‘You Got Played By the FBI!’ Jim Jordan Rages at Twitter Official For Suppression of Hunter Biden Laptop Story

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) questioned former Twitter employees in a fiery manner during Wednesday’s House Oversight Committee hearing on the social media platform’s temporary suppression of the New York Post’s Hunter Biden laptop story.

Jordan began his questioning by trying to suss out how many people at Twitter were given security clearances by the FBI and asked former Head of Trust and Safety Yoel Roth about a set of documents sent to him by an “Agent Chan” at the FBI.

“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,” explained Roth.

“Is any of the information on there classified?” shot back Jordan.

“No, sir. I do not hold a security clearance, and so I would not have received any classified information,” Roth replied.

“Who does hold a security clearance? I just got a second email here. I’m just curious about this. What I propose is that 30 days out from the election, this is just another email to you from Mr. Chan. 30 that you get. We get temporary clearances. You pick who they are. Who were the people at Twitter who had a security clearance?” Jordan pressed.

“To be honest, sir, I’m not sure. And we never ultimately followed through on this plan to get temporary clearance,” Roth replied.

“Did anyone at Twitter have a security clearance?” Jordan demanded.

“It’s my understanding that at least some current or former employees did hold clearances, but I wasn’t certain about that,” Roth answered.

“Ms. Gadde do you know if anyone took up Mr. Chan’s offer to hand out security clearances 30 days before the 2020 election?” Jordan then asked Vijaya Gadde – the former chief legal officer of Twitter.
“Not that I’m aware,” Gadded replied.

Jordan then ran through the other witnesses, none of whom knew of anyone at Twitter with security clearances.

“I mean, it seemed like the offer was sort of just handed out like candy. I just wondered who had them. No one knows,” Jordan replied, clearly not getting what he was looking for.

“Okay, so the FBI didn’t tell you that? That it was faked and tell you that it was hacked? And Mr. Roth, did this story violate your policies?” Jordan asked.

“In my judgment at the time. No, it did not,” Roth replied.

“Yeah, that’s what you said. Said what I would propose. Excuse me. As you said, it isn’t clearly a violation of our hacked 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, didn’t tell you it was hacked. Why did you take it down?” Jordan followed up.

“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,” Roth replied.

“You know what? You know what I think happened, Mr. Roth?” Jordan shot back, offering his theory.

“I think I think you guys got played. I think you guys wanted to, wanted to take it deep down. We saw it, but the chairman put up where you said, you know, everyone in the White House is a fascist. I think you guys wanted it to be taken down,” Jordan said, launching into a diatribe:

I think you meet with these guys every week. We know that’s been established in the Twitter files. You had weekly meetings with Mr. Chan in the run up to the election. They send you all kinds of emails. They send 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’s the scary part because we had 50. I mean, this to me is the real take away 51 former intelligence officials. Five days after you guys take down the Hunter Biden story and block the New York Post account, five days later, 51 former intel officials send 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’s the concern.

And to Mr. Raskin’s point, that you guys aren’t bound by the First Amendment because you’re a private company. Okay, maybe so. But your 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’ve said as much in your testimony.

“My understanding of the First Amendment is that it protects people and businesses from government,” Roth replied.

Watch the full clip above via Fox News