the election. They sent you all kinds of emails. They sent you
documents on the super-secret James Bond teleporter. You get
information on that. I think you guys wanted to take it down. I
think you guys got played by the FBI, and that is the scary
part.
I mean, this, to me, is the real takeaway. Fifty-one former
intelligence officials five days after you guys take down the
Hunter Biden story and blocked the New York Post account. Five
days later, 51 former intel officials sent a letter and they
say the Hunter Biden story has all the classic earmarks of a
Russian information operation. The information operation was
run on you guys and then, by extension, run on the American
people, and that is the concern. And to Mr. Raskin's point that
you guys aren't bound by the First Amendment because you are a
private company, OK, maybe so, and your terms of service don't
have to comply with the First Amendment. Would that be right,
Mr. Roth? They don't have to. You have said that as much in
your testimony.
Mr. Roth. My understanding of the First Amendment is that
it protects people and businesses from government, not informs
how----
Mr. Jordan. I understand. So, here is what I want to know.
Is this a violation of the First Amendment when the government,
Mr. Chan again, sending you an email saying we think these
accounts need to be looked at because they violate your terms
of service? That is a different standard. So, you got the
government saying your terms of service, which don't have to
comply with the First Amendment, but the government is saying
we don't think these accounts comply with your terms of
service, please take them down. You see a problem there, Mr.
Roth?
Mr. Roth. Mr. Chairman, I am seeing a flashing red light. I
am happy to answer the question. Do I think that that is a
valuable use of the FBI's time? No, but I don't see in a
request for review a problem under the First Amendment. No.
Mr. Jordan. I sure do. I thank the gentleman. I yield back.
Chairman Comer. The Chair recognizes Mr. Connolly for five
minutes.
Mr. Connolly. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My, my, my, what
happens when you hold a hearing and you can't prove your point.
We heard from the Chairman in his opening statement that it is
wrong for government to call Twitter and say take down a tweet.
Did I hear that correct, Mr. Roth?
Mr. Roth. That was my understanding, yes.
Mr. Connolly. Yes. So, on May 27, 2020, President Donald J.
Trump tweeted, ``Republicans feel that social media platforms
totally silence conservatives,'' by the way, something that
would come as news to you apparently, Mr. Roth, because you are
still the subject of conservative harassment. ``We will
strongly regulate,'' he went on to say, ``or close them down,
before we ever allow this to happen.'' Ms. Navaroli, doesn't
that sound eerily like a government official telling Twitter
that there is a threat, we will shut you down if we don't like
the content?
Ms. Navaroli. I am not familiar with the tweet that you
have referenced.
Mr. Connolly. Well, but if I just told you that quote
without telling you who said it, might it have some ominous
overtones from your point of view if you are still at Twitter?
``We will shut you down. We will regulate you. We will never
allow this to happen.'' Those are pretty strong words.
Ms. Navaroli. They are.
Mr. Connolly. Yes. OK. On September 8, 2019, at 11:11 p.m.,
Donald Trump heckled two celebrities on Twitter, John Legend
and his wife Chrissy Teigen, and referred to them as ``the
musician John Legend and his filthy-mouthed wife.'' Ms. Teigen
responded to that email at 12:17 a.m., and according to notes
from a conversation with you, Ms. Navaroli, your counsel, the
White House almost immediately thereafter contacted Twitter to
demand that tweet be taken down. Is that accurate?
Ms. Navaroli. Thank you for the question. In my role, I was
not responsible for receiving any sort of request from the
government. However, what I was privy to was my supervisors
letting us know that we had received something along those
lines or something of a request. And in that particular
instance, I do remember hearing that we had received a request
from the White House to make sure that we evaluated this tweet,
and that they wanted it to come down because it was a
derogatory statement directly toward the President.
Mr. Connolly. They wanted it to come down. They made that
request?
Ms. Navaroli. To my recollection, yes.
Mr. Connolly. I thought that was an inappropriate action by
a government official, let alone the White House, but it wasn't
Joe Biden about his son's laptop. It was Donald Trump because
he didn't like what Chrissy Teigen had to say about him. Is
that correct?
Ms. Navaroli. Yes, that is correct.
Mr. Connolly. My, my, my. Did you ever think it is
appropriate for the President of the United States to direct or
otherwise influence a social media company to take down its
content?
Ms. Navaroli. I think it is a very slippery slope.
Mr. Connolly. Mr. Roth, Ms. Gadde, Mr. Baker, any evidence
that Joe Biden has ever done that?
Mr. Roth. Certainly none that I am aware of, no.
Ms. Gadde. I don't recall anything like that.
Mr. Baker. I am sorry. That President Biden did what, sir?
Mr. Connolly. Has Joe Biden ever called Twitter to your
knowledge or his White House at his behest to take down content
or urge you to take down content?
Mr. Baker. I don't know the answer to that question, sir.
Mr. Connolly. Well, I am going to have to conclude, at
least from three of the four, you don't know. There is no
evidence he has ever done that, but there is plenty of evidence
Donald J. Trump tried to do that. And if we are going to have a
hearing about the misuse of social media and the intrusion of
government in the content on social media, we have got an
environment rich target. But it is not Joe Biden, it is Donald
J. Trump, and of course we don't want to talk about that. We
don't want to talk about Russian bots and Russian fabrications
using fake accounts on Twitter to a political purpose, and it
is not to help elect Democrats. And we don't want to talk about
four years of Donald Trump manipulating the truth and trying to
manipulate social media and threaten it, or directly to try to
shape it by taking down content because it was critical of him
personally. And that is what we ought to be talking about as we
move forward, not the subject of today's hearing. I yield back.
Chairman Comer. The gentleman yields back. The Chair
recognizes Mr. Donalds for five minutes.
Mr. Donalds. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Real quick, Mr. Roth.
You have stated already that what happened with the New York
Post story was similar to the hack-and-leak scenarios from
2016. You also said that you actually were opposed to deleting
the New York Post story. Who advocated for the removal of the
New York Post story.
Mr. Roth. The company's decision to treat it as a
violation----
Mr. Donalds. Mr. Roth, who at the company actually went
over your recommendation, because you are pretty high up. Who
overrode you?
Mr. Roth. The decision was communicated to me by my direct
supervisor.
Mr. Donalds. Who is that person?
Mr. Roth. Her name was Del Harvey. She was the vice
president of Trust and Safety at the time.
Mr. Donalds. All right. Thank you so much. Ms. Gadde, real
quick. You said to the Chairman earlier, and I am going to
paraphrase what I heard earlier, is that Twitter had no contact
with anybody from the Biden team. Is that correct, to your
knowledge?
Ms. Gadde. Not to my knowledge.
Mr. Donalds. Put that up for me.
[Chart]
Mr. Donalds. OK. Over my right shoulder, we have an email.
This is Saturday, October 24, 5:39 p.m., referencing five
different tweets, with a Twitter email chain, under the line,
``It is more to review from the Biden team.'' Does anybody have
a comment on how much interaction was happening with the Biden
team at Twitter with respect to tweets that they wanted Twitter
to review? Ms. Gadde, Mr. Roth?
Ms. Gadde. I am not familiar with this email.
Mr. Donalds. So, you are not familiar with this email. Mr.
Roth, are you familiar with this email?
Mr. Roth. Only from what has been reported in the Twitter
Files.
Mr. Donalds. Did you ever have contact with anybody from
the Biden team?
Mr. Roth. No, sir, I did not. We explicitly separated the
teams that would interact with campaigns from teams like mine
that were responsible for content moderation.
Mr. Donalds. How big was the organization in Twitter that
was actually working with campaigns?
Mr. Roth. I couldn't say for sure.
Mr. Donalds. Did you have any contact with the DNC?
Mr. Roth. Directly? No, I did not.
Mr. Donalds. Did anybody at Twitter have any contact with
anybody at the DNC?
Mr. Roth. I think it is likely that somebody at Twitter
did, yes.
Mr. Donalds. And these emails listed, ``These are tweets
that need to be flagged from the Biden team.'' That is what is
in the files. You have no idea how many people actually engaged
with the Twitter team or how frequently that engagement
happened?
Mr. Roth. No, and, again, that was by design. We kept those
functions separate from content moderation so that we could
impartially assess reports like this.
Mr. Donalds. Do you know how many tweets were actually
flagged and taken down at the behest of the Biden team?
Mr. Roth. I wouldn't agree with the characterization of it
as being at the behest of them. These tweets were reported, and
Twitter independently evaluated them under its rules.
Mr. Donalds. But the email is very clear: ``More to review
from Biden team.'' The response three hours later at the
bottom, hold this up real quick, so we can see. The requests at
the bottom it says, ``Handled these.'' What does ``handled
these'' mean?
Mr. Roth. My understanding is that these tweets contained
non-consensual nude photos of Hunter Biden, and they were
removed by the company under----
Mr. Donalds. Hold on, real quick, Mr. Roth. How could you
know so much about the content of these tweets? I mean, as far
as I am concerned, these are just web addresses. I don't know
what is in these tweets. You have these things committed to
memory that you know the content, but you don't know who you
talked to at the Biden team?
Mr. Roth. Sir, I didn't meet with the Biden team, but there
was extensive public reporting about these tweets specifically
that uncovered what they were.
Mr. Donalds. You know the contents of the tweets. It was
obviously at Twitter, but you have no idea how often people who
worked in your organization had with the Biden team during the
end of the 2020 Presidential elections.
Mr. Roth. I would emphasize that the people who interfaced
with the campaigns were not part of my team or organization. I
would know what the interactions were if they were on my team.
It was a different part of the organization, not mine.
Mr. Donalds. Let me ask a separate question, and I will ask
it of you too, Mr. Baker. Have you guys been able to quantify
the amount of in kind contributions associated with taking down
the New York Post story because New York Post story was down
for two weeks, give or take. Do you have any understanding of
how much that story was limited by Twitter and also by other
social media companies? What the impact of an in-kind
contribution that would be to the Joe Biden Presidential
election in 2020?
Mr. Baker. I don't know the answer to that question, sir.
Mr. Donalds. Do you think it is big?
Mr. Baker. I don't know the answer.
Mr. Donalds. Do you think it is more than a maximum
contribution to a campaign?
Mr. Baker. I wouldn't want to speculate.
Mr. Donalds. Would you call it $25,000?
Mr. Baker. I don't know the answer to that question, sir.
Mr. Donalds. A $100,000?
Mr. Baker. Sir, I don't know the answer to the question.
Mr. Donalds. A million?
Mr. Baker. I don't know the answer to the question.
Mr. Donalds. Do you think Twitter will be in violation of
Federal election laws with the size of an in-kind contribution
to take down a story which is true, by the way, because you
guys thought you knew something with limited information?
Mr. Baker. I am not going to speculate on that sitting here
today, sir. I try not to propound a legal analysis of the
election laws.
Mr. Donalds. I yield back.
Chairman Comer. The gentleman yields back. The Chair
recognizes Ms. Ocasio-Cortez.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Thank you. I appreciate also your
generosity. I just want to start off right here at the top
here. This isn't even my line of questioning, but I would like
to submit to the record a Washington Post article ``Now warning
about Hunter Biden laptop disinformation: The guy who leaked
it.''
Here is the deal. Before I even get into my questions, I
think that the story here, with The Washington Post reporting,
is that they are saying right here when New York Post first
reported October 2020 that it had obtained contents of a laptop
computer allegedly owned by Joe Biden's son, Hunter. There was
an immediate roadblock faced by other news outlets that hoped
to corroborate reporting, as many did. The newspaper wasn't
sharing what it obtained.
New York Post had this alleged information and was trying
to publish it without any corroboration, without any backup
information. They were trying to publish it to Twitter. Twitter
did not let them, and now they were upset. I believe that
political operatives who sought to inject explosive
disinformation with The Washington Post couldn't get away with
it, and now they are livid, and they want the ability to do
that again. They want the ability to inject this again. So,
they have dragged a social media platform here in Congress.
They are weaponizing the use of this Committee so that they can
do it again. A whole hearing about a 24-hour hiccup in a right-
wing political operation. That is why we are here right now,
and it is just an abuse of public resources and abuse of public
time. We could be talking about healthcare, we could be talking
about bringing down the cost of prescription drugs, we could be
talking about abortion rights, civil rights, voting rights, but
instead we are talking about Hunter Biden's half-fake laptop
story. I mean, this is an embarrassment, but I will go into it.
Ms. Navaroli, let's talk about something real. I would like
to show you a tweet posted by former President Trump about my
colleagues and I on July 14, 2019.
[Chart]
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. It says in part, ``Why don't they go
back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places
from which they came then come back and show us how it is done?
These places need your help badly. You can't leave fast enough.
I am sure that Nancy Pelosi would be very happy as quickly to
work out free travel arrangements.'' A day or two after that,
Donald Trump publicly incited, you know, violence at a rally,
targeting four Congresswomen, including myself, saying go back
to where you came from. And, Ms. Navaroli, as I understand it,
you were the senior member of Twitter's content moderation team
when this was posted. As part of your responsibilities, did you
review this tweet?
Ms. Navaroli. Yes, it was my team's responsibility to
review these tweets.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. And what did you conclude?
Ms. Navaroli. My team made the recommendation that for the
first time, we find Donald Trump in violation of Twitter's
policies and used the public interest interstitial.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. For the first time?
Ms. Navaroli. Yes.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. And at the time, Twitter's policy
included a specific example when it came to banned abuse
against immigrants as they specifically included the phrase,
``Go back to your country'' or ``Go back to where you came
from,'' correct?
Ms. Navaroli. Yes, that was specifically included in the
content moderation guidance as an example.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. And you brought this up to the vice
president of Trust and Safety, Del Harvey, correct?
Ms. Navaroli. I did, yes.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. And she overrode your assessment, didn't
she?
Ms. Navaroli. Yes, she did.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. And something interesting happened after
she overrode your assessment. A day or two later Twitter seem
to have changed their policies, didn't they?
Ms. Navaroli. Yes. That ``Go back to where you came from''
was removed from the content moderation guidance as an example.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. So, Twitter changed their own policy
after the President violated it in order to potentially
accommodate his tweet?
Ms. Navaroli. Yes.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Thank you. So much for bias against
right-wing on Twitter. Additionally, Ms. Navaroli are you
familiar with the account, Libs of TikTok?
Ms. Navaroli. I have heard of it from the news, yes.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Mr. Roth, are you familiar with this
account?
Mr. Roth. Yes, ma'am, I am.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Are you aware that from August 11 to
August 16, that account posted false information about Boston
Children's Hospital, claiming that they were providing
hysterectomies to children?
Mr. Roth. Yes, I am aware of that and other claims from the
account.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. And are you aware that this lie was then
circulated by other prominent far-right influencers?
Mr. Roth. Yes.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. And are you aware that all these claims,
which I have reiterated were false, culminated in a real-life
harassment and, ultimately, a bomb threat to the Boston
Children's Hospital?
Mr. Roth. Yes, I am aware.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. And this account is still on that
platform today, isn't it?
Mr. Roth. Regrettably, yes, it is.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Despite inspiring a bomb threat due to
the right-wing incitement of violence against trans Americans
in this country because they cannot let go of this obsession
with fixating violence and inciting violence against trans and
LGBT people, in addition to immigrants, in addition to women of
color. This is a party that cannot pick on any one their own
size, and they are trying to co-opt an entire social media
platform and use the power of this Committee and of Congress in
order to pursue a political agenda. I yield back.
Chairman Comer. The lady yields back. The Chair recognizes
Mr. Fry for five minutes.
Mr. Fry. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This hearing shows who
really has been in control of what is said to be the one of the
world's most widely used websites, Twitter. The American people
probably didn't know who these witnesses were today, but these
witnesses were powerful enough to silence an American President
with just a few clicks from their California office. We are
also learning that some of those in Washington, DC. have
forgotten their role and exercise their power to achieve ends
antithetical to American principles of free speech and
expression.
The FBI is the lead Federal Agency responsible for
investigating foreign influence operations. However, in recent
years, the FBI has devoted countless amounts of time, taxpayer
money, and manpower to combatting Russian foreign influence on
social media. The FBI, as one reporter noted, acted as a
``doorman to the vast program of social media surveillance and
censorship, encompassing agencies across the Federal
Government, from the State Department, to the Pentagon, to the
CIA.'' Reports suggests that thousands of reports from the FBI
and the Foreign Influence Task Force were sent to Twitter. This
isn't what the American people are paying for. This isn't what
we trust the FBI to do. FBI agents shouldn't be sitting at a
desk in Washington, DC. scrolling through Twitter and emailing
with social media companies.
An email from one Twitter employee to another reads, ``The
FBI San Francisco Emergency Operations Center sent us the
attached report of 207 tweets they believed may be in violation
of our policies.'' Another email revealed that there are,
``some folks in the Baltimore field office and at headquarters
that are just doing keyboard searches for violations.'' Mr.
Roth, Twitter usually found little evidence that the accounts
the FBI flagged had ties to foreign influence. Is that correct?
Mr. Roth. In part, but we have received many reports from
the FBI, particularly related to malign foreign interference,
that were highly credible and were constructive. So, I would
say it was a bit of a mixed bag.
Mr. Fry. And you pushed back to the FBI when they would
send you a list of American-based accounts. Is that correct?
Mr. Roth. Politely, but yes.
Mr. Fry. Mr. Roth, it appears that Twitter employees were
under pressure by the FBI and other government agencies to
validate these theories of foreign influence. Would you agree
with that?
Mr. Roth. No, I wouldn't agree with the word, ``pressure.''
The FBI was quite careful and quite consistent to request
review of the accounts, but not to cross the line into
advocating for Twitter to take any particular action.
Mr. Fry. So, flagging American accounts, in your view, is
not foreign--or theories of foreign influence. There is not
pressure there, just by flagging it to you, domestic accounts?
Mr. Roth. I don't think it is a great use of the Bureau's
time, but I wouldn't characterize how they communicated with us
as pressure.
Mr. Fry. Mr. Roth, you enjoyed these meetings with the FBI,
it seems based on the tweets behind me, or the communications
behind me, and internal communications at Twitter. You said,
``Definitely not meeting with the FBI. I swear.'' Is that
correct?
Mr. Roth. I believe I was joking with a colleague at the
time, but yes.
Mr. Fry. But I can assume that you were meeting with the
FBI when you were communicating with your colleague. Is that
correct?
Mr. Roth. Yes. One of my job responsibilities was meeting
with law enforcement about election security.
Mr. Fry. And just so I am clear, the person you are
communicating with here says, ``Very boring business meeting
that is definitely not about Trump.'' I assume that is also
sarcasm?
Mr. Roth. Yes, that is my assumption.
Mr. Fry. And we can assume that Twitter was having these
meetings with the FBI about President Trump, correct?
Mr. Roth. No, sir. The meetings that I was a part of with
the FBI were almost entirely and exclusively focused on malign
foreign interference, so accounts being operated outside of the
United States by other governments, not on the accounts of
Americans.
Mr. Fry. So, what is the basis of this communication then
where you talk about not meeting with Trump or not meeting
about Trump?
Mr. Roth. Again, I think those comments are sarcasm, but
the context for this interaction was the need to mark my
calendar private after another Twitter employee joined one of
those meetings with the FBI unexpectedly. And so, I had to
implement additional security measures around my calendar. This
was a fairly banal interaction with a colleague.
Mr. Fry. Mr. Chairman, I yield the rest of my time to Mr.
Jordan.
Chairman Comer. The Chair recognizes Mr. Jordan.
Mr. Jordan. I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Roth,
was there ever any visibility filtering that was hard coded by
Twitter employees into accounts of specific users?
Mr. Roth. Twitter employees were responsible for building
the systems that performed visibility filtering, and then that
filtering would have been applied either automatically----
Mr. Jordan. And I am asking a very specific question. I am
asking was the code written in a way that for certain accounts,
those accounts unique in and of themselves, would be visibility
filtering, to use your term, so that they wouldn't have as much
reach or as much influence?
Mr. Roth. The term ``hard coding'' suggests that it was
permanent and immutable, and I wouldn't agree with that, no.
Mr. Jordan. But it did happen is what you are saying. There
was hard coded into some of these accounts of specific users,
by Twitter employees, this ability to filter and limit the
reach of that particular post or that particular tweet, I
should say.
Mr. Roth. Again, I wouldn't say that they were hard coded.
Mr. Jordan. Thank you.
Chairman Comer. The Chair recognizes Ms. Brown for five
minutes.
Ms. Brown. Thank you, Chairman Comer and Ranking Member
Raskin, for holding this hearing today. Social media has been a
revolutionary gift of the 21st century, from helping people
across the world build meaningful connections to learning a new
skill set. These platforms have played a significant role in
creating an interconnected global world. When handled
responsibly, social media serves as a useful resource with many
positive outcomes. However, social media is not without its
flaws, and the challenges are much larger than any specific
incident or decision by one private company.
Recently, social media has contributed to the rise in
amplification of domestic extremist content and organizing.
This is extremely concerning and, unfortunately, is
contributing to the division of our society. According to an
Anti-Defamation League survey, 66 percent of the LGBTQ-plus
respondents--that is a full two-thirds--experienced harassment
online. Thirty-seven percent of Jewish respondents and 34
percent of African Americans respondents said the same. This is
truly disturbing.
The power that social media has to inspire real world
action, both good and bad, is well-known to all of us, and
sadly, the hate online does not stay online. Social media has
the power to influence not just here at home, but those who are
watching us abroad. For example, an online disinformation
campaign by a hostile foreign power can have the power to sway
a close election.
So, Mr. Roth, in a recent interview, you stated,
``Beginning in 2017, every platform, Twitter included, started
to invest really heavily in building out an election integrity
function.'' So, I ask, were those investments driven in part by
bipartisan concerns raised by Congress and the U.S. Government
after the Russian influence operation in the 2016 Presidential
election?
Mr. Roth. Thank you for the question. Yes, those concerns
were fundamentally bipartisan. The Senate's investigation of
Russian active measures was a bipartisan effort, the report was
bipartisan, and I think we all share concerns with what Russia
is doing to meddle in our elections.
Ms. Brown. Thank you so much. Did those investments include
a better information sharing mechanism with the Federal
Government?
Mr. Roth. Yes. I think one of the key failures that we
identified after 2016 was that there was very little
information coming from the government and from intelligence
services to the private sector. The private sector had the
power to remove bots and to take down foreign disinformation
campaigns, but we didn't always know where to look without
leads supplied by the intelligence community. That was one of
the failures highlighted in the Senate Intelligence Committee's
report and in the Mueller investigation, and that was one of
the things we set out to fix in 2017.
Ms. Brown. Thank you for that. And, Mr. Roth, were those
communication channels useful to Twitter as they worked to
combat foreign influence operations?
Mr. Roth. Absolutely. I would say they were one of the most
essential pieces of how Twitter prepared for future elections.
Ms. Brown. Thank you so much. So clearly, we must come
together as a committee to stand up and protect our country
from foreign election interference and disinformation. I
sincerely look forward to spending more time with this
Committee working to understand how to fight back against our
adversaries and strengthen our democracy. And with that, Mr.
Chairman, I yield back.
Chairman Comer. Thank you very much. The Chair recognizes
Ms. Greene for five minutes.
Ms. Greene. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Baker, Ms. Gadde,
Mr. Roth, and Ms. Navaroli. You can consider your speech
canceled during my time because you canceled mine. You see, you
permanently banned my personal Twitter account, and it was my
campaign account also. So, let's talk about election
interference, shall we?
January 2, 2002, you permanently banned my Twitter account.
This was the account that I would put my campaign ads on, raise
money on, fight back when attacked with lies, and be able to
talk to my voters in my district, but you banned it, and then
let me explain--my account was not reinstated until November
21, 2022. That was after my election on November 8.
You know, at your company or your former company where you
worked, Twitter employees, over 98 percent of them donate to
Democrats. So, while you coordinated with DHS, the FBI, the
CIA, our government, and outside groups to permanently shadow
ban conservative Americans and candidates like me and the
former President of the United States, President Donald J.
Trump, you were censoring and wrongfully violating our First
Amendment free speech rights. Guess what? None of you hold
security clearances, none of you are elected, and none of you
represent 750,000 people, like I do.
Let's explain: 52 United States Law 10101, ``No person
shall intimidate, threaten, coerce, or attempt to stop any
other person for the purpose of interfering with their rights
to vote or to vote as he may choose.'' You didn't shadow ban or
permanently ban my Democrat opponent. No, you did that to me,
and that was wrong and it was against the law. You see, not
only was it me that you violated my First Amendment rights. You
violated countless conservative Americans' rights. These were
doctors that were trying to tell the truth about COVID, doctors
that were having success treating people with Ivermectin that
you all would not allow to be talked about on your platform.
These were parents complaining about their school boards,
teaching gender lies in their schools, biological males
entering their daughter's bathrooms and sports. These were also
people questioning the 2020 election. And guess what? That's
Americans First Amendment Right. These were people talking
about voting machines. You know what? Democrats did that in
2019 before the 2020 election. On Twitter, people could
question elections such as 2016, saying Hillary won, but in
2020, no one could question elections saying Trump won.
You abuse the power of a large corporation, Big Tech, to
censor Americans, and you want to know something? Guess what? I
am so glad that you are censored down. I am so glad you have
lost your jobs. Thank God Elon Musk bought Twitter. And you
know what? Let's talk about something a little bit further. It
is amazing to me, Mr. Roth, as the Head of Trust and Safety at
Twitter, your ability, or should I say inability, to remove
child porn. Now, here is something that disgusts me about you--
in your doctoral dissertation entitled, ``Gay Data'', you
argued that minors should have access to Grindr, an adult male
gay hookup app. Minors? Really?
You know, Elon Musk took over Twitter and he banned 44,000
accounts that were promoting child porn. You permanently banned
my Twitter account, but you allowed child porn all over
Twitter. Twitter had become a platform, you said, connecting
queer young adults. You also wrote on Twitter in 2010, ``Can
high school students ever meaningfully consent to sex with
their teachers?'' In 2021, while you were the director of Trust
and Safety on Twitter, an underage boy and his mother announced
a lawsuit against Twitter because Twitter was benefiting from
and refused to remove a lewd video featuring this boy and
another minor. That is repulsive. But you violated me. What
were my tweets?
OK. Let's talk about them. I was talking about the deaths
being reported on there. By the way, that is on the CDC
website. I was also saying that I didn't think any entity
should enforce a non-FDA approved vaccine or mask. Guess what?
A lot of people agreed with me, but you called that COVID
misinformation. By the way, I am a Member of Congress and you
are not. I also said the controversial COVID-19 vaccines should
not be forced on our military. You want to know something?
Republicans stopped that in the NDAA.
Chairman Comer. The lady's time has expired.
Ms. Greene. And your time is expired. I yield back. Thank
you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Comer. The Chair recognizes Mr. Gomez.
Mr. Gomez. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Roth, please
explain to us why Ms. Marjorie Taylor Greene or the
Representative from Georgia was removed from Twitter.
Mr. Roth. Thank you for the question, Congressman. My
recollection is that her personal account was banned from
Twitter after repeated written notices due to repeated
violations of the Twitter rules.
Mr. Gomez. Can you add a little specificity to the
violation of the Twitter rules?
Mr. Roth. Yes. Again, I didn't have access to my twitter
email, documents, anything that would have let me prepare to
answer that in more detail. But my recollection is that the
Congresswoman repeatedly violated Twitter's policies about
sharing misinformation about COVID-19. She received multiple
written warnings about that conduct. She received multiple
timeouts related to that conduct. And then ultimately,
consistent with the written and published policy, those
repeated violations resulted in her account being permanently
suspended.
Ms. Greene. Mr. Chairman----
Mr. Gomez. So, in essence----
Ms. Greene [continuing]. I would like to take a point of
personal privilege?
Mr. Gomez. It is still my time.
Chairman Comer. We will stop the clock----
Mr. Gomez. It's my time, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Comer. Point of order. Now Mr. Raskin.
Mr. Raskin. Yes. I don't believe that Members of this
Committee have the right to interrupt someone's testimony,
because their name was----
Ms. Greene. Point of personal privilege. You were
mentioning my name, Mr. Raskin.
Mr. Raskin. You know, I understand, but that is not the
rule, Ms. Green. I don't think a Member----
Ms. Greene. That is the rule in Congress. We can take a
point of personal privilege.
Mr. Raskin. Well, then I would like Parliamentarian to rule
on whether any Member of this Committee has the right to
interrupt a witness's testimony because they mentioned the name
of a Member of Congress.
Ms. Greene. You mentioned my name, Mr. Raskin.
Mr. Raskin. Yes, I am not testifying.
Chairman Comer. The Chair recognizes Ms. Greene.
Ms. Greene. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Comer. For your point of privilege, very briefly.
Ms. Greene. Thank you. For Mr. Roth, who made you in charge
of what is true and----
Chairman Comer. Well----
Mr. Gomez. Does she get to reopen her questions?
Chairman Comer. We will go back to Mr. Gomez, and, Mr.
Gomez, please remember the decorum of the Committee. We will
restart the clock now. You didn't lose any time. The Chair
recognizes Mr. Gomez.
Mr. Gomez. Thank you so much. The gentlelady from Georgia
was suspended from Twitter for knowingly and consistently
spreading conspiracy theories about COVID-19 vaccines, right,
which is shameful, shameful, especially in a pandemic where
millions of people have lost their lives. With that, I yield
rest of my time to the gentleman from New York, Mr. Goldman.
Mr. Goldman. Thank you, Mr. Gomez. Let's talk about the so-
called Twitter Files, which my Republican colleagues seem to
think are God's gift to journalism. In one about the Hunter
Biden laptop, the author says that every single fact in the New
York Post story was accurate, and, Chairman Comer, I noticed
you blew up the cover of that New York Post story, which I
appreciate you doing that because I would like to dig into this
article. The very first paragraph says, ``Hunter Biden
introduced his father to a top executive at an Ukrainian energy
firm less than a year before the elder Biden pressured
government officials in Ukraine into firing a prosecutor who
was investigating the company.'' That is false, 100 percent
false.
Chairman Comer. Is the gentleman sure about that?
Mr. Goldman. Yes. In fact, I am sure about that. And as the
lead counsel in the first impeachment investigation, we proved
that he was actually fired because he was not prosecuting
corruption, not that he was fired because he was prosecuting
corruption.
Chairman Comer. Actually, would the gentleman yield?
Corruption of the President son's company----
Mr. Goldman. I would like to reclaim my time.
Chairman Comer. The gentleman is recognized.
Mr. Goldman. The fact that Joe Biden fired, consistent with
U.S. policy and every single European country, the prosecutor
general in Ukraine because he did not prosecute corruption,
including at companies like Burisma, has been proven over and
over and over. And if you want to know who actually prosecuted
Burisma, Chairman Comer, you should talk to the British
authorities because they were the ones who were prosecuting
Burisma, and they couldn't get any cooperation from the
Ukrainian Prosecutor General. So, that's why he was fired. So,
right off the top, the very first paragraph of this so-called
bombshell story is completely false.
Now, what is the allegation that we are hearing from our
Republican colleagues about the connection to Joe Biden and
Burisma? It is an email from a Burisma employee thanking Hunter
Biden for organizing a meeting with the Vice President Biden.
We know nothing about the substance of that meeting. We know
nothing about how long they met. It was not on Vice President
Biden's schedule. And, in fact, I would ask my Republican
colleagues, do you meet with foreign businessmen? Do you meet
with foreign diplomats? If we were to say to you every single
time you met with somebody that you have discussed something
that you're voting on, how would you react? It is preposterous.
And, Chairman Comer, you have said in your opening
statement, that Joe Biden lied to the American people. That is
a bold, bold accusation, and so far, we have seen no actual
evidence of any lies or any support for Joe Biden being
involved in anything having to do with Ukraine, other than
promoting U.S. former policy. And I hope that you are not
abusing the power as chairman of this Committee, and that you
are not wasting taxpayer dollars on a fishing expedition into a
civilian child of a president for political purposes. I yield
back.
Chairman Comer. The gentleman yields. Quick question. You
don't have to. It your choice. You yield?
Mr. Goldman. Yes, please. I would love to discuss this.
Chairman Comer. Are you admitting that Joe Biden did get
the prosecutor in Ukraine fired?
Mr. Goldman. I think it is very clear that Vice President
Biden, along with all of our allies in Europe, pressured
Ukraine to fire a corrupt prosecutor general who was not
charging corruption cases where that would have included
potentially Burisma.
Chairman Comer. Corruption with his son's company?
Mr. Goldman. Yes. In fact, what he wanted was the
prosecutor general to prosecute corruption and the allegations
that you are making and that the Russians are making because
this is all part of Russian propaganda, is that Burisma was
corrupt and Joe Biden was trying to stop an investigation into
Burisma. That is categorically false and there is no evidence
of it.
Voice. Mr. Chairman?
Chairman Comer. We are going to recognize one more speaker.
We have been requested by the presenters for a brief bathroom
break. If you will allow us, we have one more questioner and
then we will take that break. The Chair recognizes Mr. Timmons
for five minutes, and then we will have a 5 to 10-minute break.
Mr. Timmons?
Mr. Timmons. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We have a big picture
problem right now, and we are talking about Twitter,
specifically, and Hunter Biden's laptop, but it is not just
that. It is the general trend of the media, social media, the
FBI, DOJ, doing one side's bidding. That is the issue. There
are mistakes that have been made, and we keep looking back at
these mistakes and say, oh, that shouldn't have happened that
way, we are going to have a new policy to avoid that from
happening again, but every mistake benefits one side. Every
mistake benefits one side. Let's go back to 2016.
The Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign
paid Fusion GPS to fabricate the Steele dossier, which was the
basis of this entire Russia collusion investigation, special
counsel. We spent $40 million pursuing it. There was no
evidence of the Trump campaign colluding with Russia. There was
none. It was actually fabricated by the Democrats and the
Clinton campaign to create a narrative to damage President
Trump, so that was a mistake. We all know that now. That was
the conclusion of that investigation. And as a side note, that
is why Adam Schiff is no longer on Intel because he lied about
that investigation. He said as the Chair of Intel, I have all
this information. He abused his position, and that is why he
was removed from Intel.
So next, we go to 2020. Another mistake. We have something
that is real labeled as something that is fake. We tell the
American people that we are going to have an honest, open
conversation about issues, about challenges that our country
faces, and everybody has their own facts. The Congressman from
New York is mentioning his facts. It is just very bizarre that
Hunter Biden is making tens of thousands of dollars a month
with no credentials from business in Ukraine, whether they are
being investigated. Who knows? I mean, these are all
speculation, and it is something the American people can't
really digest because we don't know the answers to it. And when
we are told the answers by our government, by big corporations,
by Big Tech, and they are repeatedly wrong, it creates a trust
issue. It creates a trust issue. So, the American people do not
trust what they are being told. They do not trust what they are
being told.
We are going to dig into the Hunter Biden laptop briefly.
Jack Dorsey has said that he did not make that decision. Ms.
Gadde, did you make the decision to censor the Hunter Biden
laptop story?
Ms. Gadde. Yes, I was involved in that decision.
Mr. Timmons. Who was the final arbiter because Mr. Roth has
said he disagreed with that decision. Who was the final person
that said we are going to do this?
Ms. Gadde. I ultimately approved that decision.
Mr. Timmons. OK. Thank you. Mr. Roth, you have said
previously that you did not believe that the New York Post
story violated any policy. You have said that multiple times
today. How many times other than this one did something get
banned or flagged that you disagreed with? Is this the only
one?
Mr. Roth. No, sir. Not at all.
Mr. Timmons. OK. Twitter repeatedly banned and censored
material that you thought shouldn't be censored. Is that fair?
Mr. Roth. These are challenging judgment calls, and I think
reasonable minds can differ about whether a given piece of
content does or does not----
Mr. Timmons. OK. But on this one, you did disagree. I just
want to say, the American people need to have valid information
to process decisions. I would argue that denying the American
people the substance of Hunter Biden's laptop was wrong. You
got photos and text messages of Hunter Biden committing
multiple felonies, which was never actually criminal--there
were no criminal charges. Must be nice. Hunter Biden and James
Biden were negotiating deals with Chinese Communist Party
agents, one of whom Hunter Biden classified as the spy chief of
China.
We have evidence at least one of Hunter's deals with
Chinese Communist Party-linked entities. Joe Biden was given a
10-percent equity stake in the joint venture. We have evidence
that the Bidens were trying to sell America's natural resources
to the Chinese. And this is my personal favorite: evidence that
the Bidens and a Chinese energy company owned by the Chinese
Communist Party had leased office space no further than three
miles from where we are sitting right now, and the man running
for President had his own office in that office space, his own
personal office. Do you think the American people deserve to
know that? I do.
I think that there is a lot of smoke surrounding the
Biden's relationship with the Chinese Communist Party, there is
a lot of smoke surrounding the Biden's relationship with
Ukraine, and they deserve to have the facts to make a decision
for themselves. You all got it wrong in 2016 with Russian
collusion. You got it wrong with Hunter Biden's laptop in 2020.
You got it wrong regarding COVID at every turn. The American
people deserve better.
Mr. Raskin. Would the gentleman yield for question?
Mr. Jordan. The gentleman yield? The gentleman yield?
Mr. Raskin. Would the gentleman yield for question?
Chairman Comer. The gentleman yield?
Mr. Timmons. Yes.
Chairman Comer. The Chair now recognizes Mr. Jordan.
Mr. Jordan. Mr. Baker, did you talk to any of the 51 former
intel officials who sent the now famous letter on October 19,
2020, saying that the Russian story in the New York Post had
all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation?
Have you talked to any of those 51 prior to that letter being
sent on the 19th or after?
Mr. Baker. Sir, I can't remember who is on that group,
but----
Mr. Jordan. Clapper, Brennan, Morell.
Mr. Baker. I have talked to those people during the course
of my career, yes.
Mr. Jordan. Have you talked to them in your time at
Twitter?
Mr. Baker. I can't remember who is on that list, so I am
afraid----
Mr. Jordan. No. How about the three I just mentioned,
Clapper and Brennan?
Chairman Comer. OK. All right. Last question.
Mr. Raskin. Mr. Chairman, regular order. Regular order.
Chairman Comer. Last question, but feel free to answer,
then we'll recognize Mr. Raskin.
Mr. Raskin. Well, I was going to ask the gentleman before
he left whether he is denying the Russian disinformation
propaganda campaign that we have heard about from witnesses, or
he is just denying Russian collusion, which was something that
Mr. Mueller specifically did not address in his final report.
He said collusion is not a legal concept he was looking at,
just a conspiracy. And he said there wasn't substantial enough
evidence to charge conspiracy, but there were dozens of
contacts between Donald Trump and the Russians that were
documented in that report. That is all I wanted to say.
Chairman Comer. The Chair recognizes Mr. Jordan, then we
will recess for----
Mr. Jordan. Just to restate the question that is on the
table to Mr. Baker. Did he talk with Mr. Clapper, Mr. Brennan,
or anyone else that he knows of on that who signed that letter?
Mr. Raskin. Point of order. Mr. Chairman, whose time is
this? What is going on?
Mr. Jordan. The Chairman's time.
Chairman Comer. This was a remaining three seconds of----
Mr. Raskin. He doesn't have remaining time. He has gone
over by a minute.
Chairman Comer. We are over. Mr. Baker, feel free to answer
the question, if you want, and then we will take a recess.
Mr. Baker. Mr. Jordan, I don't recall discussing the
publication that they did about the Hunter Biden laptop with
any of those people.
Chairman Comer. We will stand in recess for five minutes.
When we return, Mr. Garcia will begin our questioning. We are
in recess for 5 to 10 minutes.
[Recess.]
Chairman Comer. Again, I want to thank the witnesses for
your indulgence, and I know it is a long day. You are doing
great. We really appreciate it. Now we are resuming
questioning, and the Chair recognizes Mr. Garcia for five
minutes.
Mr. Garcia. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank our
witnesses. And I just want to just start off also by just
apologizing to our witnesses, particularly Mr. Roth, for just
the homophobic rant and comments that were recently just made
from the gentlelady from Georgia. That was really shameful. And
I know that we are here to talk about serious issues, and we
are having conversations about Grindr and other issues, which
is not really what this hearing is about. So, apologize to all
of our witnesses.
I want to note that I am someone that you would probably
call a Twitter superuser. I use the social platform constantly.
I communicate regularly, it is what I use to get my news. It is
how I find out what is happening in popular culture. And I
admire what Jack Dorsey, Evan Williams, and Christopher Stone
actually tried to build as a company. I wish I could say the
same for what the platform is today. I think, to me and to many
other users, we have seen the site currently degraded. We have
seen Mr. Musk more interested in attacking journalists and
uplifting conspiracy theories than actually running a company,
and I think we can all agree that just, overall, the service is
substantially degraded. I think just an example is the forced
For You page mess that I personally don't like, and I think
most folks don't as well.
But I want to know more seriously that Mr. Musk and the
current team has also done damage as far as trust and safety on
the platform. He has gutted the Trust and Safety teams, have
been described as eliminated content management systems, and
the human rights team, which, as we know, has ceased to
operate.
I do want to just take a minute to thank Mr. Roth, and
particularly Ms. Navaroli, and your teams, I know that you are
trying your best. I want to thank all of the folks that worked
at Twitter because they believed in its mission, a mission I am
not sure holds true today completely, but it is one that I know
a lot of folks worked on, and so just thank you for that work.
And mistakes were made, and clearly you have actually lived up
to those mistakes and the issues that have existed.
But I especially want to thank you for your work around the
pandemic. The pandemic took over a million American lives,
1,300 in my own city back home. And your decisions and content
moderation actually saved countless lives in this country,
including the work you did by moderating or banning Members
even of this Committee, who peddled in lies and were actively
causing death and harm to others. And so, for that work on
content moderation, I want to thank you.
And I want to go back to something that Mr. Roth said,
briefly. You had mentioned earlier in this hearing that you
thought that currently there is still systemic election
interference and interference happening. How serious do you
think the current threat from Russia and other countries is to
current election interference?
Mr. Roth. I think we can look to the evidence from the
midterms to know that these campaigns are ongoing and they are
serious, and it is not just Russia, Iran and China, though,
they are the big players. There is now a playbook for how
election interference works, and it is, unfortunately, all too
cheap and all too easy for countries to try to carry this out.
Mr. Garcia. Thank you. I think so. I think it is pretty
clear what we have learned today. One thing we have learned,
which hasn't been much by the way, is that there is current
election interference happening today by Russia and other
actors, and so that is something that is serious. That is what
the focus of this hearing should actually be about versus all
of this kind of nonsense, and lies, and conspiracy theories
that this Committee is actually focused on today. I want to
take the remaining balance of my time and yield to Ms. Ocasio-
Cortez.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. I thank the gentleman from California. I
would like to raise and follow-up on a point that the
opposition and the other side of the aisle is making, which is
trying to insinuate that there is something scandalous or
unusual about Federal agency outreach to social media platforms
and other organizations such as Twitter. The insinuation here
is that in the FBI and other agencies reaching out to Twitter,
that there is something nefarious about this, that this was
some sort of partisan weaponization or attempt to intimidate.
But we actually have quite a documented history of
representatives from the Trump Administration hailing the
progress that the government had made in working with companies
like Twitter to counter foreign influence operations and other
areas of concern.
In early March 2020, right before the Super Tuesday primary
elections, several Trump Administration officials, including
Mike Pompeo, Bill Barr, Chad Wolf, and acting director of
National Intelligence, Richard Grenell, issued a statement
praising the government's cooperation with the private sector
to fend off foreign interference, and said that relationship
was, ``Stronger than it has ever been.'' This was around this
whole time where there is this grievance around this. And
listen to what DHS Secretary Chad Wolf had to say just weeks
before the 2020 Presidential election: ``We now have direct
lines of communication with tech, and social media companies,
and election officials so that both parties can seamlessly take
action against false information spreading online.'' I would
argue that this information from the Trump Administration would
say that they would support your decision in temporarily
suspending this disinformation that seemed to be coming out
from the New York Post. So with that, I yield back to the
Chair.
Chairman Comer. The gentlelady here yields back. The Chair
recognizes Mr. Burchett for five minutes.
Mr. Burchett. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Ms. Gadde, Charlie
Kirk and Dan Bongino are conservative commentators. Is that a
fair characteristic? Just ``yes'' or ``no'' would be fine.
Ms. Gadde. I believe so, but I am not----
Mr. Burchett. OK.
Ms. Gadde [continuing]. Familiar with them in detail.
Mr. Burchett. OK. The posters behind me show the side of
Twitter that is not available to users. Is that correct?
Ms. Gadde. This appears to be a view of some of our agent
tooling, but I did not have access to that, so I am not very
familiar with that.
Mr. Burchett. OK. Well, Ms. Gadde, the labels identify
status that have been assigned to these accounts. Is that
correct?
Ms. Gadde. I don't know.
Mr. Burchett. Madam, these are your internal things. You
are telling me you don't receive these? You don't know what
they mean?
Ms. Gadde. Representative, I did not have access to these
tools, and so I don't know. They look familiar to me.
Mr. Burchett. As an executive, you did not have access to
inside information at Twitter? OK. Ms. Gadde, Mr. Bongino's
account, there are a few words under the verified and active.
Can you read the first two labels under verified and active
there, the yellow ones?
Ms. Gadde. ``Notification spikes.'' ``Search blacklist.''
Mr. Burchett. All right. Thank you, Madam. Mr. Bongino has
more than 3.5 million Twitter followers. Is that correct? What
do you say?
Ms. Gadde. I am sorry. I don't know the answer to that
question.
Mr. Burchett. OK. Well, that is correct. Let's look at Mr.
Kirk's account. Ms. Gadde, can I get you to read the yellow
labels on Mr. Kirk's account? Can you see those?
Ms. Gadde. I am sorry. I can't see them from right here.
Mr. Burchett. All right. Do you know that Mr. Kirk has
almost 2 million followers?
Ms. Gadde. I was not aware of that.
Mr. Burchett. OK. Let me ask you, what is a search
blacklist?
Ms. Gadde. I do not know specifically what that is, but I
could make a guess, if that would be helpful.
Mr. Burchett. Why don't you make a guess for me, please?
Ms. Gadde. When I was at Twitter, there was an ability to
prevent something from appearing in one of the tabs of search
results.
Mr. Burchett. OK. Thank you. What does ``do not amplify''
mean?
Ms. Gadde. To the best of my recollection, when I was at
Twitter, it would mean that we would not recommend or amplify
that content in the parts of Twitter where Twitter was making
recommendations.
Mr. Burchett. OK. Thank you, Madam. In 2018, you said that
Twitter does not shadow ban. Twitter did, however, engage in
what is called visibility filtering. One Twitter employee
described visibility filtering as a way for us to suppress what
people see to different levels. Do you agree with that
characterization?
Ms. Gadde. I am sorry. Can you please repeat the question?
Mr. Burchett. OK. They engaged in what is called visibility
filtering. One Twitter employee described visibility filtering
as a way for us to suppress what people see to different
levels. Do you agree with that characterization?
Ms. Gadde. I agree that visibility filtering does give an
ability to change.
Mr. Burchett. OK. Shadow banning, ma'am, is understood that
the practice is limiting the visibility of a user's post
without their knowledge. How is visibility filtering any
different?
Ms. Gadde. Representative, I believe there are different
definitions of ``shadow banning.''
Mr. Burchett. OK. But you said that Twitter in 2018 does
not shadow ban. Was that a truthful statement, ma'am? Was that
a lie?
Ms. Gadde. At that time, I specifically defined ``shadow
banning'' to mean something different----
Mr. Burchett. OK.
Ms. Gadde [continuing]. Than visibility filtering.
Mr. Burchett. You also said that Twitter does not shadow
ban based on political viewpoints or ideology. Do you stand by
those comments?
Ms. Gadde. While I was at Twitter, to the best of my
knowledge, we did not do that.
Mr. Burchett. OK. Mr. Roth, on January 22, 2017, you
tweeted that there were actual Nazis living in the White House.
Do you still stand by that comment? Yes or no?
Mr. Roth. Sorry. I regret the language I used. No, I do
not.
Mr. Burchett. OK. Mr. Roth, earlier in your testimony, you
said you regretted tweeting that, ``Actual Nazis are living in
the White House.'' However, Iran's ayatollah sent antisemitic
tweets, one stating, ``Israel is a malignant cancerous tumor
that has to be removed and eradicated.'' ``Yes'' or ``no,'' did
Twitter ever ban the ayatollah, removed this hateful
antisemitic tweet? ``Yes'' or ``no.''
Mr. Roth. To the best of my knowledge, Twitter did not
remove that, no.
Mr. Burchett. The answer is no. Mr. Chairman, it is clear,
conservative voices are being silenced on social media and the
mainstream. I appreciate this hearing. I might also suggest we
look into holding one on DirecTV, Newsmax, and OAN. I give the
rest of my time to Mr. Jordan.
Mr. Jordan. I thank the gentleman for yielding and for his
good questions. So, the user knows when their account has been
suspended or blocked, but they don't know when they have some
of these gold terms that were under Mr. Bongino and Mr. Kirk.
Is that right, Mr. Roth?
Mr. Roth. As of the time that I worked at Twitter, yes,
that is correct.
Mr. Jordan. So, they don't know if they are on the search
blacklist. They don't know if they are on the do not amplify.
They don't know that?
Mr. Roth. That is correct. Twitter did not disclose that.
Mr. Jordan. So, you did that to these two accounts. What I
want to know was did you know, Mr. Roth, if that was at the
prompting of anyone from the government.
Chairman Comer. The gentleman's time has expired, but
please answer the question.
Mr. Roth. No, sir. I am not aware of any requests or orders
or demands or anything from the government requesting that
visibility filtering be applied to those accounts or any
others.
Chairman Comer. The Chair recognizes Mr. Frost for five
minutes.
Mr. Frost. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Look, I mean, I have
been sitting here for over two hours, and I am still not really
seeing the point of this hearing. Is it to solve the problems
of the American people, what people are struggling with? No. We
get it. My Republican colleagues wish that the Hunter Biden
story would have helped them win the 2020 election, and that
didn't happen, and so they are angry about it, and that is the
point of this hearing. You know, it was the actually the
foundation of the Chairman's opening statement. It is why he
brought up that poll on the 2020 election. That is what this is
all about. And so, I want to say to my colleagues, don't worry,
there are still many platforms, you can spread disinformation
on--Parler, Truth Social--that have questionable editorial
policies, but aren't here today.
There was no collusion, as the witnesses have said under
oath. There was no pressuring from the U.S. Government, as we
heard under oath. We are wasting our time here bullying former
Twitter employees. It is calling the ref. So that way in the
future, when they want disinformation to be put on the
internet, social platforms will be scared to call them out down
the road. It is called calling the ref. But let's talk about
the root of this hearing.
My Republican colleagues would have folks believe that
Democrats are preparing for some sort of major culture war, and
there is a difference between a culture war and how culture
naturally changes, culture change. Some on this Committee are
very resistant to culture change. I mean, just yesterday, we
heard a Member equate immigration negatively to changing our
culture, Black and Brown folks coming into our country. The
reality is that culture changes and adopts. It welcomes more
people, it becomes more understanding, and it also decides to
reassess what is acceptable behavior and rhetoric. It could be
different now than it was in say, the 1950's. In this supposed
culture war, they often conflate the right to free speech with
the nonexistent right to not be criticized or held accountable
for what you say on the internet or even in real life. And just
because it is legal to say something and the government won't
throw you in jail for it, doesn't mean the rest of the world
and sometimes even your own family have to associate themselves
with you or your comments.
Mr. Roth, you help set up content moderation policy at
Twitter. What type of user tweets were more likely to get
limited? Did it have to do with racism, sexism, homophobia,
violence, or were you all looking for people who were
supporting President Trump and limiting those?
Mr. Roth. Our policies were built fundamentally to be
viewpoint neutral. They were focused on harm reduction, looking
to things like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights with a
focus on protecting people's safety, people's right to free and
fair elections, people's rights to free speech, and we built,
concern with those rights, into our policy.
Mr. Frost. So, being a decent human being?
Mr. Roth. That is certainly what we try to----
Mr. Frost. OK. Got you. Ms. Navaroli, earlier, you
testified about a 2019 tweet that was about President Trump,
and I think it was from Ms. Teigen. What was the tweet about?
Ms. Navaroli. Would you like me to give the direct quote?
Mr. Frost. Yes.
Ms. Navaroli. Please excuse my language. This is a direct
quote, but Chrissy Teigen referred to Donald Trump as a ``pussy
ass bitch''.
Mr. Frost. OK. Free speech. And what happened after Ms.
Teigen posted her tweet? What did the White House do? What did
the Trump White House do?
Ms. Navaroli. From my understanding, the White House
reached out to ask that this tweet be removed. It was my team's
job--this fell underneath the policy for abusive behaviors--and
then we evaluate it underneath our insults policy at that time
up to three insults were allowed. And so, it was our job to
determine how many insults were included within that phrase.
Mr. Frost. So, the Trump White House reach out to not an
agency, but the White House reached out and requested that you
remove the tweet.
Ms. Navaroli. From my understanding, yes.
Mr. Frost. OK. Mr. Roth, you mentioned a serious problem
with foreign interference in our elections. Did you see that
mass interference work more in support of right-wing candidates
like President Trump in 2016 or President Biden in 2020?
Mr. Roth. Thank you for the question. It is an important
one, and I don't think there is a clear or easy answer to this.
We saw Russian operatives playing both sides and often playing
them against each other. One of the most enraging interactions
that my team saw were accounts operated out of the same Russian
troll farm arguing with each other.
Mr. Frost. Got you.
Mr. Roth. And they were manufacturing drama, both on
Democratic sides and on the Republicans.
Mr. Frost. So, it's still a huge issue.
Mr. Roth. Absolutely. A hundred percent.
Mr. Frost. Well, there you have it. There are issues of Big
Tech. There are serious issues we need to litigate. Hunter
Biden's laptop is not one of them. And like many of my
colleagues have said, we need to talk about these issues, how
January 6 maybe could have been prevented if Twitter had taken
action due the hateful speech and how we have foreign
interference in our elections. Why are folks on this Committee,
so obsessed with Twitter's editorial decision on Hunter Biden's
laptop? Would they hold the same hearings of the editorial
decisions of Fox News and Newsmax? Free speech is about the
government limiting speech about the public.
My Governor, Ron DeSantis, is doing that right now. I have
a venue in my district that he is revoking the liquor license
of, trying to close because they had a drag show. We have
teachers who are not able to teach the curriculum that they
want because they disagree with Ron DeSantis and his view of
the world. That is limiting free speech. And I would love to
see this Committee bring in some of these Governors who are
abusing their power, like Governor DeSantis in my state of
Florida, to limit the free speech of people. I yield back.
Chairman Comer. The gentleman yields back. The Chair now
recognizes Mr. Gosar for five minutes.
Mr. Gosar. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for this important
hearing, and thank you for our witnesses for appearing as well.
I want to be clear. Despite claims and witness testimoneys,
government cannot deputize the private sector for actions that
would be otherwise be restricted by the Constitution, in this
case, the censorship of lawful speech.
Now, I want to direct you to a tweet over my shoulder sent
by President Trump on October 5, 2020, before Twitter banned
him from the platform. This was after President Trump has
become infected with COVID and received treatment at Walter
Reed Medical Center. It says in part, ``Don't be afraid of
COVID. Don't let it dominate your life.'' Do you see that, Mr.
Roth?
Mr. Roth. Yes, sir, I do.
Mr. Gosar. Close to an hour later, you received an email
from James Baker at Twitter, reproduced behind me, as well
saying, ``Why isn't this POTUS tweet a violation of our COVID-
19 policy, especially, `don't be afraid of COVID' statement?''
Isn't that correct, Mr. Roth?
Mr. Roth. Yes, I believe that is the email displayed.
Mr. Gosar. Now, Mr. Baker, was it your understanding that
the Twitter COVID-19 policy was people should be afraid of
COVID?
Mr. Baker. Sir, my recollection----
Mr. Gosar. ``Yes'' or ``no?''
Mr. Baker. Could you repeat the question, sir?
Mr. Gosar. Was it your understanding that Twitter's COVID-
19 policy was ``people should be afraid of COVID''?
Mr. Baker. At that point in time, I did not fully
understand what Twitter's COVID misinformation policy was, so I
was trying to understand.
Mr. Gosar. I am recapturing my time. So, maybe you thought
that Twitter's policy was that it should dominate people's
lives? Is that what you thought?
Mr. Baker. I am sorry. I have been having a hard time
hearing you, sir.
Mr. Gosar. So, is it the fact that Twitter doesn't dominate
people's lives? Is that the problem with that tweet?
Mr. Baker. At that point in time, I did not understand
fully. I was relatively new at Twitter, and I was trying to
understand what the policy was and, therefore, I was----
Mr. Gosar. OK. OK. I am recapturing my time. I just want to
ask you--the other two were asked. Where did you go to medical
school?
Mr. Baker. I beg your pardon?
Mr. Gosar. Where did you go to medical school?
Mr. Baker. I did not go to medical school.
Mr. Gosar. OK. Now I would like to have a ``yes'' or ``no''
from each of the witnesses on these following questions. Did
you or others at Twitter communicate with government officials
by means of disappearing messaging systems like Signal,
Snapchat, or Wickr? Mr. Baker, ``yes'' or ``no.''
Mr. Baker. Have I ever communicated with a government
official using those?
Mr. Gosar. ``Yes'' or ``no?''
Mr. Baker. I don't recall.
Mr. Gosar. Ms. Gadde?
Ms. Gadde. Not to the best of my recollection.
Mr. Gosar. Mr. Roth?
Mr. Roth. Yes.
Mr. Gosar. Ms. Navaroli?
Ms. Navaroli. Not to my recollection. No.
Mr. Gosar. Once again, did you or others at Twitter receive
requests from Federal law enforcement to allow criminal
activity or content whose distribution is criminal to proceed
on Twitter? Mr. Baker?
Mr. Baker. I am sorry. I don't understand the question,
sir.
Mr. Gosar. Ms. Gadde?
Ms. Gadde. Can you please repeat the question, sir?
Mr. Gosar. Mr. Roth?
Mr. Roth. If I understood the question correctly it is
whether we received requests to allow unlawful activity?
Mr. Gosar. Yes.
Mr. Roth. The answer is no.
Mr. Gosar. OK. Ms. Navaroli?
Ms. Navaroli. Not to my knowledge, no.
Mr. Gosar. Now, I would like to submit for the record an
article by the New York Post titled, ``Twitter Refused to
Remove Child Porn Because it Didn't Violate Policies.'' Ms.
Gadde, who was involved in this determination?
Ms. Gadde. I am not familiar with this situation.
Mr. Gosar. Mr. Roth, are you familiar with this?
Mr. Roth. No, sir, I am not.
Mr. Gosar. Once again, I would like a ``yes'' or ``no''
from each of the witnesses. Did you apply labels to users with
an administrative tool to downrank them? Mr. Baker?
Mr. Baker. I am sorry, sir. I am having a very hard time
hearing your questions.
Mr. Gosar. Ms. Gadde?
Ms. Gadde. I am having the same problem, sir. Can you
please repeat the question?
Mr. Gosar. Mr. Roth?
Mr. Roth. I am not sure I understood the question, sir.
Mr. Gosar. Well, I am asking you did anybody use an
administrative tool to downrank users?
Mr. Roth. Yes, sir. That is a part of Twitter's content
moderation capabilities.
Mr. Gosar. Mr. Baker?
Mr. Baker. Well, I will rely on Mr. Roth.
Mr. Gosar. OK. Ms. Gadde?
Ms. Gadde. Yes. We are very public about our recommendation
systems and how they work.
Mr. Gosar. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, today's witnesses
played a central powerful and disturbing role in limiting not
only free speech, but even people's good faith inquiries and
research regarding their own health. The internet is
increasingly where my constituents go to engage in civic
discourse. Our liberties as Americans will be diminished if we
do not recognize our speech is increasingly virtual and right
now subject to hostility and threatened through bans and
deplatforming. The suggestions by witnesses that all of the
removal of ``lawful, but awful speech'' was done in favor of
users is bunk. You could just as easily provide a content
filter option to allow lawful speech letting users decide what
lawful materials they do or don't want to engage with, but you
didn't. You censored and manipulated millions of people.
Do not allow people like this sitting in front of us today,
to be the arbiters of truth. I urge my colleagues to support my
Section 230 Reform, Stop the Censorship Act, which empowers
users with the editorial contract. As private businesses, you
always have a contract with your customers. Allow them to pick.
I yield back my time.
Chairman Comer. The gentleman yields back. The Chair
recognizes Ms. Balint.
Ms. Balint. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I want to say as a
former history teacher, I care a lot about the facts and the
details, so let's dive in.
On December 4, then Ranking Member Comer appeared on Fox
News and alleged that what Elon Musk's Twitter File showed was
``evidence that the Biden campaign colluded with Big Tech to
suppress a story that we now know is 100 percent true.'' That
is simply not true. It is not true based on what we knew then.
It is not true based on what we know now. Mr. Roth, in a
declaration to the FEC in December 2020, you stated, ``I did
not receive any communications from or have had any
communications with representatives of Biden for President, the
Democratic National Committee, or any of their agents regarding
the New York Post articles before Twitter implemented the
enforcement actions on October 14, 2020.'' Mr. Roth, do you
stand by that statement?
Mr. Roth. Yes, absolutely.
Ms. Balint. It is also worth noting that your colleague, I
believe Lauren Culbertson told the FEC the same thing. Ms.
Gadde, did anyone from the Biden campaign or the Democratic
National Committee direct Twitter to remove or take action
against the New York Post story?
Ms. Gadde. No.
Ms. Balint. Mr. Baker, same question to you, please.
Mr. Baker. Not to my knowledge, no.
Ms. Balint. So, the evidence is clear. Neither the Biden
campaign nor the DNC had anything to do with Twitter's
decisionmaking about the New York Post story. My Republican
colleagues are using what are otherwise innocuous emails to
suggest that there was somehow collusion between Twitter and
the Biden campaign. For example, in one email, and this is the
same one mentioned in Mr. Donalds' questioning earlier. In one
email selectively used by Elon Musk, one Twitter executive
sends another a series of hyperlinks on October 24, 2020, with
the comment, ``More to review from the Biden team.'' For the
record, this is Tweet Number 8 in the first installment of the
so-called Twitter Files. So, Ms. Gadde, are you familiar with
this email?
Ms. Gadde. No, I am not.
Ms. Balint. OK. So, just to be clear, this email has
nothing to do with the New York Post story. It is dated October
24, 2020, after Twitter had both made and reversed its
decisions about the New York Post story. Mr. Baker, do I have
that right?
Mr. Baker. Based on, I think, the exhibit that was shown
earlier. That sounds correct, yes.
Ms. Balint. So, Ms. Gadde, can you clarify for the record,
if you are able, to what is happening here?
Ms. Gadde. Can you please be more specific about----
Ms. Balint. With this email?
Ms. Gadde. I don't believe I was a recipient of that email
or reviewed it during my time at Twitter, so I am sorry. I
don't have familiarity with that.
Ms. Balint. That is OK. Mr. Baker?
Mr. Baker. To the best of my understanding, these were
tweets that the campaign had concerns about. I don't know the
details of those, and they were referred to Twitter, well, I am
not sure exactly why, but I can't get inside their heads, but
they were referred to Twitter, and Twitter reviewed them, and
someone, again, going off the exhibit, said they were handled.
I don't know what that means in terms of whether they took any
action or didn't take any action, but at least they addressed
the matter, so that is what I construe from that email.
Ms. Balint. Thank you, Mr. Baker. I appreciate that. So,
from my understanding of everything that we have heard today,
it is really not uncommon for outside entities, including, as
we have heard, Mr. Trump's campaign, to request that Twitter
remove content that violates the company's terms of service. Is
that correct? Ms. Gadde?
Ms. Gadde. That is very common globally.
Ms. Balint. Thank you. So, to the best of your ability to
answer, Ms. Gadde, were any decisions approved or acted upon
based on the political party making the request?
Ms. Gadde. No. Our teams were trained to enforce our rules
consistently and fairly without regard to any sort of political
ideology.
Ms. Balint. Thank you. So, I believe that what is happening
here is my Republican colleagues know that the premise of this
whole hearing is misleading. There is no evidence that the
Biden campaign had anything to do with the Hunter Biden, the
New York Post story. And the evidence we do have simply shows
that the Biden campaign did what the Trump campaign and
millions of Twitter users do routinely: flag content and ask
Twitter to conduct its own review to determine whether it
violates Twitter's own rules and policies. I yield back.
Chairman Comer. The lady yields. The Chair recognizes Mr.
Palmer for five minutes.
Mr. Palmer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to submit
a June 22 study conducted by Princeton University called
``Powered by Twitter: The Taliban's takeover of Afghanistan.''
Chairman Comer. Without objection, so ordered.
Mr. Palmer. This study covers the timeframe of April to
September 2021, which is the 4-5 month period between President
Biden's official announcement of America's intentions to
withdraw and the chaotic end of the American troop presence in
Afghanistan. The study found that the Taliban weaponized
Twitter and that Twitter's moderation policies failed. There
were more than 126,000 accounts in the Taliban support network,
and 83 percent of these Taliban associated accounts were
created before 2021, well before Twitter could claim that these
accounts represented a government. These accounts shared
graphic images and videos depicting dead and decomposing bodies
and rampantly spread disinformation about the facts on the
ground in direct violation of Twitter's public policies.
Taliban tweets were shared millions of times in the summer of
2020.
The study also found that three quarters of Taliban content
was produced by only 20 accounts, which suggests to me that
moderation efforts would have been relatively straightforward.
By the way, U.S. Government classifies the Taliban as an
insurgent group, in case some of my colleagues don't understand
what real insurgencies are.
Mr. Roth, why wasn't Twitter more effective at curtailing
the clear-cut content violations by Taliban Twitter accounts?
Mr. Roth. Thank you for the question, sir. At the time that
you referenced, I wasn't responsible for Twitter's work on
counterterrorism.
Mr. Palmer. Do you have any idea of why Twitter would allow
clear-cut violations by an insurgent group? And by the way,
they carried out multiple suicide attacks during the timeframe.
They were sending out these tweets, killing dozens and injuring
hundreds.
Mr. Roth. It is my understanding that Twitter's policies at
the time distinguished between some of the more violent
portions of the Taliban and some of the more political portions
of it. I am not rendering judgment on this.
Mr. Palmer. We still have that stuff. That is still up on
Twitter, and I just wonder how many content moderators were
assigned, if any, to check on these accounts? Additionally, it
appears that Twitter was profiting from Taliban's presence on
the platform in the lead-up to the overthrow of the Afghan
Government. Twitter placed ads from U.S. companies, including
Amazon, Disney, McDonald's, and on the Twitter accounts of the
Taliban news organization, and their spokespersons, and their
senior leaders. Ms. Gadde, did Twitter make money off placed
ads on Taliban Twitter accounts on August 26, 2021, when 13
U.S. men and women died in a suicide bombing?
Ms. Gadde. I have no knowledge of this matter.
Mr. Palmer. You don't have any knowledge about whether or
not these ads were up?
Ms. Gadde. I do not.
Mr. Palmer. According to Twitter, the decision to ban
President Trump was after a close review of his tweets and the
context surrounding them, specifically, how they are being
received and interpreted on and off Twitter. On June 3, 2018,
the Iranian Ayatollah Khomeini----
[Technical glitch - loss of electricity]
Voice. Now, did Twitter do that?
Mr. Palmer. Sounds like a green new deal to me.
Chairman Comer. Set the clock back.
Voice. Mr. Chairman? Mr. Chairman, let me say that in six
years, I haven't seen this happen, and it happened today----
Mr. Raskin. Mr. Chairman, we have got no power in the back
either.
Chairman Comer. They don't have any power back there
either.
Mr. Palmer. Well, I don't think we want to continue this
without our audio and visual.
Chairman Comer. We will stand at ease for a couple of more
minutes, and if this doesn't get resolved, then we may recess
for five minutes or so, but hopefully, it will be resolved in
the next minute or two.
Mr. Raskin. Mr. Chairman?
Chairman Comer. Mr. Raskin.
Mr. Raskin. Thank you. Could we use this moment to do some
unanimous consent introductions of materials?
Chairman Comer. Sure.
Mr. Raskin. Is that OK? I would like to introduce a March
27, 2019, article by Lori Robertson entitled, ``The Dossier Is
Not What Started All of This.'' This is just an answer to one
of our colleagues who said that the dossier is what started the
Russia investigation and that has been disproven by the
Department of Justice Inspector General.
Chairman Comer. Without objection, so ordered.
Any other Member have anything to add to the record?
[No response.]
Chairman Comer. OK. Since the microphones work and we can
see, the Ranking Member and I have discussed this, the biggest
issue will be the timer, right? So, we are going to have to
manually time it. Would you agree, Mr. Palmer, to----
Mr. Palmer. I think I have to----
Chairman Comer. Yes. Why don't you all work with us on
that. You have 2 1/2 minutes left. Does that sound right, Gary?
Mr. Palmer. I thought it was, like, four.
Chairman Comer. I think it was 2 1/2 minutes and something.
Mr. Palmer. All right.
Chairman Comer. So, if everyone's OK?
Mr. Palmer. Mr. Chairman, I am going to have to repeat a
statement so----
Chairman Comer. OK.
Mr. Palmer. Two-forty-five. Fair enough?
Mr. Raskin. Well, let's give him three minutes.
Chairman Comer. All right. We will give you three minutes.
Mr. Palmer. OK.
Chairman Comer. The TV camera is not working. That might be
a problem, the C-SPAN camera. We will stand at ease for a
moment. The C-SPAN camera is not working. OK. For how long?
OK. So, we have been informed the whole quadrant
electricity is out. We can't have the hearing if C-SPAN is not
on, so we are going to take a 10-minute recess, and I apologize
for this. This is beyond our control. So, we will take a 10-
minute recess and if any of the witnesses need a break or
anything, we will help you get through the crowd. We stand in
recess for 10 minutes.
[Recess.]
Chairman Comer. We will call the meeting back to order, and
I apologize. We have never had this happen when the electricity
went out. The computer is flickering, but the C-SPAN is
working, so we are being recorded again, according to the
rules. Where we left off, Mr. Palmer had three minutes
remaining, so I now yield three minutes to Mr. Palmer.
Mr. Palmer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let's try this again.
According to Twitter, the decision to ban President Trump
was after a close review of his tweets and the context around
them, specifically how they are being received and interpreted
on and off Twitter. On June 3, 2018, the Iranian Ayatollah
Khomeini tweeted, ``Israel is a malignant cancerous tumor in
the West Asian region and has to be removed and eradicated. It
is possible and it will happen.'' This tweet remains on Twitter
to this day. Mr. Roth, how do you believe this tweet from the
leader of Iran calling for the eradication of Israel was
received and interpreted on and off Twitter?
Mr. Roth. I couldn't say for sure how that tweet was
interpreted.
Mr. Palmer. You would have a pretty good idea, though, of
how many retweets and the amount of traffic it got?
Mr. Roth. Only from what I can see in that illustration.
Mr. Palmer. Why does the Iranian leader who has explicitly
pledged to eradicate the Jewish State of Israel get to remain
on Twitter? Mr. Roth?
Mr. Roth. Like all of Twitter's users, the Ayatollah is
subject to the same set of rules. And while I can't speak for
Twitter's decisions today, I can say that Twitter took a number
of enforcement actions against the Ayatollah's account the same
way that we would against anybody.
Mr. Palmer. That is still up. You understand how
hypocritical this is, right? You banned a sitting U.S.
President and a sitting Member of Congress, Marjorie Taylor
Greene, while a man who has pledged death to America and can
openly call for the death of millions of Jewish people, and yet
not be removed from Twitter. Do you understand how that looks,
how hypocritical that is? I am asking Mr. Baker, Ms. Gadde, Mr.
Roth, Ms. Navaroli. That is amazing, but it shows hypocrisy at
Twitter.
I want to pivot here, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Goldman made a very
troubling statement claiming that as Vice President, Joe Biden
fired the attorney general of Ukraine. Since he had knowledge
of this prior to becoming a Member of Congress, Mr. Goldman
should provide to the Committee documentation about this
action. We should know who authorized Vice President Biden to
take this action against the Ukrainian attorney general. We
need to know was there an investigation to justify the firing
of the Ukrainian attorney general, and if yes, who conducted
it. He needs to provide all details involving this action,
including Vice President Biden's threat to withhold a billion
dollars of U.S. funding if the Ukrainian AG was not fired. And
who authorized Vice President Biden to make that threat? I
would request that the Committee look into this, and I yield
back.
Chairman Comer. The gentleman yields back. The Chair now
recognizes Ms. Lee for five minutes.
Ms. Lee. Thank you, Mr. Chair. This has been an incredibly
electric hearing. It would be funny if it weren't real life. I
understand my colleagues on the other side of the aisle want to
be victims so very badly, but, Ms. Navaroli, if I understand
you correctly, public criticism and allegations of anti-
conservative bias are actually making Twitter and other social
media companies less willing to enforce their own policies
against political conservatives, correct?
Ms. Navaroli. Yes, that was my understanding based on
research that was done at Twitter.
Ms. Lee. Meaning the same Republicans insisting on making
themselves a victim is working?
Ms. Navaroli. Could you repeat the question?
Ms. Lee. The same Republicans, folks on this panel who are
insisting on making themselves victims in this conversation
about Twitter censorship and other accusations they have made,
is this working because of the conservative bias and the
implications of it or the allegations of conservative bias?
Ms. Navaroli. I----
Ms. Lee. In other words, are the allegations of
conservative bias making it harder for those in Twitter or
those who are working there to enforce these policies against
folks who incite hate speech or make it?
Ms. Navaroli. Thank you for rephrasing that question, and
thank you for asking it. Yes, these allegations are very much
having an impact on the leadership within every social media
company as they hope to not receive allegations of being biased
or in any way being politically leaning.
Ms. Lee. Thank you. I am not the only lawyer in the room.
So, you all know that while the Constitution does provide us
the right to free speech, there are, of course, limitations. As
Ms. Navaroli pointed out, we cannot yell ``fire'' in a crowded
theater. Compromising freedom of speech may seem dangerous
until we weigh that compromise against the men and women
massacred in Buffalo, for instance, or the many other places
where radicalized violent extremists found their motivation to
kill on social media. This isn't about oppression. It is about
public safety. This isn't about censorship. It is about
protecting our democracy from misinformation.
Ms. Navaroli, it was your job to decide whether someone was
yelling fire in the theater. Could you describe the coded
incitement to violence policy Twitter did not implement?
Ms. Navaroli. Yes, thank you for that question. The coded
incitement to violence policy was an incredibly nuanced policy
that was created in order to fill the gaps that were existing
in the already existing policies around violence. The policies
around violence were explicit, so these were calls that said I
am going to, I want to, I plan to, I wish to, those sorts of
incitements would have come down. Things like ``stand back,
stand by,'' things like ``I am locked and loaded and ready for
a civil war,'' or dog whistles, that were not covered
underneath the policy.
Ms. Lee. Thank you. Could it have saved lives if it were
implemented on January 5, 2021, or possibly in November 2020?
Ms. Navaroli. I can't speculate as to what might have
happened, and I do wish we would have acted.
Ms. Lee. Thank you. Ms. Gadde, the very same words that
were plastered across Twitter were shouted at the January 6
insurrection. What threats do Americans face now that Elon Musk
has removed all guardrails and welcomed back Donald Trump to
the platform?
Ms. Gadde. Thank you for the question. I am actually not
really familiar with what the content moderation policies of
Twitter are today.
Ms. Lee. OK. Thank you. Social media platforms like Twitter
must own up to their responsibility in spreading violence and
chaos. I would argue so, too, the Members of this panel and
institution. Thank you, I yield the balance of my time to Mr.
Raskin.
Mr. Raskin. Thank you very much. Mr. Roth, I want to go
back to the whole question of your finding hundreds of
thousands of fake accounts set up by Vladimir Putin and the
Russian Internet Research Agency, I think they call it, which
was the propaganda arm in 2016 and I suppose to this day. Some
have been suggesting on the other side of the aisle that it is
illegitimate for the FBI or any representative of the Federal
Government, presumably even Donald Trump, who did a lot of
this, to contact private media entities in order to apprise
them of anything, whether it might be the penetration of
organized crime or child pornography or foreign malign
influence. And I am just wondering if you would give us a sense
of how much work is actually being done, and I was going to
check with you and Mr. Baker about that. How much work does
Twitter and other social media entities do that relies on the
FBI and other national security agencies?
Mr. Roth. Thank you for the question. There is a
considerable amount of work to address foreign disinformation
at Twitter and also at other companies, and this work was
reliant, in part, on intelligence shared with companies by law
enforcement and by the intelligence community. I would regard
that work as essential. At Twitter, we had dozens of people
working just on these questions of election interference. Those
teams no longer exist under Mr. Musk.
Mr. Raskin. And Mr. Baker, if you could.
Mr. Baker. Thank you, sir. Just generally, I mean, it is a
matter of public record that the FBI has worked with the
public, including private entities for decades. Indeed, they
have had for some number of years now, I think it is called
Office of Public Sector Engagement. This is part of what they
do in order to fulfill their responsibilities and to do their
jobs to protect the country.
Mr. Raskin. OK. I yield back.
Chairman Comer. The Chair recognizes Mr. Armstrong for five
minutes.
Mr. Armstrong. Thank you. Mr. Roth, I am going to continue
down that line of questioning. So, you were just talking about
working very hard to keep foreign troll farms from using
Twitter and to engage in malign foreign interference. This
sounds like a fairly robust undertaking, you said, between 2016
and 2020. You had different teams stood up to do this constant
vigilance?
Mr. Roth. Yes, sir. That was the phrase that we used.
Mr. Armstrong. Yes, and these types of attempts are
constantly evolving. They are trying to find new ways to
penetrate your system, so you have to be engaging with it and
being willing to adapt on a constant basis?
Mr. Roth. Yes, sir. That is right.
Mr. Armstrong. And now we forward to 2020, and earlier you
had testified that you were having regular interactions with
national intelligence, Homeland Security, and the FBI?
Mr. Roth. Yes, I did.
Mr. Armstrong. And primarily to deal with foreign
interference?
Mr. Roth. Primarily, but I would say almost exclusively.
Mr. Armstrong. Also misinformation in all of that, but you
had said earlier that your contact with Agent Chan was
primarily with foreign interference?
Mr. Roth. Yes, that is right.
Mr. Armstrong. All right, and these were emails. Were there
meetings?
Mr. Roth. Yes. Twitter met quarterly with the FBI Foreign
Interference Task Force, and we had those meetings running for
a number of years to share information about malign foreign
interference.
Mr. Armstrong. Agents from Homeland Security, or
intelligence, or just primarily the FBI?
Mr. Roth. Our primary contacts were with the FBI, and in
those quarterly meetings, they were, I believe, exclusively
with FBI personnel.
Mr. Armstrong. And you had multiple former FBI agents on
the payroll. I mean, Mr. Baker, you have 10 years' experience
with FBI, DOJ?
Mr. Baker. Well, but DOJ, it is two decades roughly. Just
for the record, I was never an FBI agent.
Mr. Armstrong. OK.
Mr. Baker. Yes.
Mr. Armstrong. And Twitter has such a close relationship
with at least one FBI agent. That agent could start emails
with, ``Hey, Twitter folks,'' and could actually advise your
company about violations of your own terms of service. Mr.
Roth, I think it is safe to say that you had a consistent
dialog with the FBI for the weeks and months prior to the New
York Post, is that fair?
Mr. Roth. I had ongoing conversations with the FBI for
years, I would say, about election security.
Mr. Armstrong. And in response to Mr. Fry earlier, you said
you would not categorize the FBI communications as pressure.
Mr. Roth. No, I would not.
Mr. Armstrong. However, Twitter's director of policy wrote
to you in 2020 that Twitter has seen a sustained effort by the
intelligence community to push Twitter, and that Twitter should
keep a solid front against these efforts. He specifically cited
Elvis Chan, an FBI agent in San Francisco. Now, on August 11,
2020, Agent Chan sent you three documents in prep for a meeting
and said the documents pertain to APT28, a hacking unit
connected with Russian military intelligence. Agent Chan
arranged for having security clearance for Mr. Baker and
facilitated encrypted networks for the FBI to share information
with Twitter employees. And on October 14, 2020, you stated
that this feels a lot like somewhat of a subtle leak operation.
Earlier today you testified that you were following national
security experts on Twitter as a reason to take down the New
York Post story on Hunter Biden's laptop.
Mr. Roth. Yes, sir, I did.
Mr. Armstrong. So, after 2016, you set up all these teams
to deal with Russian interference, foreign interference. You
were having regular meetings with the FBI. You have connections
with all of these different government agencies, and you didn't
reach out to them once?
Mr. Roth. Is that question in reference to the day of the
New York Post article?
Mr. Armstrong. Yes.
Mr. Roth. That is right. We generally did not reach out to
the FBI to consult on content moderation decisions, especially
where they related to domestic activity. It is not that we
wouldn't have liked that information. We certainly would have.
It is that I don't believe it would have been appropriate for
us to consult with the FBI.
Mr. Armstrong. So, in December 2020, you did a declaration
to the Federal Election Commission that the intelligence
community expected a leak and a hack operation involving Hunter
Biden. Recently, Mark Zuckerberg confirmed that the FBI warned
Meta that there was a high effort of Russian propaganda,
including language specific enough to fit the Hunter laptop
Biden's security story. You are talking to these people for
weeks and months, years prior to this leaking. They have
specifically told you in October that there is going to be a
leak potentially involving Hunter Biden's laptop. They
legitimately and literally prophesized what happened, and you
didn't contact any of them?
Mr. Roth. No, sir, I did not.
Mr. Armstrong. Did they reach out to you?
Mr. Roth. On and around that day, to the best of my
recollection, no, they did not.
Mr. Armstrong. So, after the story was taken down and you
guys did it, and you personally disagreed with it--Ms. Gadde,
you said you did--did you contact them and say, hey, is this
what you were talking about?
Mr. Roth. If that question was directed to me, no, I did
not----
Mr. Armstrong. Ms. Gadde, did you talk to anybody from the
FBI?
Ms. Gadde. Not to the best of my recollection.
Mr. Armstrong. So, I guess my question is, what is the
point of this program? You have constant communication, they
are set up for foreign interference, they have legitimately
warned you about this very specific thing, and then all of a
sudden everybody just walks away? Like, this is what you
planned for. This is what you prepared for. This is the
information. They told you exactly what was going to happen.
And then you want--I don't care, Members of Congress--you
legitimately want the American people to believe we just
completely cutoff contact with all of the people who we were
supposed to defend against? I don't think it passes the smell
test, and neither to the American people. I yield back.
Chairman Comer. The Chair recognizes Mr. Casar for five
minutes.
Mr. Casar. I am honored to be a new Member of Congress
where our purpose is to listen to the people, and represent
their voices, and lift up our communities. After talking to
thousands of people across Texas, asking them what do you want
me to work on for you as a new Member of Congress, not a single
person told me they were concerned about a New York Post story
on Twitter about Hunter Biden. Is that really what we are
dedicating this Committee's time to? Is that really what we are
going to dedicate the next two years to? Our constituents of
all political backgrounds are worried they are getting pushed
out of their neighborhoods by spiking housing costs. They see
their public schools suffering because we aren't supporting our
teachers. In my state, our rural hospitals are closing. We have
more uninsured people than anywhere in the country. We have the
highest number of food insecure kids, and reproductive rights
have been stripped away. We are talking about none of that.
It seems to me that we are having these hearings so that
people can beat their chest about Hunter Biden, maybe do some
fundraising, get some headlines, and ironically post those on
Twitter. If that is what House Republicans want to spend their
time on, then that is their prerogative, but to me, it is a
damn shame. We are here for a bigger purpose than that.
Under the leadership of the legendary chairman, Jack Brooks
from Texas, this Committee implemented the Great Society
through the creation of Head Start and the creation of
Medicare. They investigated Watergate. They built the U.S.
space program. Anything is possible if we all come together to
work on what our constituents demand, if we make sure that we
say to our constituents that your voice matters here. We could
be ensuring that the historic investments in infrastructure and
domestic manufacturing create good union jobs where we need
them the most. We could take on free speech and civil liberties
issues at home and across the world. We could be investigating
and taking a look at these real threats of domestic terrorism
and civil unrest. We could be making sure that our
constituents' lives are better, but instead, we are focusing
today on Twitter. The American people deserve better. I yield
back my time to Mr. Raskin.
Mr. Raskin. Thank you very much, Mr. Casar. Let's go back
to this point about the Russian disinformation campaign. And
just to refresh everybody's recollection, Mr. Roth, you
learned, was it before 2016 or after 2016 that Vladimir Putin
had commanded an entire campaign to try to invade the American
election with social media messages on Twitter, Facebook, and
so on? Was that before the election you learned or after?
Mr. Roth. Well, there was some public discussion of it
before the election. Most of the confirmed information was only
declassified after Election Day.
Mr. Raskin. OK. So, there was this powerful, massive
campaign unleashed by a malign foreign actor interested in
undermining American democracy with a specific electoral
objective, right? Did you find that? Was he just trying to
create chaos, or did he want to put the thumb on the scale with
his intervention for either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump?
Mr. Roth. A bit of both, honestly. I think there was a
significant amount of the troll activity on social media, in
particular, that wasn't tilted one way or the other. It played
both sides, and it played them off of each other, and I think
that is bad for America and it is bad for democracy. I think
the hack-and-leak campaign was a bit more skewed because that
focused very specifically on the DNC and on John Podesta.
Mr. Raskin. OK. And so, the hack-and-leak campaign against
the DNC and Hillary Clinton was one meant to damage Hillary
Clinton's campaign. Is that right?
Mr. Roth. That is what most research concludes was the
objective, yes.
Mr. Raskin. All right. So, some people were suggesting that
if the U.S. Government finds out about a malign foreign
influence, disinformation, or propaganda campaign in our
elections at any level, the government shouldn't say anything
to the public or the news media about it. Well, what do you
think about that proposition?
Mr. Roth. I believe that would be a profound failure. I
think there is a collective responsibility across the private
sector and the public sector to address our shared threats, and
Russian interference in American democracy is one of those
shared threats.
Mr. Raskin. OK. And Ms. Gadde, do you agree with that?
Ms. Gadde. Yes, I do.
Mr. Raskin. OK. And just back to you, Ms. Navaroli, for a
moment. Did you follow the attempt to overthrow the official
election result in Brazil?
Ms. Navaroli. I was not working at Twitter at the time, but
I paid attention to the news, yes.
Mr. Raskin. OK. And were you struck by any of the
resemblances between what happened in Brazil and what happened
here on January 6?
Ms. Navaroli. Yes. It was the exact same playbook that was
played on January 6 in which a ruling party claims that an
election was stolen and that misinformation continued to spread
and lead to political violence.
Mr. Raskin. Thank you. I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Comer. The Chair recognizes Mr. Fallon for five
minutes.
Mr. Fallon. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You know, if there is
ever a time where our government becomes the sole arbiter of
truth, then we have lost the United States. Twitter has become
the virtual town square. It now has the power to transform
public opinion like no other medium in history, with their
algorithms shaping and molding the public mind to their own
ends. Mr. Roth, to the best of your knowledge, what percentage
of your colleagues, when you worked at Twitter, donated to
Democratic causes or candidates in 2020?
Mr. Roth. I don't know, sir.
Mr. Fallon. We have it here. It was 98.4 percent of Twitter
employees gave to Democratic candidates or causes in the 2020
election cycle. And believe it or not, those numbers actually
went up in the 2022 cycle to 99.7 percent of Twitter employees
donating to Democratic candidates and causes, so clearly
Twitter as a whole had a political bias. Mr. Roth, do you
personally think that you have a political bias, and did you
have one when you worked at Twitter, a personal political bias?
Mr. Roth. No, sir.
Mr. Fallon. You didn't. That is remarkable because it is
pretty obvious you did have strong biases when you compared,
ironically, using Twitter, people that worked in that Trump
White House to Nazis. They were good folks that you simply
disagreed with politically in our representative republic. And
you compared them to the most evil people on the planet that
murdered 60 million people, or at least were responsible for
those deaths. You think that was a little bit hyperbolic?
Mr. Roth. Yes, I do. As I said, I regret the language----
Mr. Fallon. Yes, I agree. I agree with you. It was, and so
your political opinion spilled over into censorship work at
Twitter. I think your bias has had consequences, which you
intentionally expressed through your propaganda and censorship
role at Twitter. Additionally, you may have collaborated with
U.S. intelligence community regarding stories that you all
didn't want the public to see, so namely, what we refer to is
the Hunter Biden laptop story that ran in the New York Post.
So, I will ask you, Mr. Roth. Did you receive 10 confidential
documents from special agent of the FBI, Elvis Chan, the night
before the Hunter Biden laptop story ran?
Mr. Roth. Yes.
Mr. Fallon. You did. See, because it is interesting. The
immediacy with which you all acted to censor the New York Post
Hunter Biden laptop story seems to be very indicative of
foreknowledge. Then the story was seismic, and it was rushed to
be suppressed knowing full well it was not Russian
disinformation as some here said. It was truth that was denied
the American voter. And the Media Research Center polled
Democratic voters in 2020 swing states and found that 70
percent would have changed their vote if they had known the
contents and evidence of the New York Post story. President
Trump lost key states--Georgia, Pennsylvania, Arizona and
Wisconsin--by collectively just over 100,000 votes. And if this
is accurate, this poll, 3.2 million votes could have swung, and
he only needed a teeny fraction of those 3.2 million. That
decision almost certainly changed the result of the 2020
Presidential election. Did you have any idea of the contents of
the New York Post story, Mr. Roth?
Mr. Roth. Only what I read in the New York Post that day.
Mr. Fallon. And then it was killed by Twitter, and the
mainstream media followed. So, I find this interesting, in 2019
candidate for President Joe Biden said, ``I have never spoken
to my son about his overseas business dealings.'' And yet, the
evidence in that story and on that laptop revealed that two of
Hunter's Mexican business associates, Miguel Magnani and Miguel
Velasco, visited the White House in February 2014, and he was
later photographed. Joe Biden was photographed with them at the
White House.
Also, on October 2015, Hunter arranged a video conference
with his dad, Joe Biden, sitting Vice President, and Carlos
Slim, the Mexican billionaire. And then, unbelievably, in 2015,
Hunter introduced his father, then Vice President, to Vadym
Pozharsky, an executive at the now infamous Burisma Holdings
company where Hunter would later magically make millions as a
board member, despite having no experience whatsoever in the
energy sector.
Joe Biden lied. He created the firewall and then he was
exposed because of this story and other information. He lied to
the American people, and, Mr. Roth, you withheld information on
the eve of a Presidential election, and you protected that lie.
And I hope for the sake of the country that men like you that
do those things, men and women, never get to put in such
positions of power again.
Mr. Jordan. Would the gentleman yield?
And, Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask unanimous consent to
enter into the record a tweet from Ranking Member Raskin. The
tweet reads, ``It is horrifying to see images of Border Patrol
agents whipping Haitian refugees at the Texas border. Not
exactly the feeling I get from the''----
Chairman Comer. Without objection, so ordered.
Mr. Fallon. Thank you. I yield back.
Chairman Comer. Does the gentleman yield back? Does the
gentleman yield?
Mr. Fallon. Well, I just think that is misinformation or at
least it was a mistake, and Twitter left it up for a week, or
not a week, a year. A full year.
Mr. Jordan. Does the gentleman yield?
Mr. Fallon. I yield.
Mr. Jordan. Mr. Baker, in the top of page two in your
written testimony, you said, ``I did not destroy or improperly
suppress''----
Mr. Raskin. Whose time is this?
Mr. Jordan [continuing]. ``Any documents at Twitter
regarding information important to the public dialog.'' The way
you worded that, it sounds like there is some----
Voice. Mr. Chairman, how much extra time is he going to get
during this hearing? He finished the question----
Chairman Comer. He had time. Let him repeat the question,
and then his time will be expired.
Voice. It expired before he started.
Mrs. Luna. Clearly, it is up to the Chairman, so why don't
you let him answer?
Mr. Jordan. Mr. Baker, on top of page two of your written
testimony, you said, ``I did not destroy or improperly suppress
any documents at Twitter regarding information important to the
public dialog.'' The use of the term ``improperly suppressed''
suggests there was some kind of suppression done in a proper
way. I just want to know what that was, and is this referring
to your work at Twitter when the Twitter Files were first
released just a few months ago?
Mr. Baker. Unfortunately, sir, I think I am constrained
from answering that question any more fully than in my
testimony because of attorney-client privilege. So,
unfortunately, I am just going to have to leave it at that.
Mr. Jordan. I thought that has been waived.
Mr. Baker. Not the privilege. Not the privilege. The
nondisclosure agreement, my understanding has been waived, but
not the attorney-client privilege.
Mr. Jordan. I understand.
Chairman Comer. The gentleman's time has expired.
Mr. Baker. I do not have anything in writing to indicate
that Twitter has waived privilege with respect to that matter.
Chairman Comer. The Chair recognizes Ms. Crockett for----
Ms. Crockett. Thank you, Mr. Chair. MAGA Republicans Can't
Let go. That should be the name of this hearing. I am glad that
seemingly we have now accepted that President Joe Biden won the
election even though now we are blaming President Trump's loss
on Twitter. Can we finally let it go? This is why Democrats are
reinforcing that in this hearing we should be talking about the
threats to our democracy. That is the real threat, not an old
article that seemingly couldn't reach the viewership it sought
through its own platform to disparage an attempt to skew the
election in favor of a twice impeached former President who
lost a secure and fair election.
As a Texan who served in the House and fled the state as
MAGA Republicans there pushed an agenda just as insidious as
the foreign interference we experienced in the 2016 election,
we should be talking about what they don't want to talk about
as they continue to cut you off as you try to talk about things
such as interfering with our democracy and how there has been
an inciting of political violence against individuals as well
as our democracy as a whole.
We are supposed to live in the land of the free, and when
some people are afraid of losing power, they engage in
conspiracy theories and distractions such as Joe Biden, a
candidate at the time, not a government actor at the time,
colluded with social media to win. So, let me say thank you for
showing up for this political theater. Unfortunately, the
American people deserve better of its leaders. They deserve a
robust conversation around the very real and very present
threats to our democracy, the greatest democracy in this world.
So, with that being said, let me be clear. I believe that
there has been testimony previously by Ms. Navaroli--I hope I
am not just killing your name right now--at some point, you
stated, if January 6 and anything like it, that language, ``If
we would have seen that happen in any other country, with any
other leader, Twitter would have acted completely
differently.'' It is my understanding from this statement, and
correct me if I am wrong, that you almost felt as if Trump was
treated differently, in fact, that you may have been of the
impression that he was treated with more difference than other
world leaders. Is that true?
Ms. Navaroli. Yes. As I testified earlier today, Twitter
bent and broke its own rules in order to protect dangerous
speech, like the tweets that were directed toward
Representative Ocasio-Cortez.
Ms. Crockett. And when we talk about bending, it is my
understanding from another deposition that there were actual
alarms that would go off if someone would access Trump's
Twitter account other than, I believe, the CEO.
Ms. Navaroli. It was my understanding that alarms would
ring within Twitter if the account was accessed outside of a
select group of individuals who had access to that account.
Ms. Crockett. Are you aware of this being an ongoing
practice for other individuals' Twitter accounts?
Ms. Navaroli. At my time at Twitter, the former President
Donald Trump's account was the only account that I did not have
access to.
Ms. Crockett. OK. So, we know that there weren't individual
actors running around Twitter setting off alarms every other
day. Is that correct?
Ms. Navaroli. Not to my knowledge, no.
Ms. Crockett. OK. Now, as we talk about January 6, because
I think that is the only thing we should be talking about --
what I want to talk about, and anyone can answer this question,
did you see a correlation between a rise in homegrown domestic
white supremacy online, as it correlates to leading up to
January 6?
Ms. Navaroli. I can answer that. So, some of the things
that we were seeing specifically on Twitter related to white
supremacy fan-fiction. I mentioned earlier in my testimony that
we saw things like people wishing that ``The Day of the Rope''
would occur. That comes from things like ``The Turner
Diaries,'' which are, again, white supremacy fan-fiction.
Ms. Crockett. You would also agree with me that it was
clear that white extremists were seemingly triggered and
activated to take action against our very democracy here at
home by some of the activity that was going on, on Twitter,
correct?
Ms. Navaroli. Yes, I believe so.
Ms. Crockett. Now, just to make sure that we can summarize
what we allegedly are here to talk about, you all would agree
with me when I say that there was no physical damage or
destruction to structures, limb or life, as it relates to this
article, yet we do know that there was actual harm, physical
harm as well as destruction that occurred as a result of
January 6, correct?
Ms. Navaroli. Yes. People died on January 6.
Ms. Crockett. Thank you. With that, I will yield the
remainder of my time to Chairman Raskin, or Ranking Leader
Raskin.
Mr. Raskin. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I would just use the
second to ask unanimous consent to submit for the record an
extraordinary article just published called, ``Twitter Kept
Entire Data base of Republican Requests to Censor Posts,''
published on February 8, that was just published by Rolling
Stone. So, for everybody's reading enjoyment, if people think
it was biased against conservatives, this would lead us to
believe it was definitely biased against liberals and
progressives.
Chairman Comer. I didn't have you pegged for a Rolling
Stone reader, but without objection, so ordered.
Chairman Comer. The Chair recognizes Mr. Grothman.
Mr. Grothman. First of all, just a comment. When we talk
about the Pledge of Allegiance, one of the lines in there is
``to the Republic for which we stand.'' Ben Franklin, when he
was asked about our Constitution, he said, ``We give you a
republic, if you can keep it,'' just two lines that maybe some
people around here haven't heard. Now, this is kind of little
story for the three of you on the left here. In January 2021,
the Christian magazine, called The Daily Citizen, tweeted about
President-elect Joe Biden's announcement that Dr. Rachel Levine
was his nominee for assistant secretary of health. They
commented that Dr. Levine is a transgender woman. This was
banned from Twitter. Are you familiar with this story?
Mr. Baker. I am not familiar with it, sir.
Mr. Grothman. Do you have any reason why it would have been
banned?
[No response.]
Mr. Grothman. OK. There are local talk radio hosts in my
area, well-known media hosts out of the Madison/Milwaukee/Green
Bay media market widely listened to. They were shadow-banned on
Twitter. There are some very prominent doctors in the area that
didn't agree perhaps with everything CDC or NIH said that were
banned on Twitter. I would like you to comment on that because,
you know, normally I think when people make a major health
decision, they always like to get two separate opinions. And
some of these doctors are wildly well respected, probably two
of the most prominent doctors in Wisconsin, I thought outside
the mainstream, and I think for thinking outside the
mainstream, they were taken off your platform. Could you
comment on why you would take somebody off a platform or why a
distinguished doctor would be considered something that the
public as a whole couldn't hear their version of events?
[No response.]
Mr. Grothman. No, you are not aware that anybody, any
doctors who commented outside the mainstream version of what
was going on with COVID, going on with the vaccine, going on
with treatments, that there were people who disagreed with the
NIH recommendations and you took them off of Twitter. You are
not familiar with that?
[No response.]
Mr. Grothman. None of you are familiar with that?
[No response.]
Mr. Grothman. I will yield some time to Jim Jordan then.
Mr. Jordan. I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Baker,
Mr. Roth earlier said he thought it was a waste of time for the
FBI to be sending you accounts that they thought violated
Twitter's terms of services and Twitter's policy. I was just
curious. Did you ever tell Twitter executives or FBI
acquaintances that the FBI had no legitimate interest in
enforcement of Twitter's policy?
Mr. Baker. Sir, again, I am going to give you the same
answer I gave before. I think the advice that I was giving
internally to folks would be covered by the attorney-client
privilege, and as----
Chairman Comer. Let me stop. Mr. Baker, although you are
testifying today by subpoena, you nonetheless have raised
attorney-client privilege to avoid answering this Committee's
question. Congress does not recognize the common law attorney-
client privilege. With that, I am going to allow Mr. Jordan to
ask the question again.
Mr. Jordan. Well, there has been two questions I have asked
that he has refused to answer. So let me, if I could, Mr.
Chairman----
Chairman Comer. Proceed.
Mr. Jordan [continuing]. I will ask both again. I will go
back to the one asked a couple minutes ago. Top of page two of
your testimony, you said, ``I did not destroy or improperly
suppress any documents at Twitter regarding information
important to the public dialog.'' I would like to know what you
are referring to that, you, in your mind, properly suppressed,
and when that took place, specifically if it took place during
the time that the Twitter Files were first being released just
a few months ago?
Mr. Baker. Again, sir, I think we have notified the
Committee, and we have had these conversations with Twitter as
well to try to resolve this issue prior to coming up here
today. I don't have anything in writing that clears me in my
ethical responsibilities to my former client with respect to
answering questions that I think fall squarely within the
attorney-client privilege. So, unfortunately, I don't think I
can go beyond what I have said there already, sir.
Chairman Comer. Unfortunately, Mr. Baker, your assertion
that the attorney-client privilege, it is overruled as to this
particular question and answer. So, would you please answer the
question by Mr. Jordan?
Mr. Raskin. And a point of order, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Comer. State your point?
Mr. Raskin. Well, as I understand it, because we just went
through this in the January 6th Committee where multiple
witnesses asserted attorney-client privilege, including people
who weren't covered by it at all, ultimately, that is for a
court to decide. So, I don't think there is anything we can do
within this Committee at this point, unless I am missing
something.
Chairman Comer. We will give you one more chance to answer
the question. If you don't answer it, then we will have to deal
with it after the Committee hearing. Mr. Baker, could you
answer the question?
Mr. Baker. Yes, sir. I apologize, but I believe I have
ethical responsibilities to my former client, and I don't think
I can go beyond what I have said already, unfortunately.
Mr. Jordan. Mr. Baker, you did suppress documents then
that, in your language, was important to the public dialog?
Chairman Comer. I am going to give you an extra minute, Mr.
Goldman. You are next.
Mr. Goldman. Oh, thank you very much.
Mr. Baker. I am sorry, sir. Could you repeat the question?
Mr. Jordan. Again, going on your written testimony. So, you
did suppress documents at Twitter regarding information that
was important to the public dialog? That is a ``yes'' or
``no.''
Mr. Baker. I am going to answer the question with the
following sentence, which is right after that: ``At all times I
sought to help my client understand and comply with its legal
obligations.''
Chairman Comer. OK. The gentleman's time has expired. I
recognize Mr. Goldman for six minutes.
Mr. Goldman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I understand that Mr.
Palmer was asking some questions about some of my assertions
about the removal of the Ukrainian prosecutor general. First,
let's be clear. I did not say that Vice President Biden fired
Mr. Shokin. It was official U.S. and European policy to
encourage Ukraine to fire him, which they did. But he is right
about one thing. What I say is not evidence, and neither is
what any of our Republican colleagues say on the other side of
the aisle. They may not like what these witnesses say, but the
testimony of the witnesses is the evidence, not baseless
statements without firsthand knowledge.
But I urge Mr. Palmer, if he wants to understand what
actually happened, to read the 300-page report that we
published on the first impeachment investigation. There is a
lot in there about Mr. Shokin. Luckily, though, he doesn't even
have to do that. You can just read the New York Post story
itself because in that story Shokin admitted that he never
opened an investigation into Burisma. He claims to have had
``specific plans to do so.'' Yes, sure.
For two years, Rudy Giuliani had been peddling Viktor
Shokin's bogus story, including with agents of Russian
intelligence, and, Chairman Comer, if you question that, I urge
you to look up Andrii Derkach. So, who was the sole source of
the hard drive to the New York Post? Rudy Giuliani, and for
these reasons, many journalists were highly skeptical. One
reporter at the New York Post itself refused to put his name on
the story. Fox News' Bret Baier said, ``The whole thing is
sketchy,'' and both Giuliani and the Post refused to give the
laptop to other journalists to verify and analyze it. In fact,
Giuliani told The New York Times that he hoped that it would be
published before it could be verified.
So, what is the so-called authentication for this laptop?
Well, Chairman Comer said in his opening statement that it is a
subpoena to the computer repair shop owner, which happened over
about a year before the New York Post story. But that is not
the same hard drive that Rudy Giuliani received months later
from that repair shop owner and passed along to the New York
Post after he was in possession of it for several months.
Now, Mr. Baker, based on your understanding of Russian
malign influence campaigns, does Russian intelligence have the
capacity to manipulate a hard drive?
Mr. Baker. Yes.
Mr. Goldman. So, it is possible that some of the materials
on a hard drive could be authentic, and some could be altered,
manipulated, or even added to the hard drive. Is that right?
Mr. Baker. I believe so, yes.
Mr. Goldman. Mr. Roth, you have testified today that
Twitter was keenly aware of the hacking efforts by Russia in
connection with the 2016 election, is that right?
Mr. Roth. Yes, sir.
Mr. Goldman. And those efforts, I believe you said, and
correct me if I am wrong, by Russian intelligence to interfere
in our electoral process continued up through and including the
2020 election. Is that right?
Mr. Roth. Russian efforts certainly continued through the
2020 election and even through the midterms. I couldn't say
specifically if it was military intelligence as was the case in
2016, but certainly the Russian Government was involved.
Mr. Goldman. So, let's run down what Twitter knew about
this hard drive and this story when it was published. First,
the sole source of the hard drive was Rudy Giuliani, who had
been working closely with Russian intelligence agents
throughout 2022. Second, Russian intelligence interfered in the
2016 election and was actively trying to do it again, and
third, numerous journalists, including at the New York Post and
Fox News, raised suspicions about the hard drive, and they
refused to allow an independent analysis and verification of
it. Now, Mr. Baker, based on your experience in law
enforcement, wouldn't this give anyone concerned about Russian
interference in our elections serious pause?
Mr. Baker. Well, I think, as reflected in the public
record, at the time I thought there were great concerns on that
side of the equation because, in part, with respect to all the
things that had happened since 2016 with respect to the hack-
and-leak, or hack-and-dump issues. There were facts that
indicated that the computer might have been abandoned and so
on, which made it a very difficult case, which is why we are
sitting here today talking about it.
Mr. Goldman. Right, and there was a 24-hour delay in
continuing to spread the publication of it. Isn't that right?
Mr. Baker. Yes.
Mr. Goldman. OK. You know, that is exactly what 51 former
intelligence officials, many from Republican administrations,
even the Trump Administration, said in that letter that is
being distorted by Mr. Jordan and others at this hearing. Let
me quote one paragraph of what they say: ``We want to emphasize
that we do not know if the emails provided to the New York Post
by President Trump's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani are
genuine or not and that we do not have evidence of Russian
involvement, just that our experience makes us deeply
suspicious that the Russian Government played a significant
role in this case.'' And unless Twitter, like Special Counsel
Mueller concluded about the Trump campaign in 2016, wanted to
welcome Russian interference in an election, all of you sitting
here today were entirely correct to be highly concerned about
the legitimacy of this story. I yield back.
Chairman Comer. The Chair recognizes Mr. Higgins for five.
Mr. Higgins. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am going to be
yielding some time to my colleague, Mr. Jordan, here
momentarily. But for the record, Mr. Baker, Ms. Gadde, Mr.
Roth, Ms. Navaroli, are you here under the advice of counsel,
and do you have counsel present?
Mr. Baker. Yes, sir.
Mr. Higgins. That was a yes?
Mr. Baker. Yes, sir.
Ms. Gadde. Yes, sir.
Mr. Roth. Yes, I do.
Ms. Navaroli. Yes, I was subpoenaed to appear.
Mr. Higgins. That is good to know. I am glad you all have
counsel present. Mr. Chairman, for the submission for the
record I would like consent to submit the Twitter Files, dated
December the 8th, posted by the New York Post regarding the
suppression of conservative commentators. I would like that
submitted.
Chairman Comer. Without objection, so ordered.
Mr. Higgins. Mr. Chairman, thank you. I would like to also
submit for the record a timeline of events with cited sources
outlining strong evidence of the Biden family organized
criminal actions that would certainly indicate that we have
crossed the threshold of reasonable suspicion. I would like
this timeline submitted for the record.
Mr. Raskin. Excuse me, Mr. Chairman. Where is that from,
that timeline?
Mr. Higgins. The timeline in my hand? I will get it to you
shortly.
Chairman Comer. Without objection.
Mr. Higgins. Bottom line is that the FBI had the Biden
crime family laptop for a year. They knew it was leaking. They
knew it would hurt the Biden campaign. So, the FBI used its
relationship with Twitter to suppress criminal evidence being
revealed about Joe Biden one month before the 2020 elections.
You ladies and gentlemen interfered with the United States of
America 2020 Presidential election, knowingly and willingly.
That is the bad news. It is going to get worse because this is
the investigation part. Later comes the arrest part. Your
attorneys are familiar with that.
Mr. Chairman, I would like to spend five hours with these
ladies and gentlemen doing depositions, surely yet to come, but
for right now I yield the balance of my time to my colleague,
Mr. Jordan.
Mr. Jordan. I thank the gentleman for yielding. I think he
made the right point, and I would just respond to our colleague
from New York. You know, who knew the laptop was real? It was
the FBI. They had it for, or maybe they had it for a year and
just said, you know what, we are going to put it on the shelf,
we are not going to look at it, but if anyone knows it is real,
it is them. That is why I asked the question. Again, back to my
colleague from New York when he was talking about it, that is
why I asked the question earlier. I said, did anyone at the FBI
or Mr. Baker know. Did Mr. Baker talk to any of those 51 former
intel officials who sent the letter saying this has all the
classic earmarks of a Russian misinformation operation? Maybe
they could have checked with the FBI because the FBI had the
actual laptop in their possession. So, I appreciate the
gentleman from Louisiana. I think it is a great point that he
made.
Mr. Roth, I am going to come back to you on something we
were at a few hours ago, and we are talking about this
visibility filtering, which, in my mind, I understand to be
something short of suspending and blocking the account which
the user then knows has happened because there is a
notification in a public way, like you did to Ms. Greene when
you suspended her account. But there are other things, this
search blacklist, that do not amplify that some kind of
filtering that account that the user doesn't know about. And I
asked the question earlier was there any bit of this visibility
filtering that was hard-coded by Twitter employees into the
account of specific users, and you hesitated for a while, and
you said, well, you wouldn't use the term ``hard-coded,'' ``but
it seemed to me like something like that went on.'' Can you
elaborate?
Mr. Roth. Thank you for the question. Twitter's visibility
filtering system, as has been reported in the Twitter Files, is
based on applying labels to user accounts. And so, in that
sense, if the application of a label is what you meant by hard-
coded, yes, Twitter's systems did apply those designations to
those accounts, but it was seldom the case that Twitter staff
would manually individually go in and apply those labels
directly to a specific account.
Mr. Jordan. Were those labels and, therefore, that
filtering done to any government officials, any elected
officials where the user wouldn't know about?
Mr. Roth. I don't know, sir. I didn't have access to my
Twitter computer to any Twitter systems to prepare me to answer
that question, so I----
Mr. Jordan. I am just talking to your time there. In your
experience there, do you know if that happened?
Mr. Roth. It would not surprise me to know that visibility
filtering labels had been applied to the accounts of elected
officials.
Mr. Jordan. So, visibility-filtered labels apply to the
accounts, but the user doesn't know.
Mr. Roth. Yes, so it was not Twitter's practice to notify
users of the----
Mr. Jordan. But you think that happened to elected
officials and government officials?
Mr. Roth. Again, I couldn't say for sure.
Mr. Jordan. I appreciate it. I yield back.
Chairman Comer. The Chair recognizes Mr. Mfume for five
minutes.
Mr. Mfume. Well, Mr. Chairman, it has been a long morning
and afternoon, and at this point in time, there is an adage
that says, everything that can be said has been said, except
that not everyone has said it. So, if you will indulge me for a
few minutes, I would just like to reflect on some observations
having sat here and gone through this. And I am hoping and
praying that this is not a problem in search of a solution
because we are dedicating an awful amount of time here, and I
don't want a few things to escape us.
But having said that, I want to first associate myself with
the remarks of Mr. Raskin, the Ranking Chair, his opening
remarks, succinctly, I think, encapsulated, and put in place
what many of us on this side of the aisle are feeling. And I
also, as a point of personal privilege, would like to just
express how many of us share the concern of the gentlewoman
from South Carolina who indicated to her ongoing medical
condition which she said she might have to live with the rest
of her life. That just got me for a moment, and I wanted to
make sure that that is on the record.
Now, I disassociate myself with her remarks when she said,
as did the gentlewoman from Georgia, ``God bless Elon Musk,''
and for me it is God bless my country, God bless my family, God
bless my friends. Mr. Musk can take care of himself. I would
also caution, if I might, all of us, but particularly the
gentleman from South Carolina who said earlier that there is
proof that Hunter Biden committed multiple felonies. The
gentleman said that without offering anything for the record.
And I know we are all covered by congressional immunity in
terms of when we are on the floor and when we are in these
committees, but sometimes we probably do not want to feed into
hot rhetoric. I mean, we campaign in that kind of poetry, but
we are elected to govern in prose, and when you do that, there
is a different sense of responsibility that goes with all of
us.
Mr. Roth, I listened to you, and I feel bad that you were
attacked, and, you know, you had to sell your home. You had to
move your family. And I just want to remind you and remind
myself that there are Members of this Committee who are also
always under attack because of their race, or because of their
surname, or because of their political affiliation. That kind
of reckless incitement, I think, is best dealt with when you
have content moderation. Otherwise, we gin up the rhetoric, the
people who can't control themselves oftentimes don't, and then
we see violence occurring against, whether it is Members of
Congress through threats, or persons like yourself in the
private sector.
Ms. Navaroli, you in your testimony stated that on the
morning of January the 6, that you sent lawyers a message
warning them that your team was hamstrung by leadership. And
two days later, when it looked like that might happen again,
you asked management whether or not they wanted more blood on
their hands. What was their response, and what did they do?
Ms. Navaroli. Yes, thank you for that question. On the
morning of January 6, I did send that message to a Twitter
lawyer specifically because I believed that Twitter was going
to be facing liability for what was going to occur that day. I
do not remember their exact response, but I do remember a
response of confirming that the information had been received.
Would you repeat the second question that you asked?
Mr. Mfume. I wanted to know what was their response. What
did they do?
Ms. Navaroli. Nothing.
Mr. Mfume. OK. You went on to say that in January 2020,
after the United States assassinated an Iranian general, that
the President at that time, Mr. Trump, decided to justify it on
Twitter, and management literally instructed you to make sure
that we were not about to start World War III on that platform.
Is that correct?
Ms. Navaroli. Yes, that did occur.
Mr. Mfume. And what happened after that?
Ms. Navaroli. It was up to me and my team to create what we
called enforcement guidance, so a document that explained how
we would apply our policies specifically related to content
moderation in that specific instance. I believe the document
was relating to foreign policy discourse.
Mr. Mfume. So, my point here about content moderation on
the front end prevents some of the crazy things we see on the
back end. Mr. Chairman, I have from the Anti-Defamation League
their latest report on murder and extremism in the United
States, oftentimes fueled by the lack of content moderation,
and I would ask unanimous consent to be entered into the
record. And I also have the National Threat Assessment done by
the Secret Service of our country. This was just released, and
it talks about how 25 percent of all of these acts are being
conducted by people who are not moderated, but who, in fact,
end up breaking the law and threatening the lives of people.
And I would ask unanimous consent that also be----
Chairman Comer. Without objection, so ordered.
Mr. Mfume. Thank you, sir.
Chairman Comer. The Chair recognizes Mr. Sessions for five
minutes.
Mr. Sessions. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. So, I will
say God bless Elon Musk because I think I feel that way. It was
Elon Musk that revealed data that uncovered a disturbing cabal.
Let's be clear. We are here today because Twitter got caught,
not because people want to admit mistakes got made, or perhaps
because they got bought. If not for the Twitter Files released
by Mr. Elon Musk, this activity we are discussing today would
still be going on. It is no secret that the political bias of
Twitter and their previous leadership bled into politics and
merged that with practices of the company, and that is a big
concern.
But a bigger concern is where our government on a political
basis by law enforcement becomes engaged in things that a
timeline would show were not truthful. That is the concern. The
fact that Twitter was working hand-in-glove with the Federal
Bureau of Investigation and the intelligence community to
suppress free speech and things that were not true is
disturbing. That is why we are here today.
So, Mr. Roth, I would engage you, if I could, for a minute.
By the way, I want to compliment all four of you. You have been
here all day. This is hard to do. You have kept your cool. To
the best of your ability, you are expressing honesty. I admire
that. Mr. Roth, can you please tell me about the meetings with
the FBI? How many? Where did they take place? How do they
accomplish what they wanted?
Mr. Roth. Thank you for the question.
Mr. Sessions. Yes, sir.
Mr. Roth. Twitter met with the FBI, I would estimate,
several dozen times over the course of multiple years. These
meetings happened in person, in the Twitter office, in the
offices of other technology companies, and at times, they
happened virtually. We issued press releases about these
meetings. They were not happening in secret. They were not
anything that the public sector or the private sector strove to
hide from anybody. But in these meetings, we used it as an
opportunity to discuss the shared threats of foreign malign
interference, to discuss the preparations that the public and
private sector were implementing, and to use that as an
opportunity to make sure that we were having open channels of
communication about those malign interference threats.
Mr. Sessions. Mr. Roth, did you at any time believe that
the Bureau might not be honest about the things they knew and
the information that they shared and passed to you?
Mr. Roth. I would say I have a personal healthy skepticism
about any type of law enforcement, but no, it was never my
experience that representatives of the FBI were anything but
forthright in those discussions.
Mr. Sessions. Do you believe that they, today and looking
back, misled you?
Mr. Roth. I don't believe so, no.
Mr. Sessions. So, you believe that the things which they
told you, and looking back, are truthful even today?
Mr. Roth. To the best of my recollection, yes.
Mr. Sessions. So, the chance for FBI numerous times, dozens
of times to meet with you, did you put out information of the
substance when you said you provided the public with
information? Did you discuss what those meetings were about?
Mr. Roth. I believe the public statements were fairly high
level and talked about preparations for upcoming elections in
the United States. Any internal records or meeting minutes
would be on my Twitter computer, which I don't have access to.
Mr. Sessions. And does that reside, to the best of your
knowledge, currently at Twitter?
Mr. Roth. Yes, sir. I have returned all Twitter property to
the company when I chose to leave.
Mr. Sessions. Yes, and that would be a requirement,
generally speaking.
Mr. Roth. Yes.
Mr. Sessions. So, you believe that the Bureau met with you,
they did not mislead you, that you were as forthright as you
could be to the public, and that you were playing the role that
you felt like was responsible. Is that your testimony today?
Mr. Roth. Yes, sir, it is.
Mr. Sessions. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I yield
back.
Chairman Comer. The gentleman yields back.
Mr. Moskowitz. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You know, I am
beginning to feel like a little bad for the Majority. Like, I
just feel guilty because you guys have come today to try to
prove that the Biden Administration, in coordination with
Twitter, is impugning free speech, and the problem is, is that
Donald Trump, he is just this thing that hangs around your neck
because at every turn he undermines whatever credibility you
want to have on this subject.
I mean, Donald Trump and his Administration, it has been
proven, reached out to Twitter to take down tweets that got
under his skin. The tough guy, Donald Trump, right? He got
called the ``B'' word. Let's reach out to Twitter. Let's get
the tweet taken down. You guys have no credibility. You have
none. Your own guy taking free speech off of Twitter. You know,
I also don't understand this bipolar thing that you are doing
with Joe Biden. So, every day you guys tweet out Joe Biden is
boring. He is sleepy. Every day you say it on TV. Now you want
to tell the American people Joe Biden is an international super
mastermind along with his son Hunter. I mean, it is just
bananas.
You know, the Trump family is getting billions of dollars
of loans from foreign governments by using their White House
relationships. Any questions? Any questions on that? No, I
didn't think so. You want to know if the Trump family made any
money selling PPE during the pandemic out of the West Wing? Any
questions about that? No, I didn't think so.
But let's move on to Hunter Biden's laptop. Your leaker, I
always love this by the way, you guys are against leakers
unless they are leaking things you like. Your leaker, Matt
Isaac, and I love it, you know. Have you seen this guy? I mean,
he is like a RadioShack-dot-Matrix guy who copied files off a
private citizen's hard drive, OK? That is who your entire
theory is based off of, but I want to use his words.
This is his own words, your guy, your leaker, the guy who
gave you the information. ``There have been several attempts by
several individuals to modify and insert fake data. I do know
there has been multiple attempts over the past year-and-a-half
to insert questionable material into the laptop to pass off
information or disinformation as coming from the laptop.'' He
continued. ``This is a major concern of mine because I fought
tooth and nail to protect the integrity of the drive, and to
jeopardize that is going to mean everything I sacrificed will
be for nothing.'' Your guy, your leaker questioning the
integrity of the information you guys are peddling. By the way,
why isn't he here? Bring him here. Let's ask him questions. And
why haven't we seen the hard drive? You guys aren't shy. Why
won't you show it to the American people?
Let's talk about Twitter. Let's talk about God bless Elon
Musk. See these? God bless the guy who is allowing Nazis and
anti-Semitism to perpetrate Twitter. We're in a 66-percent
increase of anti-Semitism on Twitter since Elon Musk set it
free. Mr. Chairman, I agree with you. It is not fair to say all
conservatives are Nazis. That is preposterous. That is not
true. But your Lord and Savior Donald Trump is having tea and
dinner with them at Mar-a-Lago. Nick Fuentes right here, who is
a picture that is tweeted at me all the time, saying Jews are a
virus in response to my tweets, Donald Trump is having dinner
with him, Nazis at Mar-a-Lago.
And so, no, not all Republicans are Nazis, but I got to
tell you, Nazis seem really comfortable with Donald Trump. So,
I have questions about that, Mr. Chairman. Why is that? Why do
I get these tweets? Let us talk about Kanye West, right, the
Chairman of the Judiciary Committee for three months praising
Kanye West. We love Kanye, right? A Nazi, clearly now. It took
months for that tweet to come down. How come? I mean, these are
things I would love to know. Is it because maybe they are your
voters? I mean, they certainly aren't voting for me. I yield
back.
Chairman Comer. The Chair recognizes Mr. Langworthy for
five minutes.
Mr. Langworthy. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Twitter files
revealed the unrestricted power and censorship regularly
exercised by the three witnesses in front of us today, Mr.
Roth, Ms. Gadde, and Mr. Baker. Now, Ms. Navaroli, in your
opening, you stated that too few people in companies have too
much power. Well, I think you are right. The witnesses here
today, they had too much power at Twitter, and they tried to
play the role of God as they interfered with the natural right
of the people to a free and fair election. Twitter knowingly
suspended the New York Post's account, one of the most reliable
conservative voices in the country, in fear that an honest
story would swing the most divisive election in American
history into the hands of their enemy, former President Donald
Trump.
Now, Mr. Roth, you were part of the secretive SIP-PES
censorship team at Twitter, correct?
Mr. Roth. No, sir. I am not sure what that refers to.
Mr. Langworthy. Mr. Roth, the Twitter files reveal that you
rarely adhered to company policy in making your censorship
decisions. One reporter from the Twitter files called your
group ``a high-speed Supreme Court of moderation, issuing
content rulings on the fly, often in minutes, based on guesses,
gut calls, and even Google searches, in cases even involving
the President.'' Do you recall making decisions in this manner?
Mr. Roth. No, I do not.
Mr. Langworthy. Can you explain the process for these quick
decisions?
Mr. Roth. Thank you for the question. I think the core of
content moderation, whether it is fast or slow, begins with a
written set of rules and policies, and that was the primary
responsibility of my group at Twitter. It wasn't about making a
one-off decision in the moment. It was about having a written
and codified set of laws for the platform that we followed in
each instance. In the vast majority of cases, content
moderation decisions were not made by me, or by another
executive, or even by a member of my direct team. They were
made by hundreds of content moderators enforcing those rules
again and again and again. The situations in which decisions
would be escalated to senior executives were few and far
between and largely related to the really hard gray area calls.
Mr. Langworthy. So, Mr. Roth, as part of the ``Supreme
Court of moderation at Twitter,'' did you have the final call
over political censorship decisions?
Mr. Roth. No, sir, I did not.
Mr. Langworthy. Then who had the final call on these
decisions?
Mr. Roth. There was a team of people, some of whom are
represented on this panel today, others not, who were involved
in trying to make these decisions. But a portrayal that any one
person held sort of supreme or ultimate authority over these
decisions would misrepresent what the process was.
Mr. Langworthy. So, your team labeled high-profile accounts
as VITs, standing for ``very important tweeters.'' What was the
threshold for being labeled as a VIT?
Mr. Roth. That is an excellent question for which there is
not a consistent answer. I don't think Twitter was particularly
well put together on that definition.
Mr. Langworthy. So, was the New York Post labeled a VIT?
Mr. Roth. I believe the New York Post's account is
verified, and verification conferred some of that status of
being a VIT, but, again, the definitions here are a little
squishy.
Mr. Langworthy. Now, is it true that the Twitter comms
director, Trenton Kennedy, said in regard to the Post story,
``I am struggling to understand the policy basis for marking
this unsafe?''
Mr. Roth. Yes, it is my understanding that Mr. Kennedy said
that.
Mr. Langworthy. Was the New York Post story regarding
Hunter Biden's laptop marked unsafe regardless of uncertainty?
Mr. Roth. It is true that Twitter marked links to that
story as unsafe in a number of our systems, which resulted in
restricting people's ability to tweet it. That was the decision
that Twitter reversed 24 hours later.
Mr. Langworthy. Well, it is clear from this panel that too
few people had too much power. The New York Post Twitter
account was suspended in an attempt by Democrats and Big Tech
to go ahead and play God and interfere in a natural, free, and
fair election and the free flow of information. In this country
the censorship is unbounded. The New York Post has been a
reliable source for decades, including their coverage of the
nursing home scandals in New York during the pandemic. Now that
you and many others are gone from the company, there is hope
that this platform will once again be a place where voices can
be heard and respected, and it can return to be a town hall for
all points of view, no matter if you agree with them or not,
sir, and that our elections will never again be controlled by
Big Tech. I yield back.
Mr. Jordan. Will the gentleman yield?
Chairman Comer. Will the gentleman yield to Jordan?
Mr. Jordan?
Mr. Langworthy. Yes.
Mr. Jordan. OK. Thank you.
Mr. Roth. In Missouri v. Biden, in your declaration to the
FEC, you said, ``I also learned in these meetings with the
government that a hack-and-leak operation would involve Hunter
Biden.'' Mr. Chan has testified in his deposition in that same
case: ``In my estimation, we never discussed Hunter Biden
specifically with Twitter.'' Who told you about Hunter Biden in
these meetings?
Chairman Comer. The gentleman's time has expired, but you
can answer the question.
Mr. Roth. My recollection is that a representative of
another tech company may have mentioned it, but those meetings
were several years ago. I truly don't recall.
Chairman Comer. OK. The Chair recognizes Ms. Stansbury for
five minutes.
Ms. Stansbury. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I want to
just start this afternoon by thanking our panelists who have
been sitting here all afternoon, and many of the members of the
public who are with us. I see a lot of tired faces out there,
and I want to thank you all for spending your day with us. But
I also want to start out by asking, what are we doing here in
this Committee today? Why are we here? Why is this Committee
devoting a day-long hearing to a political conspiracy theory
that was planted in the media by Rudy Giuliani to support
Donald Trump's reelection campaign?
Of all the topics we could be focused on in this Committee
to support the American people--how people are going to put
food on their table at the end of the day, how we are going to
address the economy, how we are going to address critical
issues that are on people's minds every day--we are devoting an
entire day to this conspiracy theory involving Twitter. Now,
the mission of this Committee is to root out waste, fraud, and
abuse, and to conduct oversight on behalf of the American
people. And if you need any evidence of waste, fraud, and
abuse, how about the use of this Committee's precious time,
space, and resources to commit to this hearing? You know, I
don't even understand why we are here right now. But I do want
to clarify some key facts about what we have heard today, so I
am going to get into it for just a few moments.
Ms. Gadde, thank you for being here today. Mr. Baker. You
have already stated publicly that Twitter's handling of this
issue was a mistake. Is that correct? ``Yes'' or ``no'' is
fine.
Ms. Gadde. Yes, that is correct.
Mr. Baker. I don't think I have stated that publicly yet,
but that is what the CEO of the company said.
Ms. Stansbury. Yes. And at the time, only weeks before, one
of the most consequential elections of our lifetime, in 2020,
Twitter made a decision based on policies put into place to
protect the public from political disinformation and from
foreign interference. Is that correct, Mr. Roth?
Mr. Roth. Yes.
Ms. Stansbury. In fact, the failure of Twitter and other
social media companies to moderate political disinformation not
only fueled its use in election tampering in 2018 but allowed
for election denialism to run rampant in 2020, and that is
exactly what led to the insurrection here on January 6 in the
Capitol. So, Ms. Navaroli, I want to ask you--thank you for
sitting here all day answering these questions--do you believe
that Twitter has put into place policies that would adequately
protect free speech but also protect the American people from
another violent insurrection and the kind of hate speech that
we are seeing run rampant right now on the platform?
Ms. Navaroli. Thank you for that question. I cannot speak
to Twitter's current policies because I have not worked there
in quite some time, but I can say that my job at Twitter was to
balance free expression and safety. And one of the things that
I constantly pushed for was for us to include more analysis
within that simple balancing act, and instead of asking just
free expression versus safety to say free expression for whom
and safety for whom. So, whose free expression are we
protecting at the expense of whose safety, and whose safety are
we willing to allow to go to the wind so that people can speak
freely?
Ms. Stansbury. Exactly right, because Twitter refused to
sanction Donald Trump's account long before it was actually
banned when violent rhetoric and other rhetoric was already
being used on the platform. And, in fact, since the latest
acquisition of Twitter by Elon Musk, the company's Trust and
Safety Council, as represented here today, has been dissolved,
and the accounts of individuals like Donald Trump who incited
violence in the capital have been restored. And we are seeing
anti-Semitism, hate speech, dangerous rhetoric, violence being
put on Twitter every single day, election tampering,
disinformation, violence, the attack on our Capitol. Mr.
Chairman, that is what we should be holding oversight hearings
on in this Committee.
I have traveled to every corner of my district, and New
Mexicans are depending on us to defend our democracy and to
ensure that we are holding not only those who are committing
waste, fraud, and abuse accountable, but ourselves. So, let's
not waste the precious taxpayers' time and dollars holding
hearings about Four Seasons' Landscaping-style conspiracy
theories, and actually get to work for the American people.
Chairman Comer. Would the gentlelady yield to a question?
Ms. Stansbury. Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Chairman Comer. All right. The Chair recognizes Mrs.
Boebert for five minutes.
Mrs. Boebert. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Matt Taibbi, a
respected reporter who published much of the Twitter file said,
``Twitter's contact with FBI was constant and pervasive as if
it were a subsidiary.'' Now I want to better understand why he
would suggest that. Mr. Roth, while at Twitter, how many
meetings did you have with the FBI?
Mr. Roth. I couldn't say for sure, but I----
Mrs. Boebert. More than 10?
Mr. Roth. That is a reasonable estimate.
Mrs. Boebert. More than 20?
Mr. Roth. I couldn't say for sure.
Mrs. Boebert. More than 50?
Mr. Roth. That seems a bit high.
Mrs. Boebert. Many meetings with the FBI. Well, how many
FBI agents worked at Twitter while you were there?
Mr. Roth. I don't believe any active FBI agents.
Mrs. Boebert. Former FBI agents, how many worked there
while you were there?
Mr. Roth. I am aware of perhaps two.
Mrs. Boebert. Well, we know of at least nine because they
started the BU group chat, BU for ``Bureau.'' Now, Mr. Roth,
did the FBI ever ask you to share information, like users'
communication data, without going through proper legal
channels?
Mr. Roth. No, they did not, and I would have refused if
they had.
Mrs. Boebert. That is correct. I see that you denied Agent
Chan's request for access to Twitter's data feed. What's sick
isn't that you would deny it. It is that the FBI would even ask
you for the private data of American citizens without going
through legal channels of the law. Now, I want to remind you,
Mr. Roth, that you are under oath. Did the FBI ever ask you to
do anything that was illegal or questionable legal?
Mr. Roth. I am not a lawyer, but certainly not to the best
of my recollection or knowledge.
Mrs. Boebert. Now, from the hearing that I have been a part
of today, it is almost impossible to tell where the FBI ends
and where Twitter begins. We have Mr. Baker here, a former FBI
agent, and there seems to be a revolving door between the FBI
and Twitter itself. Even Mr. Baker said that there was no
collusion with the Federal Government and Twitter, but, Mr.
Baker, that is you. You are the collusion between the Federal
Government and the FBI, and now this is such a problem because
we are seeing censorship all over. Mr. Roth and Ms. Gadde, did
either of you approve the shadow banning of my account,
@laurenboebert? ``Yes'' or ``no.''
Mr. Roth. No, I did not.
Ms. Gadde. Not to the best of my recollection.
Mrs. Boebert. Well, let me refresh your memory because on
March 12, 2021, and, Mr. Roth, I know you looked at it because
fascist Twitter 1.0 had a public interest exceptions policy,
which means for Members of Congress to be shadow banned, it had
to go before you, Mr. Roth. So, I will ask again, did you
shadow ban my account? ``Yes'' or ``no.''
Mr. Roth. Again, not to the best of my recollection.
Mrs. Boebert. So, the answer is, Mr. Roth, yes, you did. I
found out last night from Twitter staff that you suppressed my
account for this tweet. It is a freaking joke about Hillary
Clinton being angry that she couldn't rig her election. It is a
joke. But in response, being the sinister overlords that you
all are, you placed a 90-day account filter so I could not be
found. And now we see here that Twitter staff said the
visibility filter on my account excluded me from top searches,
prevented notifications for non-followers, and much more. This
is considered an aggressive visibility filter. You silenced
Members of Congress from communicating with their constituents.
You silenced me from communicating with the American people
over a freaking joke.
Now who the hell do you think that you are? Election
interference? Yes, I would say that that was taking place
because of you four sitting here. The Hunter Biden laptop story
was suppressed. A sitting Member of Congress was suppressed. A
sitting President was banned from Twitter. You know, I bet that
Putin is sitting in the Kremlin wishing he had as much election
intervention, interference as you four here today.
We have heard about threats to democracy, well, about
shutting down a duly elected Member of Congress. This is
fundamental to our Nation's governance, and you all attacked
that very foundation. 230 protections. Well, those are for
publishers, not for editors, and it is clear you were not
acting as publishers. You were acting as editors. And, Mr.
Chairman, I think it is far past time that we remove 230
protections for Big Tech platforms who are abusing this
protection.
And let me just say I am not angry for myself. I am not
angry because I was silenced. I can reach out to Elon and to
his staff, and I can see what's happened, and I can sit here
today and hold you all in account. I am angry for the millions
of Americans who were silenced because of your decisions,
because of your actions, because of your collusion with the
Federal Government. They can't reach out to Elon. They can't
sit here today and hold you into account. We don't know where
the FBI ends and Twitter begins, but I do want to thank Elon
Musk----
Mr. Raskin. Mr. Chairman, we're over 17 seconds.
Mrs. Boebert [continuing]. For firing you four and saving
free speech, and even Twitter. Mr. Chairman, I yield.
Chairman Comer. The lady yields. She went over 24 seconds.
I will give Ms. Porter 24 extra seconds.
Ms. Porter. Well, I appreciate your indulgence, Chairman
Comer, but I won't need it.
So, today's hearing gaveled in at 10 a.m. For nearly six
hours,----
Voice. Power outage.
Ms. Porter [continuing]. We have been going back and forth
about this supposed suppression of a single news story from a
single outlet for a single day. This hearing has been in its
length nearly one-quarter of the amount of time that Twitter
users could not share the link. We are spending almost as much
time screaming about this as this was ever a problem. Look,
criminal activity is always a concern. But if there is criminal
wrongdoing on Hunter Biden's laptop, that is a matter for the
FBI and our law enforcement agencies.
Today's hearing is merely an exercise in misinformation and
disinformation, a free-for-all hellscape. That is what now CEO,
Elon Musk, said Twitter would become if the platform became a
place where anyone could say anything with no consequences. It
is unbelievable to me that I am quoting Elon Musk, but that is
how ridiculous this hearing has become. The Oversight
Committee, like Twitter or any other social media company for
that matter, cannot become a free-for-all hellscape where
anything goes. With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Chairman Comer. The lady yields back. Thank you.
Mrs. Boebert. Mr. Chairman?
Chairman Comer. Mrs. Boebert.
Mrs. Boebert. I ask unanimous consent to submit two
documents into the record, both from Twitter.
Chairman Comer. Without objection, so ordered.
Mrs. Boebert. Thank you.
Chairman Comer. The Chair recognizes Mrs. Luna for five
minutes.
Mrs. Luna. Thank you, Chairman. Mr. Roth? Mr. Roth, have
you communicated with government officials ever on a platform
called Jira? ``Yes'' or ``no.'' Real quick answer. We are on
the clock. ``Yes'' or ``no.''
Mr. Roth. Not to the best of my recollection.
Mrs. Luna. Not to your recollection? Great. If you did, in
the event, communicate, who would have had access to this
platform?
Mr. Roth. That is the nature of my confusion.
Mrs. Luna. OK.
Mr. Roth. Jira is----
Mrs. Luna. Did you ever speak to government officials on
Jira regarding taking down social media posts?
Mr. Roth. Again, not to the best of my recollection.
Mrs. Luna. Can you explain to me why the Federal Government
would ever have interest in communicating through Jira, mind
you, a private cloud server, with social media companies
without oversight to censor American voices? I want to let you
know that this is a violation of the First Amendment, and the
Federal Government is colluding with social media companies to
censor Americans.
Mr. Chairman, I ask for unanimous consent to submit these
graphics into record.
And Mr. Roth, I am going to refresh your memory for you.
This flowchart behind me----
[Chart]
Chairman Comer. Without objection, so ordered.
Mrs. Luna. Thank you, Chair. This flowchart shows the
following Federal agencies, social media companies, Twitter,
leftist, non-profits, and organizations communicating regarding
their version of misinformation using Jira, a private cloud
server. On this chart, I want to annotate that the Department
of Homeland Security, which has the following branches:
Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, also known as
CISA, Countering Foreign Intelligence Task Force, now known as
the Misinfo, Disinfo, and Malinformation, MDM, this was, again,
used against the American people; the Election Integrity
Partnership, EIP, which includes the following: Stanford
Internet Observatory, University of Washington Center for
Informed Public, Graphika, and Atlantic Council's Digital
Forensic Research Lab, and potentially, according to what we
found on the final report by EIP, the DNC, the Center for
Internet Security, CIS, a nonprofit funded by DHS; the National
Association of Secretaries of state, also known as NASS; and
the National Association of State Election Directors, NASED,
and in this case, because there are other social media
companies involved, Twitter.
What do all these groups, though, have in common, and I am
going to again refresh your memory. They were all communicating
on a private cloud server known as Jira. Now, the screenshot
behind me, which is an example of one of thousands, shows on
November 3, 2020, that you, Mr. Roth, a Twitter employee, were
exchanging communications on Jira, a private cloud server with
CISA, NASS, NASED, and Alex Stamos, who now works at Stanford
and is a former security officer at Facebook, to remove a
posting. Do you now remember communicating on a private cloud
server to remove a posting? Yes or No?
Mr. Roth. I wouldn't agree with the characterization that
this----
Mrs. Luna. I don't care if you agree. This is your stuff.
``Yes'' or ``no,'' did you communicate with a private entity,
the government agency on a private cloud server? ``Yes'' or
``no.''
Mr. Roth. The question was if I communicated----
Mrs. Luna. ``Yes'' or ``no.'' I am on time. ``Yes'' or
``no.''
Mr. Roth. Ma'am, I don't believe I can give you a ``yes''
or ``no''----
Mrs. Luna. Well, I am going to tell you right now that you
did, and we have proof of it. This, ladies and gentlemen, is
joint action between the Federal Government and a private
company to censor and violate the First Amendment. This is also
known, and I am so glad that there are many attorneys on this
panel, joint state actors, it is highly illegal. You are all
engaged in this action, and I want you to know that you will be
all held accountable.
Ms. Gadde, are you still on CISA's Cybersecurity Advisory
Council? ``Yes'' or ``no.''
Ms. Gadde. Yes, I am.
Mrs. Luna. OK. For those who have said that this is a
pointless hearing, and I just want to let you guys all know, we
found that Twitter was indeed communicating with the Federal
Government to censor Americans, I would like to remind you that
this was all in place before January 6. So, to say that these
mechanisms weren't in place and to make it about January 6, I
want to let you know that you guys were actually in control of
all of the content, and clearly we have proof of that. Now, if
you don't think that this is important to your constituents and
the American people, from those saying that this was a
pointless hearing, I suggest you find other jobs. Chairman, I
yield my time.
Mr. Mfume. Mr. Chairman, point of order.
Chairman Comer. Sure.
Mr. Mfume. Yes, I just want to call to the attention of the
Chair and Members----
Chairman Comer. Mr. Mfume, yes, you are recognized.
Mr. Mfume [continuing]. We are getting awfully close to
witness intimidation, and I would ask the Chair to intervene.
Chairman Comer. I am sorry. I didn't hear what you said,
Mr. Mfume.
Mr. Mfume. I said I would caution all Members that we are
getting very close to witness intimidation, right on the verge
of it, and I would ask that the Chair and the Ranking Member
agree how we will proceed from this point on. It was the
threats that were just made.
Chairman Comer. Ms. Ocasio-Cortez.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Yes, thank you, Mr. Chairman. And in
follow up to that, I am curious about the Committee's rule or
the Committee's disposition. Accusing witnesses of a crime,
discussing arrest, you know, making these allusions and
threats, I want to clarify for the record what is the
Committee's policy around threatening a witness?
Chairman Comer. We have the Member decorum.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. And around the rules of decorum, can
we----
Chairman Comer. Yes.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez [continuing]. Agree that threatening a
witness comes close to broaching general decorum? It does
broach general decorum of the Committee?
Chairman Comer. With all due respect, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, we
don't agree that there was any witness threatening.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. When we discuss arrest, when we discuss
a potential arrest of a witness and alluding to a witness or
suggestion of a witness committing a crime without evidence and
without documents being supported to the record.
Chairman Comer. Can you be more specific?
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. When we talk about arresting a witness
or when we talk about, insinuating that a witness is lying
without documentation, I fear that this constitutes threatening
a witness and that will broach the rules of decorum of this
Committee, and I would like to ask that we request witnesses be
treated with respect. Thank you.
Chairman Comer. I appreciate that, and I will remind
everyone of the Member decorum and witness decorum, to treat
everyone with respect. Thank you, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Do you
have anything to add?
Mr. Raskin. No, thank you. I agree with you, Mr. Chairman.
I have a separate point of order I just wanted to raise, which
is it seems as if several Members now seem to have access to
some information from Twitter that people on our side don't
have, and I would just hope that anybody who has communicated
directly with Twitter or received any information relating the
witnesses who has that, who plans to use it, distribute to the
Committee in advance. If that is OK.
Chairman Comer. I think a lot of the quotes and emails are
on the laptop.
Mr. Raskin. But I think that at least one Member
indicated----
Chairman Comer. And the Twitter Files that Elon Musk had--
--
Mr. Raskin. Well, one Member had indicated that she had
received information directly from Twitter.
Chairman Comer. The Chair recognizes Mr. Edwards for five
minutes.
Mr. Edwards. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and to our witnesses,
thank you for being with us today. I know it has been a long
one. Just so that we are clear and to stage my next line of
questioning, in December 2019, we have established that the FBI
subpoenaed Hunter Biden's laptop from a computer store owner.
And then we have established that nearly a year later in
October 2020, the Hunter Biden laptop story is published by the
New York Post. Within hours, Twitter and other social media
companies began limiting the distribution of the Hunter Biden
story. My question is for Mr. Roth. In September 2020, a few
weeks before the New York Post published the first story on the
Hunter Biden trading on his name, you participated in an
exercise hosted by the Aspen Institute with other media
outlets, social media companies, and national security
reporters. Isn't that correct?
Mr. Roth. Yes, I did.
Mr. Edwards. And, Mr. Roth, that event was hosted
specifically by the Aspen Digital Hack and Dump Working Group.
Is that correct?
Mr. Roth. I know it was hosted by the Aspen Institute. I
couldn't say who specifically within that.
Mr. Edwards. Mr. Roth, this event was before the release of
the Hunter Biden laptop story, correct?
Mr. Roth. That is my recollection, yes.
Mr. Edwards. And during that event, a scenario that was
discussed was a hypothetical, October 2020, release of records
related to Hunter Biden. Is that correct?
Mr. Roth. Again, that is my recollection of the event, yes.
Mr. Edwards. And Mr. Roth, did you participate in the
design of this hypothetical scenario?
Mr. Roth. Not to the best of my recollection, no.
Mr. Edwards. Are you telling me that you never had any
conversation with anyone regarding the contents of this
scenario?
Mr. Roth. No, sir, I didn't say that. I met with the Aspen
Institute on a number of occasions. I wouldn't say that I was
involved in the development of the scenario in a specific way,
no.
Mr. Edwards. So, you are telling me that I will find no
witnesses that would testify they had conversation with you
regarding the development of this scenario?
Mr. Roth. I genuinely could not say what other witnesses
might or might not say.
Mr. Edwards. Why was Hunter Biden chosen as the subject of
this scenario just weeks before the October 14, 2020,
publication of the first Hunter Biden story?
Mr. Roth. I don't know.
Mr. Edwards. But you participated in the conversation?
Mr. Roth. I was invited to and joined an event hosted by
the Aspen Institute, yes.
Mr. Roth. And so surely there had to be some level of
conversation as to why Hunter Biden was the topic in that
scenario.
Mr. Roth. Not that I can specifically recall.
Mr. Edwards. Mr. Roth, representatives from Facebook
attended this event also, correct?
Mr. Roth. To the best of my recollection, yes.
Mr. Edwards. OK. And, Mr. Roth, the FBI had Hunter Biden's
laptop nearly a year before it was uncovered by the New York
Post and before the Aspen Institute event. Did members of the
U.S. Intelligence Community participate in the September 2020,
Hunter Biden hack-and-dump exercise?
Mr. Roth. I don't recall.
Mr. Edwards. Mr. Roth, I would like to point you to a sworn
statement that you previously made. I believe this was to the
FEC. You have given a sworn declaration stating that ``Federal
law enforcement agencies communicated that they expected hack-
and-leak operations by state actors might occur in the period
shortly before the 2020 Presidential election, likely in
October.'' Is this your statement?
Mr. Roth. Yes, it was.
Mr. Edwards. And, Mr. Roth, you said since 2008, in 2018,
you had been meeting with the Office of the Director of
National Intelligence, the Department of Homeland Security, the
FBI, and industry peers regarding election security, correct?
Mr. Roth. Yes, sir.
Mr. Edwards. OK. And, Mr. Roth, you were told there would
likely be a hack-and-leak operation occurring in October. Is
that correct?
Mr. Roth. I believe the FBI has objected to the word
``likely'' or ``expected,'' but we certainly discussed that
possibility with them.
Mr. Edwards. All right. Thank you. Mr. Chair, I yield back.
Chairman Comer. The gentleman yields back. The Chair
recognizes Ms. Bush, for five minutes.
Ms. Bush. St. Louis and I are here today to talk about the
crisis posed by the power of private companies that operate
social media platforms. Republicans are holding this hearing
because of their ridiculous politically motivated obsession
with Hunter Biden. This is a distraction from their inability,
again, to govern, and it hides the shared concerns raised by
Republicans and Democrats alike about the vast power, impunity,
and lack of accountability of social media platforms.
There are so many examples of these companies responding
inadequately or inappropriately in crisis that we have come to
understand misconduct as the norm for social media giants and
not an aberration. Social media played a key role in fanning
the flames of violence on January 6, that attack on our U.S.
Capitol. The impact has spread all over the world. Last fall,
after Reuters reported that disinformation about Chile's
proposed constitutional referendum was traveling three times
faster on social media platforms than facts, several Members of
this Committee wrote to Meta, Twitter, and TikTok demanding
further action to reduce the dissemination, reduce the lies,
reduce the hate. They did nothing.
Ms. Gadde, you were at Twitter on January 6 and asked
repeatedly for a retrospective meeting to discuss what happened
in the lead-up to that day. Management told you, ``It wasn't a
priority for the company.'' Why was it not a priority for
Twitter to learn lessons from January 6?
Ms. Gadde. I don't believe you are referring to me.
Apologies. I am the chief legal officer. I did not make that
statement.
Ms. Bush. OK. Ms. Navaroli?
Ms. Navaroli. Would you mind repeating the question?
Ms. Bush. Sure. On January 6, you were at Twitter and asked
repeatedly for a retrospective meeting to discuss what happened
in the lead-up to that day. Management told you it wasn't a
priority for that company. Why was it not a priority for
Twitter to learn the lessons from January 6?
Ms. Navaroli. I can't speak to leadership's motivations or
why it would not have been a priority for them. What I can say
is myself and individual members of my team repeatedly asked
that we do a retrospective to understand not just what happened
on January 6, but leading into January 8 in the permanent
suspension of the President.
Ms. Bush. And what can you say is Twitter's top priority?
Ms. Navaroli. I can't speak to Twitter's top priority at
this moment. I can say that, again, my team's responsibility
was to balance free expression in safety and to ensure the
safety and lack of harm for people on the ground.
Ms. Bush. Thank you. Twitter's top priority seems to be to
maximize its profit. The people on this panel were among the
top experts moderating content for equity and safety at
Twitter, and your concerns were consistently steamrolled by
executives pursuing profit. We know the situation must change,
but I would argue that the structure of these corporations
ensures this malpractice will continue. These social media
companies have shown themselves unfit to maintain a digital
public square with almost universal usage and vast power. Their
purpose is not to facilitate healthy, fact-based discourse. It
is to aggressively pursue profit for their billionaire
executives and shareholders. Even when they make a good
decision about removing a post or a user, it is only to make a
profit.
This existential problem will not be solved by asking these
for-profit corporations to tweak their approach around the
edges. We need to re-envision what the internet can be. Digital
platforms, including social media, are here to stay, but we
need to make sure that they operate for the public good and not
the private interests. We need to invest in better alternatives
to Big Tech, and we need to establish public ownership and
control to ensure these platforms serve everyone fairly. Thank
you, and I yield back.
Chairman Comer. The Chair recognizes Mr. Perry for five
minutes.
Mr. Perry. I thank the Chairman, and I thank the witnesses.
It has been a long day. Mr. Roth, going back to your statement
Mr. Edwards talked about, I want to just kind of revisit that a
little bit where it was communicated to you, at least for your
statement by the FBI, that there was expected hack-and-dump or
hack-and-leak operations and that they would occur before the
election. And at the bottom here, the meetings that were
rumored that the hack-and-leak operation wound involve Hunter
Biden. Well, first of all, who told you that? Can you tell us
where you got that information, if you know?
Mr. Roth. The subject of possible hack-and-leak was raised
by a number of representatives of the FBI.
Mr. Perry. Was one of them Mr. Chan?
Mr. Roth. Yes, Mr. Chan was a part of that.
Mr. Perry. OK. So, are you familiar with the fact that in
his testimony in November 2022, that he says we did not see any
similar competing intrusions to what happened in 2016. And of
course, you have been talking to intelligence agencies and law
enforcement agencies for some time, and they were referring to
the 2016 hack-and-dump operation. Are you familiar that he said
that subsequent to you saying this, that they didn't have any
evidence?
Mr. Roth. I was not aware of----
Mr. Perry. OK. That is fair. That is fair.
Mr. Roth [continuing]. Mr. Chan's deposition, no.
Mr. Perry. Did they ever give you any evidence of the hack-
and-dump operation that happened in 2016? And what I think I am
referring to is the allegation that the Clinton campaign, the
DNC server was hacked and that that information was spread
about through WikiLeaks or other information channels. Did they
ever give you any evidence of that occurrence during these
discussions?
Mr. Roth. That information was made public by the
intelligence community in the Mueller report and by the Senate
Intelligence.
Mr. Perry. Yes, evidence. Did they ever give you evidence
because as far as we know, CrowdStrike looked at the servers.
Did the FBI ever look at the servers from the DNC, to your
knowledge?
Mr. Roth. I think that would be a question better directed
at FBI.
Mr. Perry. Fair enough, but the point is, you never saw any
evidence, right? You are just taking it on, and I am not
blaming you because a lot of people want to believe the FBI. I
have always wanted to believe the FBI. The question is, did
they ever give you any evidence to believe that because they
are making the case. They are making the case that there is a
hack-and-leak operation coming, and it is going to be about
Hunter Biden right before the election. Did they ever give you
any evidence?
Mr. Roth. It didn't come up.
Mr. Perry. OK. I didn't figure it did, and then you all set
up a secret channel between Twitter and the FBI. Who did that
from the FBI? Was that Roth? You are Roth. Was that Elvis? I am
sorry.
Mr. Roth. Mr. Chan was part of that work, yes.
Mr. Perry. Yes, he was part of that, and you actually set
up a war room as well, right?
Mr. Roth. I believe the FBI operated a war room.
Mr. Perry. OK. Fair enough.
Mr. Roth. I didn't join.
Mr. Perry. And you participated in that?
Mr. Roth. No, sir, I did not.
Mr. Perry. You did not. Did Twitter participate in it?
Mr. Roth. I believe Twitter may have sent a representative.
Mr. Perry. OK. OK, fair enough. And then you did this
tabletop exercise about Hunter Biden, and about a leak, about
Hunter Biden that would come out right before the election,
essentially 10 days, and that happened in September, right,
before the election. And you participated in that right?
Mr. Roth. Yes, I did.
Mr. Perry. Who facilitated that exercise? I know the Aspen
Institute, but who facilitated the exercise proper? Was anybody
from a government agency facilitating any part of that? Were
they involved in the discussions during the exercise?
Mr. Roth. No. I don't believe so, no.
Mr. Perry. So, they were just spectators?
Mr. Roth. I wasn't aware that they were spectators either,
but I don't recall exactly who was there.
Mr. Perry. I know you don't recall who was there. Then who
facilitated. Do you recall that?
Mr. Roth. My recollection is that the event was facilitated
by Garrett Graff, who was a member of the Aspen Institute and
Aspen Digital.
Mr. Perry. All right. Do you find it odd now after the
fact? And I know you have already testified here to Mr.
Sessions that you didn't see that you were misled or
potentially duped. It sure seems highly coincidental. Would you
agree, at least, it seems highly coincidental? Knowing that the
FBI had the laptop, that the FBI set up the war room in the
channel, and told you per your statement that this was going to
happen, do you find it highly coincidental that it actually
happened and it was Hunter Biden at all?
Mr. Roth. I want to be clear that my statement to the FEC
does not suggest that the FBI told me it would involve Hunter
Biden. That is a popular reading of that declaration, but it
was not my intent. I think there is a coincidence there, and I
really can't speak as to how that came about.
Mr. Perry. Yes, it is really coincidental. One last
question. Did the CIA or the other governmental agency ever
asked Twitter to look at something that violated Twitter's
policy?
Mr. Roth. I don't recall specific outreach by the CIA
specifically.
Mr. Perry. Other government agencies, what it was called in
the Twitter files?
Mr. Roth. Yes. Twitter regularly received reports from
government requesting review under our own rules.
Mr. Perry. So, the other government agency, that one, did
they ever request information regarding violations of Twitter's
policies, the CIA?
Chairman Comer. The gentleman's time has expired, but
please answer the question.
Mr. Perry. I thank the Chair.
Mr. Roth. Again, I don't recall specific contact from the
CIA, no.
Chairman Comer. OK. The Chair recognizes Mr. Burlison for
five minutes.
Mr. Burlison. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have sat here
listening. I am glad to be last in rank. I get to listen to all
the testimony. And what has become clear to me, there are a few
things, and that is that the censorship efforts of the Big
Tech, the intelligence community, and the media were all
working in concert to affect the 2020 election. I find it
unbelievably ironic, and I hope others do, too, see the irony
that people who are so concerned, and hell bent, and worried
about the interference of outside groups on the 2016 election,
became willing participants to interfere in the following
Presidential election.
These three groups work together and, it is clear, works
hand-in-hand to hide the truth from the American people. The
fact that the FBI had the Hunter Biden laptop, it was in their
possession for a year before the election, is appalling, but
that didn't stop them from spreading a lie and a bogus claim
about it being Russian interference again. And, you know, it is
clear to me why they reached out to you because they knew you
would buy the lie. They knew that an organization with 99
percent of its employees donating to Democratic candidates and
efforts would absolutely not look at any information with a
jaundiced eye. You would take it as the gospel truth. And so,
they knew that because it was clear from your tweets before
that you have an opinion about the President. You have an
opinion about the Republican Party. And so, all of that leading
up to the October 14, 2020, when the New York Post published
its story, everything was already in place.
So, Mr. Roth, my question to you is when 51 intelligence
officials told us that the Hunter Biden laptop was Russian
disinformation, the Democrats, the mainstream media, the
President all repeated this lie. Now that you know what you
know, years later, do you still believe that the Hunter Biden
laptop is not real or do you believe it is real?
Mr. Roth. Sir, I never held that belief.
Mr. Burlison. Do you believe that the story is Russian
disinformation?
Mr. Roth. No, sir. I didn't then and I don't now.
Mr. Burlison. OK. I have a question, Mr. Baker. You started
your role as a Twitter's deputy general counsel in June 2020,
correct?
Mr. Baker. Yes, sir.
Mr. Burlison. Who hired you for that role?
Mr. Baker. Who specifically hired me? My boss was a person
named Sean Edgett, who was the general counsel.
Mr. Burlison. Sean Edgett?
Mr. Baker. E-d-g-e-t-t.
Mr. Burlison. And that is who you interviewed with?
Mr. Baker. I interviewed with numerous people, but Sean was
my boss.
Mr. Burlison. Anyone that comes to mind outside of Sean?
Mr. Baker. Ms. Gadde, I interviewed with. You are saying
other people that I interviewed with at Twitter?
Mr. Burlison. But ultimately the hiring agent was Sean
Edgett?
Mr. Baker. I am not sure exactly who made the decision to
be frank with you, but Sean was my boss.
Mr. Burlison. OK. My next question is when you were fired
from Twitter in December 2022 after the release of the first
installment of Twitter Files, did you destroy any internal
communications related to that first batch on the Twitter
files?
Mr. Baker. As I said in my testimony, I didn't destroy any
documents, period.
Mr. Burlison. What reason were you fired?
Mr. Baker. You will have to ask Mr. Musk about that.
Mr. Burlison. You were not given any information?
Mr. Baker. He made a public statement about it in a tweet,
but I think you would have to ask him for the precise reason.
Mr. Burlison. OK. Thank you. Back to Mr. Roth. Is it true
that Twitter whitelisted accounts for the Department of Defense
to spread propaganda about its efforts in the Middle East? Did
they give you a list of accounts that were fake accounts then
asked you to whitelist those accounts?
Mr. Roth. That request was made of Twitter. To be clear,
when I found out about that activity, I was appalled by it. I
undid the action, and my team exposed activity originating from
the Department of Defense's campaign publicly. We have shared
that data with the world, and research about it has been
published.
Mr. Burlison. Was that only in efforts against foreign
entities or were there any efforts against citizens of the
United States?
Mr. Roth. I think the nature of public social media
activity means that anybody might have seen it, but my
understanding was the activity was predominantly focused
outside of the United States.
Mr. Burlison. OK. Thank you. And, Mr. Chairman, I want to
just say thank you for this hearing. I would hope that we would
be asking for documents and communications, whether it is on
personal devices or private devices, between these individuals
and government officials.
Chairman Comer. So noted. Very good. Thank you. The Chair
recognizes Mrs. McClain, for five minutes.
Mrs. McClain. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you all
for being here today. It is a long day. I am going to try and
make this quick and easy. Mr. Roth, part of your job at Twitter
dealt with assessing dis-and misinformation, correct?
Mr. Roth. Yes.
Mrs. McClain. Wonderful. How did you determine what
disinformation and misinformation was? What is your criteria
for making that decision?
Mr. Roth. Twitter had established policies covering each of
those areas, and I will take them in turn. We actually
generally didn't use the term ``disinformation,'' but we
focused on platform manipulation. So, behaviors like running
inauthentic accounts out of a Russian troll farm we would
address as the behaviors that they are, and we would look for
technical signs of that type of manipulation, and we would
remove those accounts.
Mrs. McClain. So, it was all technical?
Mr. Roth. On that side of things, yes.
Mrs. McClain. OK.
Mr. Roth. When it comes to misinformation, which broadly is
a question of the content of tweets, Twitter would establish
written policies.
Mrs. McClain. Which was?
Mr. Roth. I am sorry?
Mrs. McClain. Which was?
Mr. Roth. Which policies did Twitter maintain?
Mrs. McClain. Yes. I mean, I think the problem with America
is we have one set of rules for this team and another set of
rules for this team, so we are trying to look at what is the
equal playing field. I am under the assumption that when we use
disinformation and we use criteria, the criteria is the same
for both sides. So, I am trying to figure out what is the
criteria that you had in place to determine which information
was misinformation, and did you apply that equally, equitably,
inclusively, so to speak to all sides. So, what is the
criteria?
Mr. Roth. Thank you for the question. We used a three-part
test across all of our misinformation policies.
Mrs. McClain. OK.
Mr. Roth. The first is whether the tweet advances a claim
of fact stated definitively, not an opinion, not a viewpoint,
but a claim of fact stated definitively.
Mrs. McClain. OK.
Mr. Roth. The second part of that test is whether the claim
of fact is provably false, not iffy, not maybe, not gray area,
definitely provably by multiple experts' sources, false. And
then finally, and this is a really important part, we looked
for evidence that those claims of fact could cause harm. So, if
a tweet met all three parts of that test, that it is a claim of
fact, that it is provably false, and that it is dangerous,
Twitter might intervene under its policies. No part of that
test is viewpoint based.
Mrs. McClain. And in your opinion, was that applied to all
tweets?
Mr. Roth. No.
Mrs. McClain. Thank you. Mr. Roth, you are familiar with
reports that the Biden Administration was considering
establishing a disinformation governance board under the
Department of Homeland Security?
Mr. Roth. I am aware of public reporting about that, yes.
Mrs. McClain. Thank you, and that board was never
established, correct?
Mr. Roth. That is my understanding.
Mrs. McClain. That is correct. It seems to me that the
Federal Government had far more powerful disinformation
governance board in its relationship with Twitter. Again, Mr.
Roth, question. How often were you meeting with people from the
Federal Government while you were at Twitter? Weekly, daily,
monthly?
Mr. Roth. I would estimate somewhere between weekly and
monthly.
Mrs. McClain. OK. And were you aware that Mr. Baker was
also taking these meetings with the Federal Government as well?
Mr. Roth. I was not aware of Mr. Baker's calendar, no.
Mrs. McClain. So, you had no idea that he was meeting? You
just worked in silos?
Mr. Roth. Mr. Baker and I were in some of the same meetings
together, but no, I did not know the ins and outs of what he
was doing.
Mrs. McClain. OK. What did you understand Mr. Baker's role
to be at Twitter besides offering general legal advice?
Mr. Roth. Mr. Baker supervised the primary legal team that
advised the Trust and Safety team. He was the supervisor of the
supervisor of the attorneys who advised my team.
Mrs. McClain. OK. And how about Ms. Gadde's role at Twitter
besides offering general legal advice?
Mr. Roth. For the final, I believe, year-and-a-half of my
tenure at Twitter, Ms. Gadde was my direct supervisor.
Mrs. McClain. OK. What was her role? Just to supervise you?
To make sure you followed those three claims?
Mr. Roth. Ms. Gadde supervised what my team's goals and
objectives were. She made sure I was doing my job. She made
sure that if there was conflict in the workplace, she guided me
on how to address that. She did the job of a manager.
Mrs. McClain. OK. And she oversaw you and the Trust to make
sure that your three claims of fact--provable, false, and would
cause harm--she oversaw that?
Mr. Roth. Yes. Ms. Gadde ultimately oversaw Twitter's
policies and enforcement decisions.
Mrs. McClain. Thank you. Mr. Roth, in Ms. Navaroli's
testimony, she states that her expertise is in media
technology, law, and policy. How often per week did you meet
with Ms. Navaroli to discuss these areas while you were both at
Twitter?
Mr. Roth. We did not.
Mrs. McClain. You did not. OK. Thank you so much.
Chairman Comer. The gentlelady's time has expired.
Mrs. McClain. Thank you.
Chairman Comer. The Chair recognizes Mr. LaTurner, for five
minutes.
Mr. LaTurner. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Based on everything
I have seen regarding this issue, it is clear to me that
government officials colluded with Twitter employees to censor
the New York Post's legitimate reporting of the Hunter Biden
laptop story. Democrats on this Committee have so far
characterized this hearing is unnecessary and a waste of time.
I would invite any of my colleagues across the aisle to talk to
folks in Kansas because I can promise you, they do not feel
that way. In fact, my constituents are very concerned and
rightfully so, that a social media company collaborated with a
government entity and a political party to suppress certain
social media accounts and filter news ahead of an election
cycle. Americans deserve answers on this outright attack on our
First Amendment rights, and I look forward to gaining clarity
from our witnesses.
Mr. Baker, your testimony focuses heavily on the fact that
Twitter acted lawfully in its reaction to the Hunter Biden
laptop story, but this isn't a criminal trial. It is a
congressional hearing. I am here because my constituents are
genuinely concerned that they will be kicked off these
platforms for any statement that managers at those companies
disagree with. They feel that social media companies, like
Twitter, are forcing them to play a game that they don't know
the rules to. I want to know your opinion on if you think it is
appropriate for people in positions of power to determine what
information gets shared. If not, what criteria is acceptable
for making those determinations?
Mr. Baker. That is a very broad question on people in
power. I am not sure I can answer that effectively and address
your----
Mr. LaTurner. Could you try?
Mr. Baker. Well, I mean, the Congress is in power. Congress
is restricted by the Constitution of the United States.
Congress passes laws. Those laws impact how, for example,
private sector actors exercise their power or spend their
money, that type of thing. Government agencies have to act in
accordance with the Constitution. The laws you pass, internal
regulations, executive orders, there are a whole panoply of
ways that people in power, writ large, are held accountable and
have to comply with rules and regulations, and laws, and the
Constitution.
Mr. LaTurner. Mr. Chairman, I would like to yield the rest
of my time to Mr. Jordan.
Chairman Comer. Yield to Mr. Jordan.
Mr. Jordan. I thank the gentleman. Mr. Roth, I want to go
back to your statement in your declaration of the FEC, ``I
learned that a hack-and-leak operation would involve Hunter
Biden.'' Who did you learn that from?
Mr. Roth. My recollection is it was mentioned by another
technology company in one of our joint meetings, but I don't
recall specifically whom.
Mr. Jordan. You don't know the person's name?
Mr. Roth. I don't even recall what company they worked at,
no. This was a long time ago.
Mr. Jordan. And you are confident that it was from a tech
company, not from someone from the government?
Mr. Roth. To the best of my recollection, yes.
Mr. Jordan. Did anyone from the government in these
periodic meetings you have, did they ever tell you that a hack-
and-leak operation involving Hunter Biden was coming?
Mr. Roth. No.
Mr. Jordan. Did Hunter Biden's name come up at all in these
meetings?
Mr. Roth. Yes, his name was raised in those meetings, but
not by the government, to the best of my recollection.
Mr. Jordan. OK. Mr. Baker, I want to go back to the
question we had a few hours ago, but I want to frame it in a
way I think you can answer. Did you ever tell the FBI that they
had no legitimate interest in enforcement of Twitter's
policies?
Mr. Baker. I don't think I understand the question. I don't
recall ever having such a conversation with the FBI.
Mr. Jordan. OK. Did you think there was a problem with the
FBI sending you a list of names and accounts and saying, hey,
these violate your policies? Did you see that as some kind of
potential concern?
Mr. Baker. I was always concerned that the FBI adhere to
the Constitution and laws of the United States, period.
Mr. Jordan. And you didn't think that crossed the line?
Mr. Roth. What crossed the lines, sir?
Mr. Jordan. What I just asked you, the idea they are
sending you a list of account that they want--they say these
violate your terms of service.
Mr. Baker. Again, I am making sure that I can answer the
question. Had I thought that they were doing something
unlawful, I would have taken appropriate steps to address it.
Mr. Jordan. OK. Mr. Roth, based on what I read in the
Twitter files, why were you reluctant to work with the GEC?
Mr. Roth. It was my understanding that the GEC, or the
Global Engagement Center of the State Department, had
previously engaged in at least what some would consider
offensive influence operations. Not that they were offensive as
in bad, but offensive as in they targeted entities outside of
the United States. And on that basis, I felt that it would be
inappropriate for Twitter to engage with a part of the State
Department that was engaged in active statecraft. We were
dedicated to rooting out malign foreign interference no matter
who it came from, and if we found that the American Government
was engaged in malign foreign interference, we would be
addressing that as well.
Mr. Jordan. Yes.
Chairman Comer. The gentleman's time has expired. In
closing, I want to, again, thank our panelists for being here.
I know it has been a long day. We apologize for the electricity
going out. That has never happened in my six years in Congress.
But before we close, the Ranking Member and I are going to have
very brief closing statements.
I yield to the Ranking Member.
Mr. Raskin. Well, thank you kindly, Mr. Chairman. Thank you
to the witnesses for your endurance and patience today. I hope
you don't feel as bad about the day as you seem to look right
now, but it is going to be over soon.
I want to start with a simple point that I hope will be
sympathetic to you, and I began the long day with this. It is
even more important now that we have Members who are actually
threatening witnesses with arrest and prosecution for clearly
imaginary offenses, really offenses that might make sense in
their minds, but I don't quite know what they would be. But
Twitter is a private First Amendment protected media entity,
and you make your own decisions, like Fox News makes its
decisions. And I might get kicked off of Fox News, or they
might not cover me, or Wall Street Journal, or MSNBC. I have
got no constitutional right to go there, so I think there is
just a fundamental legal fallacy and logical fallacy that
pervades most of the questioning today.
And my friend, the Chairman, and my friend, Mr. Jordan,
certainly know that under our First Amendment, there is a state
action requirement. There is no state action here. Now, there
is an attempt to perhaps jerry-rig some state action by
claiming, well, it was really the FBI that committed whatever
offense was there, but what do we have in terms of what we
found today?
Well, today's witnesses, each and every one, testified that
no U.S. Government official directed any of them to censor,
remove, or take down the New York Post story. That was their
mistake. Two, today's witnesses all testified that the Biden
campaign did not direct Twitter to take action against the New
York Post story. And three, the whole hearing was predicated on
the idea that the FBI directed Twitter to take down the New
York Post story to protect Biden, but, once again, not a single
witness testified that the FBI even communicated with Twitter
about the New York Post story.
So, to me, this has been a wild cyber goose chase all day.
It has turned up absolutely nothing. But there was one serious
point made by our witness, Ms. Navaroli, who said that the
violence and the chaos that was reaped upon this institution,
not far from where we sit today, on January 6, the attempt to
topple a Presidential election and install someone who had not
been elected as President, was facilitated by Twitter and other
social media entities. And Twitter, at least, the brass there
specifically rejected the pleas of employees to take seriously
all of the signs and clues of coming violence and the
insurrectionary action that took place. That is a serious
problem that we are going to have to deal with at some point at
a serious hearing. Mr. Chairman, I yield back to you.
Chairman Comer. The gentleman yields. I will conclude by
reminding my friend, the Ranking Member, that you have gone
through quite the transition. At the beginning of the hearing,
you as well as many of your colleagues said this was a
conspiracy theory. After listening to the witnesses, now you
say it is a simple mistake they made in suppressing the laptop
story. Twitter is a private company, but they enjoy special
liability protections, Section 230. They also, according to the
Twitter Files, receive millions of dollars from the FBI, which
is tax dollars, I would assume, and that makes it a concern of
the Oversight Committee.
The reason that we had this hearing is because the laptop
has been mislabeled by many in the mainstream media as being
Russia disinformation, and that started with Twitter, as well
as being tampered with, and you had several people, including
Mr. Goldman, that implied that it had been tampered with, even
though CBS News and other credible media outlets----
Mr. Raskin. What do you mean, mainstream outlets?
Chairman Comer. CBS?
Mr. Raskin. Yes.
Chairman Comer. You don't think CBS is credible?
Mr. Raskin. No, I thought you were just calling them
``mainstream media.'' Oh, OK.
Chairman Comer. No, no, CBS News. CBS News has done a
forensic audit that shows that the hard drive is legitimate,
and it was not tampered with. So, these are misconceptions that
are out there, and they started because of the suppression of
the laptop story. The reason the laptop is important is because
there is evidence on there that should concern every American
about potential corruption, as well as evidence that would
suggest that there is a possibility that this Administration
could be compromised because of the millions and millions of
dollars that they have received from our adversaries around the
world. And we believe that is worth investigating. We believe
national security is important.
We had a hearing yesterday on our border. We believe there
is a crisis at the border, and it threatens our national
security. We had a hearing today. We believe that we need to
make sure that this Administration is not compromised because
of the millions of dollars that they have received from our
adversaries around the world. Much of that evidence is
contained in the laptop.
So, I think this was a very successful hearing. I
appreciate the witnesses' time. I know it was a very long day,
and, again, we have never had the electricity go out before,
but we appreciate your sincere testimony.
And with that, and without objection, all Members will have
five legislative days----
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Mr. Chair? Mr. Chair? Mr. Chair? I
apologize. It has come to my attention that I have to seek a
unanimous request in order to submit some additional documents.
Chairman Comer. Without objection, so ordered.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Thank you. Apologies.
Chairman Comer. With that, and without objection, all
Members will have five legislative days within which to submit
materials and to submit additional written questions for the
witnesses, which will be forward to the witnesses for their
response.
If there is no further business, without objection, the
Committee stands adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 4:12 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.]
[all]