[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 190 (Wednesday, December 7, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7015-S7016]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                     Twitter and the 2020 Election

  Mr. GRASSLEY. Last Friday, Elon Musk released documents and very good 
information relating to Twitter's interference in the 2020 Presidential 
election by censoring the New York Post Hunter Biden reporting. Just 
yesterday, Musk reportedly fired Twitter's general counsel, Jim Baker, 
for his involvement in the censorship scandal. Baker, you might 
remember, was general counsel at the FBI and was involved in the 
Crossfire Hurricane investigation.
  You can't make up these stories.
  Musk also released information that showed that the Biden campaign 
was involved in the censorship efforts. The information shows that 
Twitter employees knew--actually knew--that they had no legitimate 
basis to censor the Hunter Biden reporting but proceeded to do it 
anyway. Twitter also removed links and blocked the reporting from being 
shared by direct messaging on its platform. Folks that fought the good 
fight against Twitter's extraordinary censorship were also locked out 
of their accounts.
  These documents that Musk made public made very clear that Twitter 
was effectively an arm of the Democratic Party and the Biden campaign. 
Twitter essentially gave the Biden campaign a massive in-kind campaign 
contribution.
  What Twitter and other big tech companies did in 2020 with respect to 
censorship was as much an outrage then as it is today. Simply put, what 
they did is expected of communist China, not the United States of 
America.
  Reports also indicate that the FBI warned Twitter during weekly 
meetings before the 2020 election that hack-and-leak operations 
involving Hunter Biden material were likely to occur in October of 
2020. Well, the FBI had the Hunter Biden laptop since December of 2019, 
almost a year before the election.
  Information on it has been verified by liberal news outlets. It took 
a long time for those liberal news outlets to admit that this wasn't 
Russian disinformation.
  So, then, I ask this question: Did the FBI do the same or did they 
fail to do their due diligence?
  I find the FBI's action in advance of the 2020 election to be more 
than suspicious. It is too bad that just now, 2 years later, we get 
this information from a person that bought Twitter and wants the public 
to know what actually went on.
  Now, some of you remember that Senator Johnson and I released our 
first report on the Biden family connections to communist China on 
September 23, 6 weeks before the 2020 election. And you know, if you 
remember, at that time it was swept up into the Hunter Biden censorship 
fiasco not long after. So, too, was our second report, which we 
released on November 18, 2020.
  But we were more than just censored. Before we even made the first 
report public, the liberal media and even some of our Democratic 
colleagues tried to smear us with false claims that our work was 
connected to you know what--Russian disinformation. My Senate 
colleagues went into full Joe Biden protection mode.
  So here we have four elements to this fact pattern that ought to 
shake up every Member of the U.S. Senate and shake them up to their 
very core. No. 1, the FBI got their hands on Twitter via these weekly 
briefings--the weekly briefings that I have already expressed existed--
and planted seeds regarding future hacked material relating to Hunter 
Biden. No. 2, the FBI improperly labeled information it possessed on 
Hunter Biden as you know what--disinformation. No. 3, the FBI provided 
an unnecessary August 2020 briefing to me and Senator Johnson that was 
used by some Democrats and by the liberal media to try to undermine our 
investigation that started well before the 2020 election. No. 4, the 
liberal media repeatedly and falsely labeled my and Senator Johnson's 
investigation as you know what--Russia disinformation.
  Now, all of that happened in the runup to the 2020 Presidential 
election.
  In the long run, these false allegations and bad faith efforts 
against me and Senator Johnson didn't work, as everybody knows now but 
didn't know at the time.
  For example, in this Congress, Senator Johnson and I gave floor 
speeches on these dates in 2022: March 28, March 29, and April 5. 
Through those speeches, we introduced bank records connecting Hunter 
and James Biden to the Chinese communist regime. We sent hundreds of 
pages of bank records to U.S. Attorney Weiss on October 26 of this 
year, showing those very same connections--the same connections that 
Johnson and

[[Page S7016]]

I made in our 2020 report. These are authentic bank records. They 
aren't Russian disinformation.
  President Biden still owes the American people answers about his 
connections to Hunter and James Biden's business deals and 
arrangements. He owes the American people an explanation as to how much 
he knew about their businesses and personal relationships with 
communist China.

  On October 13 of this year, I wrote to the FBI telling them that I 
know it possesses documents that indicate Joe Biden was aware of Hunter 
Biden's business arrangements and may have been involved in some.
  In conclusion, since Senator Johnson and I began our Biden 
investigation August 2019--now, remember, 14 months before the 2020 
election--now, after all that, our work has been substantiated. Big 
Tech censorship may have succeeded in the short term; however, the 
truth eventually sees the light of day. And I thank the new Twitter 
owner for his transparency. Accountability should follow.