Matt Taibbi, the reputable and often left-leaning investigator chosen last year by Elon Musk to review Twitter files, reported his findings in what has come to be known as the “Twitter Files.” Recently, Democratic Rep. Stacey Plaskett, who represents the Virgin Islands, threatened Taibbi with jail time.
The “Twitter Files appear to reveal that the Department of Justice paid Twitter millions to suppress or manipulate information pertaining to the 2020 election.
Last month, Plaskett sought to discredit Taibbi after Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) asked Taibbi to testify. During the hearing, Plaskett referred to Taibbi as a “so-called journalist.”
Taibbi embarrassed Plaskett by taking issue with her statement and reminding her of his impressive credentials.
Following Tabbi’s testimony before the Judiciary Committee, Plasket threatened Taibbi with incarceration, accusing him of “purposely conflating the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) with the Center for Internet Security (CIS), which is privately run, in his ‘Twitter Files’ reporting,” according to The Daily Caller.
MSNBC’s Mehdi Hasan supported Plaskett in a fiery and now deleted Twitter post on March 9. Taibbi “deliberately & under oath misrepresented” the CISA and CIS, wrote Hasan.
On Monday, Taibbi complained on “Fox & Friends” that the mainstream media’s silence on Plaskett’s threat of jail time is “deafening.” Taibbi asserts Plaskett’s threats inhibit the freedom of the press — a hallmark right in any democracy.
Taibbi asserts Plaskett’s pushback is politically motivated and unfair:
“I know this is a cliché,” Taibbi said, “but can you imagine if something like this had happened in the Trump years? If Republicans had threatened somebody like Jim Acosta with five years in prison over a minor error that he didn’t even make in testimony before Congress?”
Taibbi continued: “You would have had every human rights organization on Earth complaining about it, but not a peep from my so-called colleagues in mainstream media over this outrageous abuse.”
The investigative reporter chastised media leaders, saying, “It doesn’t matter what journalist it is; they should be upset about it because it could be them next.”
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