Democrat Grills Taibbi on Elon Musk Omitting Trump’s Attempts to Censor Chrissy Teigen From Twitter Files

Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA) grilled “Twitter Files” authors Michael Shellenberger and Matt Taibbi on Thursday over the ideological slant of their work and whether or not Twitter owner Elon Musk handed over any documents related to right-of-center efforts to censor on the social media platform.

“Mr. Taibbi, you have said that this isn’t really a matter of right or left, that there are lots of different ideological colorations involved in the Twitter policies, is that roughly correct?” Connolly asked during a House hearing.

“Yes,” replied Taibbi.

“And Mr. Shellenberger, you would agree with that?” Connolly asked.

“Yes,” replied Shellenberger.

“So when you release information, have you released any information of, for example, right-wing elements or the Trump White House attempting to moderate content at Twitter?” Connolly pressed.

“No, not the Trump White House per se, although I did report initially in the first Twitter Files that the Trump White House had made and requests and had been honored,” Taibbi replied.

“Mr. Shellenberger?” Connolly asked.

“I did not find that,” Shellenberger replied.

“You haven’t found it?” shot back Connolly. “So we had a hearing the other day on Twitter, and we had four witnesses, three for the majority, one for the minority, and all four testified under oath. They had never received a request for content moderation or takedown by the Biden White House, but they did from Donald Trump’s White House.”

Connolly continued, “And specifically, the case brought up was an exchange between Donald Trump, then president of the United States, and Chrissy Teigen, where, you know, they he had called her something and she called him something back. I won’t repeat it.”

“And this was under oath – confirmed. Yep, that happened. And that the White House, shortly thereafter, after Teigen, had her email [sic] about the president, which was pejorative that the White House called Twitter to try to take down the content. You were of that Mr. Taibbi?” Connolly asked.

“Yeah, I certainly heard that in the news,” Taibbi replied.

“But did you see that email exchange?” Connolly pressed.

“No, I have not seen an exchange from the Trump White House. So I have seen one from Congressman Schiff and one from Senator Angus King,” Taibbi replied, detailing some of what Musk showed him.

“Yeah, nice try. We’re talking about the Trump White House and people under oath confirming it,” Connolly hit back.

Later in the questioning, Connolly addressed Musk’s involvement more directly.

“And my question is in the Twitter files, did Elon Musk or Twitter provide you with that exchange with Chrissy Teigen?” Connolly asked.

“No, but that’s probably because the searches that I was making…” Taibbi replied, before Connolly interjected.

“Well, probably because it didn’t confirm the bias that this is all about. As the gentleman from Texas would say, ‘the left’ is attempting to control content when in fact the evidence is the Trump White House most certainly attempted to control content and Twitter,” Connolly argued.

“Mr. Shellenberger, were you aware of that, or is this all news to you?” Connolly asked.

“I already answered that question,” Shellenberger replied.

“No, I mean, specifically the Teigen exchange,” Connolly clarified.

“Yeah. The Teigen exchange was news to me,” Shellenberger acknowledged.

Watch the full clip above.