Transcript: House Oversight Hearing with Former Twitter Executives

On February 8th, 2023, the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, led by Chair Rep. James Comer (R-KY) and ranking member Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) hosted a hearing titled "Protecting Speech from Government Interference and Social Media Bias, Part 1: Twitter’s Role in Suppressing the Biden Laptop Story."

Witnesses included:

• Vijaya Gadde, Former Chief Legal Officer, Twitter (Opening statement)
• James Baker, Former Deputy General Counsel, Twitter (Opening statement)
• Yoel Roth, Former Global Head of Trust & Safety, Twitter (Opening statement)
• Anika Collier Navaroli, Former U.S. Safety Policy Team, Twitter (Opening statement)

This transcript may contain errors. Check quotes against the video of the hearing before reproducing.

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

The Committee on Oversight and Accountability will come to order. I wanna 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 speech and interfere in the democratic process. Social media platforms are increasingly the place 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 US Constitution. We've witnessed big tech autocrats willed 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 is pledged to end censorship that goes beyond the law. He has pledged to allow Americans' voices be heard, not quashed. In this hearing, we'll 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 take over the company, Twitter aggressively suppressed conservative elected officials, journalists and activists. This includes shadow banning locking accounts and banning accounts altogether. In fact, Twitter's previous management team deplatformed 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 previous CEO Jack Dorsey claimed 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 back list, Twitter's employees made censorship decisions on the fly, often not following the company's own policy, 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 de-legitimize information contained in Hunter Biden's laptop about the Biden's family business schemes. On October 14th, 2020, the New York Post published its first story based on information contained in Hunter Biden's laptop story in Hunter Biden's laptop. The post provided proof of the laptop's legitimacy by releasing a computer repair store 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 de-legitimize 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 Posts 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 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 19th, 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 22nd.

But we all know now this was not Russian disinformation. It wasn't disinformation. I wanna make sure the American people truly understand the timeline here because it's 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 use 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 17% 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 coverup by big tech.

The swamp and mainstream use. Now mainstream media outlet 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 also joined by Anika Collier Navaroli, Twitter's former head of trust and safety or no, a former Twitter member, US 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.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD):

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, 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 is 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 faux 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's more, Twitter's editorial decision has been analyzed and debated ad nauseum. 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 it makes such tweets mentioning the New York Post never see the light of day, they can do that too. That's 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 his 57 of a hundred senators found he did, and it 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 and 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 in apology. What more do they want and why does the US 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 and 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 for the January 6th 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 for coordinating logistical movements and tactical maneuvers in the mob violence against our police officers. In the lead up to January 6th, Twitter decided to allow Donald Trump and countless mega 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 interests of public safety approaching January 6th.

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's no carve out to free speech for speech relating to the New York Post or Hunter Biden or laptops, but there is a significant carve out when the speech is deliberately calculated to produce imminent violence in chaos against the government. That's why Twitter's deliberate indifference to Trump's big lies and incitement to its decision to ignore the pleas of its own employees to deal with the impending explosion against our police and against Congress on January 6th are matters that require real investigation and reflection rather than conspiring to suppress right wing mega speech. As my colleagues astonishingly claim 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 6th, 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 cos and incitement of violent insurrections against the United States or Brazil or any other country, but this is a grave problem confronting democracy, not just in 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 of 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 of Ukraine. How are we gonna prevent the liberal democracies from being overrun by propaganda, disinformation and violent incitement? We'll 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.

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back, 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, Yol Roth Twitter's former head of Trust and safety, and Anika Collier Navaroli, a former member of Twitter's US Safety Policy Team. I want to remind everyone you all are appearing under subpoena by your own request pursuant to committee rule 9G. The witnesses will please stand and raise the 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 let the record show that the witness is all answered in the affirmative. We'll begin the five minute question portion of our hearing today. The chair recognizes ...

What's that? Oh, I apologize. Ready to get to the questions? We'll, we'll, we'll start with the opening statements, then we'll go to the questions. So each witness will get five minute opening statements, and we'll begin with you Mr. Baker.

James 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 public, 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'm 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, 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 urge 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'm unaware, I'm 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 hitter, 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've 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 dil 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 dialogue 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 emails, 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 co Twitter's Covid misinformation policy, asking questions and learning more about what a client what a client's activities are is what I think good lawyers should do, and again, hardly surprising. Fifth, the Twitter files reference 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 or 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. 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.

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

Thank you Mr. Baker. Ms. Gadde.

Vijaya 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 of 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 using the platform and 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 shock stockholders. As we prioritize 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 range 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 are 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 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 need to update them. We always remained open to new information from our customers and critics regarding our policies and enforcement. At times, we also reverse course. For example, on October 14th, 2020, the New York Post tweeted articles about Hunter Biden's laptop with embedded images that look like they may have been obtained through hacking. In 2018, we had developed a policy intended to, to prevent Twitter from becoming a dumping ground for hacked materials. We applied this policy to the New York Post tweets and blocked links to the 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 anyone 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 long-standing practice, not to retroactively apply new policies. Twitter informed the New York posts that it could immediately begin tweeting when it deleted the original tweets, which would've 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 tweets. In hindsight, Twitter should have reinstated the post 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.

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

Thank you very much. Mr. Roth.

Yoel 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's 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's 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 hack and leak operation targeting the dnc, and we had 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've been clear that in my judgment at the time, Twitter should not have taken action to block the New York posts reporting and just 24 hours after doing so, the company acknowledged its error, but the decisions here aren't straightforward and hindsight is 2020. It isn't obvious what the right response is to a suspected but not confirmed cyber attack by another government on a presidential election. I believe Twitter aired 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'll be the first to admit that we didn't always get it right. Even rare mistakes add up when you're 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's 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.

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

Thank you. Ms. Navaroli.

Anika Collier 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'm 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 6th attack on the Capitol. If we are going to talk about social media in the government, we need to talk about Twitter's failure to act before January 6th. 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 US 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've learned from them is that social media played and continues to play a role in these events in two years after January 6th.

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'm gonna talk a little bit about what happened in the months leading up to January 6th. 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 backwards to find ways to not approve it. On January 5th when the policy was still not approved, I let 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 6th, 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 6th 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 US assassinated an Iranian general and the US 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.

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

Thank you all. Excellent opening statements. Now, we'll begin with the question portion. We'll begin by recognizing Mr. Biggs for five minutes.

Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ):

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 AM 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?

Yoel 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.

Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ):

Okay, 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. You know Carolyn Strom?

Yoel Roth:

Yes, sir, I do. Yeah.

Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ):

And Carolyn Strom asked What's going on here? And somebody named Elaine Ang Soto said The user was bounced by site integrity for violating our hacked materials policy. Do you remember that incident?

Yoel Roth:

Yes, sir, I do.

Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ):

And somebody named Trenton Kennedy said, I'm 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 it, for me, it looks like we're trying to create a narrative here to cover our butt. The best explainability argument for this externally will be that we're waiting to understand that this story is the result of hacked materials. Do you remember Mr. Kennedy's communication?

Yoel Roth:

Yes, I do.

Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ):

Yeah. 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's been violated here. He says, I've seen some reliable cyber security folks question the authenticity of the emails in another way. And then you seem to later, but by the way, that's almost inconceivable. I mean, it just seems inconceivable that that would've happened so quickly that he would, 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'm wondering if you can name for me today any of the experts that seem to have a consensus at 10:12 AM on the morning of October 14th that you put out saying that we're gonna rely on some group of experts. Who were they?

Yoel 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. Were

Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ):

There, Mr. Roth, were there experts? Were there, were there people that you consulted that were cybersecurity experts between 9:00 AM and 10:15 AM on that day?

Yoel 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.

Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ):

I understand. Let's look at one other, one other document. Our teams made the determination, the material, that the materials fall under our hacked materials policy. It's my understanding from reports and internal sources that normally a hacked material policy would require a government official or law enforcement determination that there'd actually been a hacked account before that hacked policy were to be in, placed or imposed. Is that accurate?

Yoel Roth:

No, sir. It's not the policy.

Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ):

Oh, so the policy was, did not that there be any kind of official finding by the government, by a government source?

Yoel 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 looked for…

Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ):

So you weren't looking, that wasn't determinative is what we're saying.

Yoel Roth:

In that instance, we did not have any specific information from any government source. No.

Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ):

I'm gonna read something that applies to this and several other things from, from your, from the the Twitter stack that you guys had. This might be an unpopular opinion, but one of 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 equal, equally dictatorial problem. Quite frankly, that's what the essence of all four of your testimony, I realize you're 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 holding, and then they're like, well, we, we want to go back with the originals. That's 24 hours or two weeks that you imposed your will on the American electorate. I'll yield back. Mr. Chairman gentleman, times expired. He went 30 seconds over. I'll give the ranking member an extra 30 seconds.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD):

You're very fair, 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 disinformation for Vladimir Putin to pump his poison into the bloodstream of American social media? Is that right?

Yoel Roth:

That's right, sir. And that's not just past tense. Those accounts are active on social media today. This is an ongoing campaign.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD):

Well, we should be having a hearing about that. I appreciate your alerting us. What's taken place, Ms. Navaroli? So you've testified that in the months leading up to the November, 2020 election, and then in the weeks before January 6th, 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?

Anika Collier 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, began 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 and very clear English on Twitter.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD):

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 5th of Twitter. I don't think it was called specifically to look at what was, what was gonna 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 6th. How did Twitter management respond to the concerns that you raised?

Anika Collier Navaroli:

That's a great question, and yes, that meeting was a regularly scheduled meeting within the meeting, I believe I referred to it in my testimony to the January 6th committee as I was at my wits and 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, Dell Harvey, that individuals might be saying things like Lockton loaded or stand back and stand by in ways of self-protection. That was not what we were seeing on the platform.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD):

So when you were seeing things like Lockton loaded in Civil War part two and race war and so on, were you warning your superiors at Twitter that you thought there was going to be real violence, that that was, this was not hyperbole that was being spoken at that point?

Anika Collier Navaroli:

Absolutely. I specifically told Dal Harvey herself that someone was going to get shot. As I testified to my, my to the January 6th committee.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD):

You stated that Donald Trump described his own tweets as little missiles. Why, why did that stick in your mind?

Anika Collier Navaroli:

Yes, I, the, the quote that you're referring to, I'm, I don't remember exactly what news article that I was in, but it was a news article that I had read in which the former president said that he liked 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.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD):

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, boards, the capital 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?

Anika Collier 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 in 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.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD):

All right. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would just say I, I was skeptical about revisiting the whole New York Post thing where there've already been congressional hearings and they've already apologized for their little lapse, but this is a serious issue, and so I'm glad we at least have the opportunity to begin to talk about it in public, and I yield back to you. Thank you,

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

Gentlemen. Yields back. I'll recognize myself now for questioning. The Biden family investigation begins with the story of how big tech, the media, former intelligence agents and the Bidens themselves suppressed the story of Hunter Biden's laptop weeks before the 2020 election. Today we're 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 towards conservatives and biased towards anyone who opposed their points of view. For example, Mr. Ruff, did you write this tweet?

Yoel Roth:

I regret the language that I used in some of my former tweets, but yes, I did post that.

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

I'll read the tweets. So it's 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?

Yoel Roth:

Certainly not, sir.

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

What about the hundreds of people who worked in the Trump administration?

Yoel Roth:

Certainly not.

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

Did Ms. Gadde or any other lawyer at Twitter ever tell you to take down that tweet?

Yoel Roth:

No, Twitter did not have a practice of restricting employees, sharing their personal viewpoints on the service.

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

Okay. Turning back to the laptop, Ms. Gadde, are you aware that Hunter Biden's lawyers, as recently as last week, wrote the Department of Justice about Hunter Biden's laptop?

Vijaya Gadde:

I've seen some articles about that.

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

Yes, they did. And it appears that Hunter Biden's attorney is admitting that the laptop and emails on it are authentic. So Ms. Gadde, on October 14th, 2020, did Hunter Biden report to Twitter that he was the victim of a hack?

Vijaya Gadde:

No, I don't believe he did

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

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?

Vijaya Gadde:

No, I did not.

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

Isn't it correct that the Biden campaign had contact with Twitter in the run up to the 2020 election?

Vijaya Gadde:

Not to my knowledge.

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

And you're telling this committee that, that you didn't ask any Biden representative if the laptop was real or for Hunter Biden's attorney's phone number to confirm it's authenticity?

Vijaya Gadde:

We did not speak to anybody related to that.

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

Mr. Baker, are you aware that the FBI had Hunter Biden's laptop since December of 2019?

James Baker:

I'm sorry. Am I aware of that now?

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

Well, were you aware then?

James Baker:

No, I don't believe, sir, that to the best of my recollection, I don't think I know.

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

But you're aware now?

James Baker:

I've heard that now, yes.

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

Mr. Becker, did you call any of your contacts at the FBI to ask whether or not they knew if the material had been hacked?

James Baker:

I don't recall contacting them about that on that day,

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

Mr. Roth, Ms. Gadde and Mr. Baker, it appears to me that you, you failed at your jobs. You were entrusted with the highest level of power at Twitter, but when you were faced within your 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's what it appeared.

I can assure you, this committee will succeed in holding the biden's 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, the, 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 of where 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's something the media should be very concerned about. What if there's a conservative president that somehow cleans out our FBI and they put in conservatives to suppress liberal speech? We don't. That's something that should never happen. So I look forward to more questions, and at this time, I yield..

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

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?

James Baker:

I'm trying to make sure I can answer this question consistent with the restrictions that I talked about in my opening statement.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

Simple questions. You talked to the FBI about the Hunter Biden story?

James Baker:

I do. To the best of my recollection, I did not talk ab to the FBI about the Hunter Biden story before that day.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

Did you talk to him after it? You said your, your, I don't recall causes real. Your sponsors 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 14th. I wanna know if you talked to him on the 13th or before or if you talked to him on the 15th and after.

James Baker:

I don't recall speaking to the FBI sitting here today. I don't recall speaking to the FBI at all about the Hunter Biden matter.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

Well then why'd you answer? Why'd you answer it the way you did?

James Baker:

I beg your pardon?

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

I yield back.

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

Chair recognizes Ms. Norton for five minutes.

Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.):

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Like Benghazi before Republicans are on a taxpayer funded expedition to attack their political rivals, and they're feeding the flames of conspiracy in the process with the release of the so-called Twitter files, Donald Trump has seized the moment to further his own conspiracies about the 2020 election writing in December. And I quote, do not throw the presidential election results of 2020 out and declare, I mean, do you throw the Presidential <laugh> 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 in now at Bears repeating that this is the same man who incited an insurrection on January 6th and just last week reposted a message on Truth social that suggested his Suppo supporters will quote, and I'm quoting him now, physically fight for him this time and added they got my six and we <laugh> 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 Tweeter Twitter prior to January 6th?

Anika Collier Navaroli:

Yes, thank you for that question. The way that I read Lock and Loaded to be interpreted by the tweets that I saw coming on Twitter prior to January 6th was that individuals were loaded or were had, were armed, excuse me, and that they were ready to commit violence.

Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.):

Are you concerned that the use of this language will continue to incite and legitimize political violence leading to the next election?

Anika Collier Navaroli:

Absolutely. We are sitting exactly one month in which the exact same playbook was played in Brazil when we saw almost deja vu happening again, as I said in my opening statement, unless we do something, this will continue to happen again.

Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.):

Thank you Ms. Navaroli. Mr. Roth you are no stranger to conspiracies and they're 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?

Yoel 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, or greater than what I've 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 anti-Semitic 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.

Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.):

Well, that's <laugh>, I must say. Those are very real consequences. By legitimizing unsubstantiated conspiracy theories about the deep state, big tech and gov 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 6th, 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

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

Lady yields back. Chair recognizes Ms. Mace for five minutes.

Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC):

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Twitter fires files were not just about Hunter Biden's laptop Twitter files make it apparent Twitter worked overtime to suppress accurate covid information. Dr. Jay Bacher 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. 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've 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'm not the only American who has those kinds of concerns. Another example of what Twitter has done to censor folks is from Dr. Martin Calor. If, if Harvard educated epidemiologists 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 treat 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?

Vijaya Gadde:

I did not go to medical school.

Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC):

I'm sorry.

Vijaya Gadde:

I did not go to medical school.

Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC):

That's what I thought. Why do you think you or anyone else at Twitter had the medical expertise to censor a doctor's expert opinion?

Vijaya Gadde:

Our policies regarding Covid were designed to protect individuals.

Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC):

We were seeing you guys censor Harvard educated doctors, Stanford educated doctors, doctors that are educated in the best places in the world, and you silence those voices. My next question is, did the US government, oh, excuse me, I have another chart I wanna show you, Ms. Gadde. 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's the CDC’s own data, so it's accurate by your standards. And you all labeled this as misleading. You're not a doctor, right, Ms. Gadde?

Vijaya Gadde:

No, I'm not.

Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC):

Okay. What makes you think you or anyone else of Twitter have the medical expertise to censor actual accurate CDC data?

Vijaya Gadde:

I'm not familiar with these particular situations.

Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC):

Yeah, I'm sure you're not. But this is what Twitter did. They labeled this as inaccurate. It is the government's own data. It's ridiculous that we are even having to have this conversation today. It's not just about the laptop. This is about medical advice that expert doctors we're trying to give Americans, because social media companies like Twitter we're silencing their voices. I have another question, my last one for you, Ms. Gadde, did the US government ever contact you or anyone at Twitter to pressure Twitter to moderate or censor certain tweets? Yes or no?

Vijaya Gadde:

We have a program…

Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC):

Did the US government ever contact you or anyone at Twitter to censor or moderate certain tweets? Yes or no?

Vijaya Gadde:

We receive legal demands to remove content from the platform, from the US government and governments all around the world. Those are published on a third party website, and anyone can repeat that.

Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC):

Thank God for Matt Taibbi. Thank God for Elon Musk for allowing us to show the world that Twitter was basically a subsidiary of the FBI censoring real medical voices with real expertise that put real Americans' lives and danger because they didn't have that information. I also wanna 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 wanna thank him for speaking up and speaking out about this issue. Because this is not, this should not be a partisan issue. This should be an issue that's an American issue. Mr. Chairman, I would like to enter into the record. I asked unanimous consent to enter into the record a Wall Street Journal article from December 9th, 2022 by Justin Hart entitled The Twitter Back Blacklist of Jay Barchi. And to the record, please, Mr. Chairman,

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

Without objection so ordered.

Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC):

Thank you. And I yield back.

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

Chair recognizes Mr. Lynch for five minutes.

Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-MA):

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 and I quote, 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 US 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 US intelligence community assessed that Russia's 2016 election operations signaled a quote, new normal in Russian influence efforts, and that the Kremlin would quote, apply lessons learned going forward against the US and its allies. Mr. Roth, in the December interview with journalist Kara Swisher, you state that this declassified assessment was quote, and I'm quoting you a watershed moment in the history of content moderation and the internet close quote. You also stated in that interview that Twitter discussed potential threats to the integrity of the 2020 elections. And it was, quote, and I'm 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 r the Russian government. And that quote, we would have been stupid not to think about that risk. Mr. Roth. Why would Twitter have been stupid to ignore that, that risk?

Yoel 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 suggest that the number one most influential part of the Russian Active Measures campaign in 2016 was the hack and leak targeting John Podesta. It would've been foolish not to consider the possibility that they would run that play again.

Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-MA):

Right. And, and so let me ask, was that top of mind for, for Twitter, you're trying to, you're trying to measure the credibility of incoming intelligence. Was that top of mind in, in, in regard to your decision, the company's decision to temporarily limit the distribution of the October 14th New York Post story that was delivered by mayor Giuliani?

Yoel Roth:

Yes, that was one of the animating concerns forus. 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 and I 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.

Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-MA):

Mr. Roth then in a December, 2020 sworn declaration to the FEC, you said that starting in 2018, you had quote, 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?

Yoel Roth:

Yes, sir. It is.

Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-MA):

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, quote rumors that a hack and leak operation would involve Hunter Biden. Close quote. Is that your recollection today?

Yoel Roth:

It is, but I wanna clarify that sentence slightly. Sure. 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. Okay,

Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-MA):

Just to, to fast forward here and in fact, in March, 2021, four months after the election the US intelligence community assessed that Russian President Putin authorized an a range of, of government organizations conducted influence operations aimed at denigrated President Biden's candidacy and the Democratic Party supporting former President Trump in undermining public confidence in the electoral process and exacerbating sociopolitical divisions in the US that obviously reared their head On January 6th Mr. Chairman, my time has expired and I yield back.

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

Gentleman yields back. Chair recognizes Mr. Jordan for five minutes.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Roth, did the government tell you that the Biden laptop story was fake?

Yoel Roth:

No, sir. They did not.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

Did they tell you it was hacked?

Yoel Roth:

No, sir, they did not.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

On October 14th, 2020, Twitter blocks the New York Post story on the Hunter Biden. 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's not spam. Please confirm receipt. When you get it, two minutes later, 6:24 PM you respond back, received and downloaded. Thanks. What were those 10 documents?

Yoel 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's my recollection of those.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

What did they relate to?

Yoel 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...

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

Any of the information on there classified?

Yoel Roth:

No, sir. I do not hold a security clearance, and so I would not have received any classified information who

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

Does anyone hold a security clearance? I'm gonna, I'm just gonna read a second email here. I'm just curious about this. What I propose is that 30 days out from the election, this is another email to you from Mr. Chan where you say, you get, we get temporary clearances. You pick who they are. Who were the people at Twitter who had a security clearance?

Yoel Roth:

To be honest, sir, I'm not sure. And we never ultimately followed through on this plan to get temporary clearances.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

Did anyone at Twitter have a security clearance?

Yoel Roth:

It's my understanding that at least some current or former employees did hold clearances, but I wasn't certain about

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

That. Ms. Gadde, do you know if anyone took up Mr. Chan's offer to hand out security clearances 30 days before the 2020 election? Not that I'm aware. So we don't know how many people had security clearances at Twitter? Do we know Mr. Baker, and Ms. Gadde? Anyone know how many people at Twitter had a security clearance in the 30 days prior to the election?

Yoel Roth:

I don't know the answer to that question, sir. Ms.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

Gadde? I do not know Mr. Mr. Roth. You don't know?

Yoel Roth:

No, sir.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

How about the last one, Ms. Navaroli? Do you know?

Anika Collier Navoroli:

No.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

I mean, it seemed like the offer was sort of just hand them out like candy. I'm just wondering who had 'em. No one knows. Okay. did, so the FBI didn't tell you that the, that it was fake didn't tell you that it was hacked? And, and Mr. Roth, did the story violate your policies?

Yoel Roth:

In my judgment at the time? No, it did not. Yeah,

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

That's what you said. Said What I would propose excuse me, is 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, didn't tell you it was hacked, why'd you take it down?

Yoel 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

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

To, you know, you know what, you know what I think happened? Mr. Roth? I think you guys got played. I think you guys wanted to, wanted to take it deep down. We saw what the chairman put up where you said, you know, everyone in the White House isn't as a fascist. I think you guys wanted it to be taken down. 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 and 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 takeaway.

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, in 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 that as much in your testimony.

Yoel Roth:

My understanding of the First Amendment is that it protects people and businesses from government…

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

I do not understand how that informs what’s in your term of service. So here's what I wanna know. Here's what I wanna know is this a violation of the First Amendment? When the government, Mr. Chan, again, sends you an email saying, we think these accounts need to be looked at because they violate your terms of service, that's 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's saying, we don't think these accounts comply with your terms of service. Please take him down. You see a problem there, Mr. Roth?

Yoel Roth:

Mr. Chairman, I'm seeing a flashing red light. I'm happy to answer the question. Do I think that that's 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.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

No, I sure do. I thank the gentleman. I yield back.

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

Chair recognized Mr. Conley for five minutes.

Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA):

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Great. My my my What happens when you hold a hearing and you can't prove your point <laugh>? We heard from the chairman in his opening statement that it's wrong for the government to call Twitter and say take down a tweet. Did I hear that correct Mr. Roth?

Yoel Roth:

That was my understanding, yes. Yeah.

Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA):

So on May 27th, 2020, president Donald J. Trump tweeted and I quote, 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're 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, unquote. Ms. Navaroli, doesn't that sound eerily like a government official telling Twitter that there's a threat we will shut you down if we don't like the content?

Anika Collier Navaroli:

I am not familiar with the tweet that you have referenced. Well,

Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA):

But if I just told you that quote without telling you who said it might, it has some ominous overtones from your point of view, if you're still at Twitter, we'll shut you down. We'll regulate you. We will never allow this to happen. Those are pretty strong words.

Anika Collier Navaroli:

They are, yeah.

Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA):

Okay. On September 8th, 2019 at 11:11 PM 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 AM and according to notes from a conversation with you, Ms. Navaroli's counsel, your counsel, the White House almost immediately thereafter contacted Twitter to demand the tweet be taken down. Is that accurate?

Anika Collier 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. In that particular instance, I do remember hearing that we had 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 towards the President.

Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA):

They wanted it to come down. They made that request.

Anika Collier Navaroli:

To my recollection, yes.

Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA):

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?

Anika Collier Navaroli:

Yes, that is correct.

Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA):

My, my, I you ever think it's appropriate for the President of the United States to direct or otherwise influence a social media company to take down its content?

Anika Collier Navaroli:

I think it's a very slippery slope.

Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA):

Mr. Roth, Ms. Gadde, Mr. Baker, any evidence that Joe Biden's ever done that?

Yoel Roth:

Certainly none that I'm aware of. No,

Anika Collier Navaroli:

I don't recall anything like that.

James Baker:

I'm sorry. The, the, that President Biden did what, sir,

Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA):

Has Joe Biden ever called Twitter to your knowledge or his White House at his best to take down content or urge you to take down content?

James Baker:

I don't know the answer to that question, sir.

Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA):

Well, I, I'm gonna have to conclude at least from three of the four. You don't know. There's no evidence he's ever done that, but there's plenty of evidence Donald J. Trump tried to do that. And if we're gonna have a hearing about the misuse of social media and the intrusion of government in the content on social media, we've got an environment rich target, but it's not Joe Biden. It's 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's not to help elect Democrats. And we don't wanna 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's what we oughta be talking about as we move forward, not the subject of today's hearing. Aye, yield back ju when yields back chair recognized. Mr. Donalds for five minutes.

Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL):

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. real quick, Mr. Roth you've stated already that what happened with the, the New York Post story was similar to the hacking leak scenarios from 2016. You also said that you've, you actually were opposed to deleting the New York Post story. Who advocated for the removal of the New York Post story?

Yoel Roth:

The company's decision to treat it as a violation.

Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL):

Mr. Roth, who at the company actually went over your recommendation, cuz you're pretty high up. Who overrode you?

Yoel Roth:

The decision was communicated to me by my direct supervisor.

Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL):

Who is that person?

Yoel Roth:

Her name was Del Harvey. Okay. She was the Vice President of trust and safety at the time.

Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL):

All right. Thank you so much. Ms. Gadde, real quick, you said to the chairman earlier, and, and, and I wanna paraphrase what I heard earlier is that Twitter had no contact with anybody from the Biden team. Is that correct to your knowledge?

Vijaya Gadde:

Not to my knowledge.

Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL):

Put that up for me. Okay. Over my right shoulder, we have an email reference. This is oc this is Saturday, October 24th 5:39 PM referencing five different tweets. Is that at with a Twitter email chain under the line? It's 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,

Vijaya Gadde:

I'm not familiar with this email.

Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL):

So you're not familiar with this email. Mr. Roth, are you familiar with this email

Yoel Roth:

Only from what's been reported in the Twitter files?

Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL):

Had you had, did you ever have contact with anybody from the Biden team?

Yoel 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

Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL):

Marketing. How big was the organization in Twitter that was actually working with campaigns?

Yoel Roth:

I couldn't say for sure.

Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL):

Did you ever have any contact with the DNC

Yoel Roth:

Directly? No, I did not.

Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL):

Did anybody at Twitter have any contact with anybody? The dnc

Yoel Roth:

I think it's likely that somebody at Twitter did Yes.

Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL):

In these, in these emails, it's listed. These are, these are tweets I hate to be flagged from the Biden team. That's what's in the files. You have no idea how many people actually inter in engaged with the Twitter team or how frequently that engagement happened?

Yoel Roth:

No. And again, that was by design. We kept those functions separate from content moderation so that we could impartially assess reports

Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL):

Like this. Do you know how many tweets were actually flagged and taken down at the behest of the Biden team?

Yoel 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.

Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL):

But the, but the, 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 request at the bottom. It says, handled these. What does handled these mean?

Yoel Roth:

My understanding is that these tweets contained non-consensual nude photos of Hunter Biden, and they were removed by the company under, oh,

Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL):

Real quick, Mr. Roth, how could you know so much about the content of these tweets? I mean, as far as I'm concerned, these are just web addresses. I don't know what's in these tweets. You have these things committed to memory that you know the content, but you don't know who you caught who you talked to at the Biden team.

Yoel Roth:

Sir, I didn't meet with the Biden team, but there was extensive public reporting about these tweets specifically that uncovered what

Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL):

They were, you know, the contents of the tweets. I, 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.

Yoel 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.

Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL):

Let me ask you a separate question and I'll ask it of, of you two, 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, do you have any understanding of how li 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?

James Baker:

I don't know the answer to that question, sir.

Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL):

Do you think it's big?

James Baker:

I don't know

Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL):

The answer. Do you think it's more than a maximum contribution to a campaign? I

James Baker:

I don't, I wouldn't wanna speculate.

Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL):

Would you call it 25,000?

James Baker:

I don't know the answer to that question.

Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL):

A hundred thousand?

James Baker:

Sir, I don't know the answer to the question.

Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL):

A million.

James Baker:

I don't know the answer to the question.

Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL):

Do you think Twitter will be in violation of, 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.

James Baker:

I'm not going to speculate on that. Sitting here today, sir try to give a, or try to propound a legal analysis of election laws.

Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL):

I yield back.

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

Gentlemen yields back. Chair recognizes Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, she's here. It's your turn. You wanna go? Okay. We won't start the clock till you get there. Thank you.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY):

Appreciate also your generosity. I just wanna start off right here at the top here. This isn't even my line of questioning, but I'd like to submit to the record a Washington Post article now warning about Hunter Biden laptop disinformation, the guy who leaked it. Here's the deal, before I even get into my questions, I think that the, the story here with the New York, with the Washington Post reporting, is that what they're saying right here. When the New York Post first reported in 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're livid and they want the ability to do the, again, they want the ability to inject this again. So they've dragged a social media platform here in Congress. They're 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, it, it's just a, 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, boating rights.

But instead we're talking about hardener biden's half fake laptop story. I mean, this is an embarrassment, but I'll go into it. Ms. Navaroli. Let's talk about something real. I'd like to show you a tweet posted by former President Trump about my colleagues and I on July 14th, 2019. 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's done. These places need your help badly. You can't leave fast enough. I'm 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 this navali, as I understand it, you were the most senior member of Twitter's content moderation team, or a senior member of Twitter's content moderation team. When this was posted as part of your responsibilities, did you review this tweet?

Anika Collier Navaroli:

Yes, it was my team's responsibility to review these tweets.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY):

And what did you conclude?

Anika Collier Navaroli:

My team Ray made the recommendation that for the first time we find Donald Trump in violation of Twitter's policies and used the public interest interstitial for the first time.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY):

Yes. And at the time, Twitter's policy included a specific example when it came to bann abuse against immigrants, as in they specifically included the phrase, go back to your country, or go or go back to where you came from, correct?

Anika Collier Navaroli:

Yes. That was specifically included in the content moderation guidance as an example.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY):

And you, you brought this up to the Vice President of Trust and Safety Del Harvey, correct?

Anika Collier Navaroli:

I did, yes.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY):

And she overrode your assessment, didn't she?

Anika Collier Navaroli:

Yes, she did.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY):

And something interesting happened after she overrode your assessment a day or two later, Twitter seemed to have changed their policies, didn't they?

Anika Collier Navaroli:

Yes. That trope go back to where you came from, was removed from the content moderation guidance as an example. So

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY):

Twitter changed their own policy after the President violated it in order to potentially accommodate his tweet. Yes. Thank you. So much for bias against right wing on Twitter. Additionally, Ms. Navaroli, are you familiar with the account libs of TikTok? I have heard of it from the news, yes. Mr. Roth, are you familiar with this account?

Yoel Roth:

Yes, ma'am, I am.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY):

Are you aware from that, from August 11th to August 16th, that account posted false information about Boston Children's Hospital claiming that they were providing hysterectomies to children?

Yoel Roth:

Yes, I am aware of that. And other claims from the account.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY):

And are you aware that this lie was then circulated by other prominent far-right influencers?

Yoel Roth:

Yes.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY):

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?

Yoel Roth:

Yes, I am aware.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY):

And this account is still on that platform today, isn't it?

Yoel Roth:

Regrettably, yes, it is.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY):

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 L G B T people, in addition to immigrants, in addition to women of color, this is a party that cannot pick on anyone 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,

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

Lady yields back. Chair recognizes Mr. Frye for five minutes.

Rep. Randy Frye (R-IN):

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This, 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're also learning that some of the, 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 in investigating foreign influence operations. However, in recent years, the FBI has devoted countless amounts of time, taxpayer money and manpower to combating Russian foreign influence on social media. The FBI's 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 report 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 quote, the FBI San Francisco Emergency Operations Center sent the attached report of 207 tweets they believed may be in violation of our policies. End quote. Another email revealed that there are, quote, 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?

Yoel Roth:

In part, but we 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.

Rep. Randy Frye (R-IN):

And you pushed back to the FBI when you would, when they would send you a list of American based accounts, is that correct?

Yoel Roth:

Politely, but yes.

Rep. Randy Frye (R-IN):

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?

Yoel 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.

Rep. Randy Frye (R-IN):

So flagging American accounts, in your view, is not, is not foreign or, or theories of foreign influence? It's not, there's not pressure there just by flagging it to you. Again, domestic accounts,

Yoel Roth:

I don't think it's a great use of the bureau's time, but I wouldn't characterize how they communicated with us as pressure.

Rep. Randy Frye (R-IN):

Mr. Roth, you enjoyed these meetings with the FBI? It seems based on the tweets behind me or the, the communications behind me in internal communications at Twitter, you said definitely not meeting with the FBI, I swear. Is that correct?

Yoel Roth:

I believe I was joking with a colleague at the time, but yes.

Rep. Randy Frye (R-IN):

But I can assume that you were meeting with the FBI when you were communicating with your colleague, is that correct?

Yoel Roth:

Yes. One of my job responsibilities was meeting with law enforcement about election security.

Rep. Randy Frye (R-IN):

And just so I'm clear, the person you're communicating with here says very boring business meeting that is definitely not about Trump. I assume that's also sarcasm.

Yoel Roth:

Yes. That's my assumption. And

Rep. Randy Frye (R-IN):

We can assume that Twitter was having these meetings with the FBI about President Trump, correct?

Yoel Roth:

No, sir. The meetings that I was a part of with the FBI were almost entirely an exclusively focused on malign foreign interference. So accounts being operated outside of the United States by other governments, not on the accounts of Americans.

Rep. Randy Frye (R-IN):

So, so what is the basis of this communication then, where you talk about not meeting with Trump or not meeting about Trump?

Yoel 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, a fairly banal interaction with a colleague,

Rep. Randy Frye (R-IN):

Mr. Chairman. I yield the rest of my time to Mr. Jordan. Chairman. Can I ask you, Mr. Jordan?

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

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?

Yoel Roth:

Twitter employees were responsible for building the systems that performed visibility filtering, and then that filtering would've been applied either automatically.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

I'm asking a very specific question. I'm 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?

Yoel Roth:

The term hard coding suggests that it was permanent and immutable, and I wouldn't agree with that. No,

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

But it did happen. Is what you're saying. There was hardcoded 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.

Yoel Roth:

Again, I wouldn't say that they were hardcoded.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

Okay. Thank you.

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

Chair recognizes Ms. Brown for five minutes.

Rep. Shontel Brown (D-OH):

Thank you, chairman Comer and ranking member Raskin for holding this hearing today. Social media Ha. Social media has been a revolutionary gift of the 21st century from helping people across the world build meaningful connections to learning a new skillset. 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 with all 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 in of our society. According to an Anti Defamation League survey, 66% of the lgbtq plus respondents, that's a full two thirds experienced harassment online, 37% of Jewish respondents and 34% 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, and I quote, 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 US government after the Russian influence operation in the 2016 presidential election?

Yoel 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.

Rep. Shontel Brown (D-OH):

Thank you so much. Did those investments include better information sharing mechanisms with the federal government?

Yoel 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.

Rep. Shontel Brown (D-OH):

Thank you for that. And Mr. Roth, were those communication channels useful to Twitter as it worked to combat foreign influence operations?

Yoel Roth:

Absolutely. I would say they were one of the most essential pieces of how Twitter prepared for future elections.

Rep. Shontel Brown (D-OH):

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.

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

Thank you very much. Chair recognizes Ms. Greene for five minute.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA):

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 2nd, 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 21st, 2022. That was after my election on November 8th.

You know, at your company we're your former company where you worked, Twitter employees, over 98% of them donate to Democrats. So while you coordinated with DHS, the FBI, the CIA, our government and outside groups to permanently ban 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 101. 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 that was it a, was it me that you violated my first Amendment rights? You violated countless conservative Americans. 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 wanna know something?

Guess what? I'm so glad that you're censored down. I'm so glad you've lost your jobs. Thank God Alan Mu Alan Musk bought Twitter. And you know what? Let's talk about something a little bit further. It's amazing to me, Mr. Roth, as the head and trust of safety at Twitter, your ability, or should I say inability to remove child porn. Now, here's something that disgusted 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, Lon 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, 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, 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 did, what were my tweets? Okay, let's talk about 'em. I was talking about the deaths being reported on bears. By the way, that's on the c d C website. I was also saying that I didn't think the en any entity should enforce a non d 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'm a member of Congress and you're not also said the controversial covid 19 vaccines should not be forced on our military. You wanna know something? Republicans, stop that in the NDA...

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

The lady's time is expired.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA):

And your time is expired. I yield back. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

Chair recognizes Mr. Gomez.

Rep. Jimmy Gomez (D-CA):

Thank you Mr. Chairman. Mr. Roth please explain to us why Ms. Marjorie Taylor Greene, or the representatives from Georgia, was removed from Twitter.

Yoel 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.

Rep. Jimmy Gomez (D-CA):

Can you add a little specificity to the violation of the Twitter rules?

Yoel Roth:

Yes. Again, I didn't have access to my Twitter email documents, anything that would've led me prepared 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.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA):

Mr. Chairman...

Rep. Jimmy Gomez (D-CA):

So in essence...

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA):

I'd to take a point of personal privilege

Rep. Jimmy Gomez (D-CA):

That it's still my time. We, we'll stop, we'll stop. It's still my, your clock my time Chairman.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD):

Point of order, Mr. Chairman.

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

Mr. Raskin?

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD):

Yeah I don't believe that members of this committee have the right to interrupt someone's testimony because they're

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA):

Point of personal personal privilege. You were mentioning my name, Mr. Raskin.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD):

Yeah, no, I understand, but that's not the rule. Ms. Green, I don't think a member...

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA):

That is the rule in Congress. We can take a point of personal privilege.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD):

Well, then I'd like the 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.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA):

You mentioned my name, Mr. Raskin.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD):

Yeah. I'm not testifying

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

Chair recognized. Ms. Greene,

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA):

Thank you.

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

For your point of privilege. Very briefly .

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA):

Thank you for Mr. Roth, who, who made you in charge of what is true and what's...

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD):

Does she get to reopen her question?

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

We'll go back to Mr. Gomez, and Mr. Gomez. Please remember the decorum of the committee. The clock. We'll restart the clock. Now. We, you didn't lose any time. Chair recognized Mr. Gomez,

Rep. Jimmy Gomez (D-CA):

Thank you so much. The gentle lady from Georgia was suspended from Twitter for ca for knowingly and consistently spreading conspiracy theories about Covid 19 vaccine. Right, which is shameful, shameful, especially in a pandemic where millions million people have lost their lives. With that, I yield my rest of my time to the gentleman from New York, Mr. Gold Goldman.

Rep. Daniel Goldman (D-NY):

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'd like to dig into this article. The very first paragraph says, hunter Biden introduced his father to a top executive at a Ukrainian en 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% false.

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

Is the gentleman sure about that?

Rep. Daniel Goldman (D-NY):

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, he was fired because he was prosecuting corruption.

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

Corruption of fact that the President's sons company, corruption of the President's sons company.

Rep. Daniel Goldman (D-NY):

I'd like to reclaim my time.

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

Gentlemen's recognized.

Rep. Daniel Goldman (D-NY):

The fact that Joe Biden fired consistent with US 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 are the, 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 discussed something that you're voting on, how would you react? It's 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've 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 us former policy. And I hope that you are not abusing the power as chairman of this, 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.

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

Gentlemen, yield a quick question. You don't have to. It's your choice. You yield.

Rep. Daniel Goldman (D-NY):

Yeah, please.

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

So ...

Rep. Daniel Goldman (D-NY):

I would love to discuss this.

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

Are you admitting that Joe Biden did get the prosecutor in Ukraine fired?

Rep. Daniel Goldman (D-NY):

I think it's 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 that would have included potentially Burisma.

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

Corruption with his son's company.

Rep. Daniel Goldman (D-NY):

Yes. In fact, if what he wanted was the prosecutor general to prosecute corruption, okay. And the allegations that you are making and that the Russians are making, cuz this is all part of Russian propaganda, is that he Burisma was corrupt and was and Joe Biden was trying to stop an investigation into Burisma that is categorically false and there is no evidence of it.

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

We're gonna recognize one more speaker. We've been requested by the presenters for a brief bathroom break. If you'll allow us, we have one more questioner and then we'll take that break chair recognizes Mr. Timmons for five minutes, and then we'll have a five to two minute break. Mr. Timmons.

Rep. William Timmons (R-SC):

Thank, thank you Mr. Chairman. We have a big picture problem right now, and we're talking about Twitter specifically in Hunter Biden's laptop. But it's not just that, it's the general trend of the media, social media, the FBI, d oj doing one side's bidding. That's the issue. There's 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 gonna 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 Democrat National Committee and the Clinton campaign paid fusion GPS to create, to fabricate, not create, to fabricate the steel 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 in 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. So, and as a side note, that's 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's why he was removed from in 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're gonna have an honest, open conversation about, about issues, about challenges that our country faces. And we have, everybody has their own facts. Congressman from New York is mentioning his facts. It's just very bizarre that Hunter Biden making tens of thousands of dollars a month with no credentials from a business in Ukraine.

Whether they're being investigated, who knows? I mean, these are all speculation. And it's, it's something the American people can't really digest cuz we don't know the answers to it. And when we're told the answers by our government, by big corporations, by big tech, and they're repeatedly wrong, it creates a trust issue. It creates a trust issue. So the American people do not trust, do not trust what they're being told. They do not trust what they're being told. We're gonna 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 Hunter Biden laptop story?

Vijaya Gadde:

Yes, I was involved in that decision.

Rep. William Timmons (R-SC):

Who, who was the final arbiter? Because Mr. Roth has said he disagreed with that decision. Who was the final person that said we're gonna do this?

Vijaya Gadde:

I ultimately approved that decision.

Rep. William Timmons (R-SC):

Okay. Thank you Mr. Roth. You have said previously that you did not believe that the New York Post story violated any, any policy. You've said that multiple times today, how many times other than this one did a pol did something get banned or flagged that you disagreed with? Is this the only one?

Yoel Roth:

No, sir. Not at all.

Rep. William Timmons (R-SC):

Okay. So you,

Yoel Roth:

These are challenging...

Rep. William Timmons (R-SC):

Twitter repeatedly banned and censored material that you thought shouldn't be censored. Is that fair?

Yoel Roth:

These are challenging judgment calls and I think reasonable minds can differ about whether a given piece of content...

Rep. William Timmons (R-SC):

But on this one, you did disagree. I, I just wanna 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 story was in Hunter Biden. 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% equity stake in the joint venture. You 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 Biden's and a Chinese energy company owned by the Chinese Communist Party had leased office space no further than three miles from where we're sitting right now.

And the man running for president had his own office in that office space, his own personal office. You think the American people deserve to know that? I do. I think that there's a lot of smoke surrounding the Biden's relationship with the Chinese Communist Party. There's a lot of smoke surrounding the Biden's relationship with Ukraine. And they deserve to have the facts to make a decision for themselves. Y'all got it wrong in 2016 with Russian inclusion. 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.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD):

Will the gentleman yield question, gentleman yield? Will the gentlemen yield for a question? John Yield?

Rep. William Timmons (R-SC):

Yes.

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

Mr. Jordan, then Mr. Raskin.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

Mr. Baker, did you talk to any of the 51 former Intel officials who sent the now famous letter on October 19th, 2020, saying that the Russian of the 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?

James Baker:

Sir, I can't remember who's on that group

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

Clapper, Brennan...

James Baker:

I've talked to those people during the course of my career.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

Have you talked to him, well, in your time at Twitter,

James Baker:

I can't remember who's on that list, so I, I'm afraid...

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

How about the three I just mentioned Clapper and Brennan.

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

Okay last question

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD):

Mr. Chairman, regular order.

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

Last question. Feel free to answer then we'll recognize Mr. Raskin.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD):

I was gonna ask the gentleman before he left whether he's denying the Russian disinformation propaganda campaign that we've heard about from witnesses where 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 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. Mr, that's all I wanted to say. Mr. Chairman

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

Chair recognizes Mr. Jordan, then we'll recess.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

Just to restate the question that's on the table to to Mr. Baker, did he talk with Mr. Clapper, Mr. Brennan or anyone else that he knows of on the, on that, who signed that...

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD):

Point of order Mr. Chairman? Who, whose time is this?

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

This chairman's remaining three seconds of...

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD):

He doesn't have remaining time... We're over.

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

Mr. Baker. Feel free to answer the question. If you want, and then we'll take a recess.

James Baker:

Mr. Jordan, I don't recall discussing that publication that they did about the Hunter Biden laptop with any of those people.

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

We, we, we'll stand in recess for five minutes when we return, Mr. Garcia we'll begin our questioning. We're in recess for five to 10 minutes. Again, I wanna thank the witnesses for your indulgence and know it's a long day. You're doing great. We really appreciate it. Now we're resumed questioning and chair recognized Mr. Garcia for five minutes.

Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA):

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. thank you, Mr. Chairman. I wanna thank our witnesses. And I, I just wanna just start off also by just apologizing to our witnesses, particularly Mr. Roth, for just the homophobic rant and comments that we recently just made from the gentle lady from Georgia. That was really shameful. And I know that we're here to talk about serious issues and we're having conversations about Grindr and and other issues, which is not really what this hearing is about. So apologize to our to our, all of our witnesses. Wanna note that I am someone that you would probably call a Twitter super user. I use a social platform constantly. I communicate regularly. It's how I get my news. It's of how I find out what's happening in popular culture. And I admire what Jack Dorsey, Evan Williams, and Christopher Stone actually tried to build as a company.

I wish you could say the same for what the platform is today. I think to me and to many other users, we've seen the site currently degraded. We've seen Mr. Musk more interested in attacking journalists and uplifting conspiracy theories and actually running a company. And I think we can all agree that just overall ser the service has 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 wanna know more seriously that Mr. Musk and the current team has also done damage as far as trust and safety on the platform. He's gutted. The trust and safety teams have, have been described, eliminated content management systems and the human rights team, which is we, as we know, has, has ceased to operate.

I do wanna just take a minute to thank Mr. Roth, and particularly Ms. Navaroli and your teams. I know that you were trying your best. I want to thank all of the folks that worked at Twitter cause they believed in its mission. A mission I'm not sure holds through today completely, but it's one that I know a lot of folks worked on. And so just thank you for that work and the mistakes were made, and clearly you have actually lived up to those mistakes and 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, 1300 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 pedaled 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 wanna 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 elect election interference and interference happening. How serious do you think the current threat from Russia and other countries is to current election interference?

Yoel Roth:

I think we can look to the evidence from the midterms to know that these campaigns are ongoing, and they are, and it's not just Russia, Iran, and China, though they are the big players. There's now a playbook for how election interference works. And it's unfortunately all too cheap and all too easy for countries to try to carry this out.

Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA):

Thank you. And I think, so I think it's pretty clear what we've learned today. One thing we've learned, which, which hasn't been much by the way, is that there's current election interference happening today by Russia and other actors. And so that is something that's serious, that's the, which the focus of this hearing should actually be about. Versus all of this kind of nonsense and, and, and lies and conspiracy theories that this committee is actually focused on. Today, I want to take the, the, the remaining balance of my time in yield to Ms. Ocasio-Cortez.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY):

I thank the gentleman from California. I'd 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 organizations such as Twitter. The insinuation here is that in the FBI and other agencies reaching out to Twitter, that there's 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 other, you know, areas of, of concern. In early March, 2020, right before the Super Tuesday primary election, several Trump administration officials, including Mike Pompeo, Bill Barr, Chad Wolf, and acting a director of of National Intelligence, Richard Grinnell, issued a statement praising the government's cooperation with the private sector to spend off foreign interference and said that relationship was quote, stronger than it's ever been.

This was around this whole time where there's this, you know, 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 suspending temporarily suspending this disinformation that seemed to be coming out from the New York Post. So with that, I yield back to the chair.

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

Gentle lady yields back chair recognized Mr. Burt for five minutes.

Rep. Timothy Burchett (R-TN):

Thank, thank you, Mr. Chairman. Ms. Gadde, Charlie Kirk and Dan Bongino are conservative commentators. Is that a fair characteristic? Just yes or no? It'd be fine.

Vijaya Gadde:

I, I, I believe so, but I'm not Okay. Familiar with them in, in this detail.

Rep. Timothy Burchett (R-TN):

Okay. The posters behind me show the side of Twitter that is not available to users. Is that correct?

Vijaya Gadde:

It, this appears to be a view of some of our agent tooling, but I do not have access to that, so I'm not very familiar with

Rep. Timothy Burchett (R-TN):

That. Okay. Well, Ms. Gadde, the labels identify status that have been assigned to these accounts, is that correct?

Vijaya Gadde:

I don't know,

Rep. Timothy Burchett (R-TN):

Ma'am. These are your internal things. You're telling me you don't, you don't receive these, you don't know what they mean.

Vijaya Gadde:

Representative I did not have access to these tools, and so I don't know. They look, they look familiar to me as an executive.

Rep. Timothy Burchett (R-TN):

You did not have access to inside information at, at, at Twitter. Okay. Ms. Gadde, Mr. Bongino's account, there's a few words under the verified and active. Can you read the first two labels under verified and active? They're the yellow ones.

Vijaya Gadde:

Notification spikes, search. Blacklist.

Rep. Timothy Burchett (R-TN):

All right. Thank you. Ma'am, Mr. Bongino has more than 3.5 million Twitter followers, is that correct? Would you say?

Vijaya Gadde:

I'm sorry. Don't know the answer to that question.

Rep. Timothy Burchett (R-TN):

Okay. 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?

Vijaya Gadde:

I'm sorry. I can't see them from right here.

Rep. Timothy Burchett (R-TN):

Right. Do you know that Mr. Kirk has almost 2 million followers?

Vijaya Gadde:

I was not aware of that.

Rep. Timothy Burchett (R-TN):

Let me ask you, what is a search blacklist?

Vijaya Gadde:

I do not know specifically what that is, but I could make a guess if, if that would be helpful.

Rep. Timothy Burchett (R-TN):

Why don't you make a guess for me, please? We

Vijaya Gadde:

Do. The, the, when I was at Twitter, there was an ability to prevent something from appearing in one of the tabs of search

Rep. Timothy Burchett (R-TN):

Results. Okay, thank you. What does do not amplify mean?

Vijaya 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.

Rep. Timothy Burchett (R-TN):

Thank you, ma'am. 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?

Vijaya Gadde:

I'm sorry, can you please repeat the question?

Rep. Timothy Burchett (R-TN):

I said Twitter. How? Okay. They engaged in what it's 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?

Vijaya Gadde:

I agree that visibility filtering does give an ability to change....

Rep. Timothy Burchett (R-TN):

Okay. 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

Vijaya Gadde:

Representative? I, I, I believe there are different definitions of shadow ban. O

Rep. Timothy Burchett (R-TN):

Okay. You, but you said that that Twitter in 2018 does not shadow ban. Was that, was that a truthful statement, ma'am? Was that a lie at that time?

Vijaya Gadde:

I'd specifically defined shadow banning to mean something different. Okay. Than visibility filtering.

Rep. Timothy Burchett (R-TN):

You also said that Twitter does not shadow ban based on political viewpoints or ideology. Do you stand by those comments?

Vijaya Gadde:

While I was at Twitter? To the best of my knowledge, we did not do that.

Rep. Timothy Burchett (R-TN):

Okay. Mr. Roth, on January 22nd, 2017, you tweeted that there were actual Nazis living in the White House. Do you still stand by that comment? Yes or no?

Yoel Roth:

Sorry, I regret the language I used. No, I do not.

Rep. Timothy Burchett (R-TN):

Okay. Mr. Roth, earlier in your testimony, you said you regretted tweeting that quote, actual Nazis are living in the White House. However, Iran sent anti-Semitic tweets one stating, Israel is a malignant cancerous tumor that has to be removed and eradicated. Yes or no? Did Twitter ever ban the ato remove this hateful anti-Semitic tweet? Yes or no?

Yoel Roth:

To the best of my knowledge, Twitter did not remove that.

Rep. Timothy Burchett (R-TN):

The answers no. Mr. Chairman, it's clear that conservative voices are being silenced on social media in the, in the mainstream. I, 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.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

I think the Jennifer yielding and for his good questions. So the user knows when there accounts been suspended or blocked, but they don't know when they have some of these gold terms that were under Mr. Bonino. And, and, and Mr. Kirk, is that right, Mr. Roth?

Yoel Roth:

As of the time that I worked at Twitter, yes, that's correct.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

So they don't know if they're on the, don't search on the search blacklist. They don't know if they're on the, do not amplify. They don't know that

Yoel Roth:

That's correct. Twitter did not disclose that.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

So you did that to these two accounts. What I wanna know was that was, did you know Mr. Roth, if that was at the prompting of anyone from the government,

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

Gentleman's times expired, but please answer the question.

Yoel Roth:

No, sir. I'm 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.

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

Chair recognizes Mr. Frost for five minutes.

Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-FL):

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Look, I mean, I've been sitting here for over two hours and I'm, I'm 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, we get it. My Republican colleagues wish that the Hunter Biden story would've helped him win the 2020 election, and that didn't happen. And so they're angry about it. And that's the point of this hearing, you know, it was the, actually the foundation of the chairman's opening statement. It's why he brought up that, that poll on the 2020 election. That's what this is all about. And so I wanna say to my colleagues, don't worry, there's still many platforms you can spread disinformation on parlor's 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 United States government. As we've heard under oath. We're wasting our time here bullying former Twitter employees, so that way it's 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's called Calling the Ref. But let, 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's a difference between a culture war and how culture naturally changes culture change. Some on this committee are, 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 to our country. The reality is that culture changes.

It adopts, it welcomes more people. It becomes more understanding, and it also decides to reassess what's acceptable behavior and rhetoric. It could be different now than it was in, say, the 1950s in this supposed culture war, they often conflate the right of free speech with the non-existent, right? To not be criticized or held accountable for what you say on the internet or even in real life. And just because it's 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 was it, were y'all looking for people who were supporting Donald Trump, president Trump and limiting those?

Yoel 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, to free speech. And we built concern with those rights into our policies.

Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-FL):

That makes so being a decent human being,

Yoel Roth:

That's certainly what we tried to,

Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-FL):

Yes. Gotcha. Ms Nera 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?

Anika Collier Navaroli:

Would you like me to give the direct quote?

Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-FL):

Yeah.

Anika Collier Navaroli:

Please excuse my language. This is a direct quote, but Chrissy Teigen referred to Donald Trump as a “pussy ass bitch.”

Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-FL):

Okay? Free speech. And what happened after Ms. Teigen posted her tweet? What did the White House do? What did the Trump White House do?

Anika Collier Navaroli:

From my understanding, the White House reached out to ask that this tweet be removed. It was my team's job the spell underneath the policy for abusive behaviors, and 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. So the

Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-FL):

Trump White House reached out, not an agency, but the White House reached out and request that you removed the, the

Anika Collier Navaroli:

Tweet from my understanding, yes. Okay.

Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-FL):

Mr. Roth, you mentioned a serious problem of 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?

Yoel Roth:

Thank you for the question. It's an important one, and I don't think there's a clear or easy answer to this. We saw Russian operatives playing both sides and often playing them against each other. Mm-Hmm. One of the most enraging interactions that my team saw were accounts operated outta the same Russian troll farm arguing with each other, got, and they were manufacturing drama both on democratic sides and on the Republicans.

Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-FL):

So it's still a huge issue. Absolutely, a hundred percent. Well, there you have it. There's issues of big tech. There are serious issues. We need to litigate a hundred. 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 6th maybe could have been prevented if Twitter had taken action due to 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's 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 it, they disagree. With Ron DeSantis and his view of the world, that is limiting free speech. And I'd 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.

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

Gentleman yields back to the chair. Now, recognize Mr. Gosar for five minutes.

Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ):

Minutes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for this important hearing, and thank you for our witnesses for appearing as well. I wanna be clear. Despite claims and witness testimonies, 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 5th, 2020, before Twitter banned him from the platform. This was after President Trump had 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. End a quote. Do you see that Mr. Roth?

Yoel Roth:

Yes, sir. I do.

Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ):

Listen, an hour later, you received an email from James Baker at Twitter reproduce behind me as well, saying quote, why isn't this POTUS tweet a violation of our Covid 19 policy, especially the don't be afraid Covid statement and the quote. Isn't that correct, Mr. Roth?

Yoel Roth:

Yes. I believe that's the email displayed.

Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ):

Now, Mr. Baker, was it your understanding that the Twitter Covid 19 policy was people should be afraid of covid?

James Baker:

Sir, I was my recollection...

Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ):

Yes or no?

James Baker:

Could you repeat the question, sir?

Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ):

Was it your understanding that Twitter's Covid 19 policy was people should be afraid of Covid? Yeah.

James Baker:

At that point in time, I did not fully understand what Twitter's Covid misinformation policy was. And so I was trying to understand.

Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ):

I'm recapturing my time. So maybe you thought that Twitter's policy was that it should dominate people's lives. Is that what you thought?

James Baker:

I'm sorry, I'm having a hard time hearing you, sir.

Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ):

So is it the fact that Twitter don't let it dominate people's lives, is that the problem with the tweet?

James Baker:

I didn't, at that point in time, I did not fully understand full. I was relatively new at Twitter, and I was trying to understand what the policy was, and therefore...

Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ):

I just wanna ask you the other two were asked, where did you go to medical school

James Baker:

Pardon?

Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ):

Where'd you go to medical school?

James Baker:

I did not go to medical school.

Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ):

Very good. Now, I'd 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 Wicker, Mr. Baker, yes or no?

James Baker:

Have I ever communicated with a government official using those Y

Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ):

Yes or no?

James Baker:

I don't recall.

Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ):

Ms. Gadde.

Vijaya Gadde:

Not to the best of my recollection.

Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ):

Mr. Roth.

Yoel Roth:

Yes.

Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ):

Ms. Navaroli?

Anika Collier Navaroli:

Not to my recollection, no.

Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ):

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?

James Baker:

I'm sorry. I don't understand the question, sir.

Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ):

Ms. Gadde.

Vijaya Gadde:

Can you please repeat the question, sir?

Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ):

Mr. Roth.

Yoel Roth:

I if I understood the question correctly, is whether we received requests to allow unlawful activity, and yes, the answer is no.

Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ):

Okay, Ms. Navaroli?

Anika Collier Navaroli:

Not to my knowledge, no.

Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ):

Now, I'd like to submit for the record an article by the New York Post titled quote, Twitter refused to remove child porn because it didn't violate policies. Ms. Gadde, who was involved in this determination?

Vijaya Gadde:

I'm not familiar with this situation.

Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ):

Mr. Roth, are you familiar with it?

Yoel Roth:

No, sir, I'm not.

Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ):

Once again, I'd like a yes or no from each of the witnesses. Did you apply labels to users with an administrative tool to down rank them? Mr. Baker?

James Baker:

I'm sorry, sir. I'm having a very hard time hearing your questions.

Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ):

Ms. Gadde.

Vijaya Gadde:

I'm having the same problem. Sir, can you please repeat the questions?

Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ):

Mr. Roth?

Yoel Roth:

I'm not sure I understood the question, sir.

Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ):

Well, I'm asking you did anybody use an administrative tool to down rank users?

Yoel Roth:

Yes, sir. That's a part of Twitter's content moderation capabilities.

Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ):

Mr. Baker?

James Baker:

Well, I'll rely on Mr. Roth.

Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ):

Okay. Ms. Gadde?

Vijaya Gadde:

Yes. We're very public about our recommendation system and how they work.

Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ):

Thank you. Mr. Chairman, today's witness has played a central, powerful and disturbing role in limiting not only free sweet speech, but even people's good faith inquiries and research regarding their own health. The internet is increasingly where 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 of de platforming the suggestions by witnesses that all of the removal of quote, lawful but awful speech quote was done in favor of users as bunk. You could just as easily provided content filter options 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 Censor Act, which empowers users with the editorial contract. Our private businesses, you always have a contract with your customers, allow them to pick, I yield, yield back my

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

Time. Gentleman yields back chair recognizes Ms. Balint.

Rep. Becca Balint (D-VT):

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I wanna say, as a former history teacher I care a lot about the facts and the details. So let's dive in. On December 4th, then, ranking Member Comer appeared on Fox News and alleged that what Elon Musk’s Twitter files showed was evidence that the Biden campaign colluded with big tech to suppress a story that we now know is a hundred 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 F E C in December, 2020, you stated, quote, I did not receive any communications from, or have had any communications with representative 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 14th, 2020. Mr. Roth, do you stand by that statement?

Yoel Roth:

Yes, absolutely.

Rep. Becca Balint (D-VT):

It's also worth noting that your colleague, I believe Lauren Culbertson, told the FEC the same thing. Ms. Gatti, did anyone from the Biden campaign or the Democratic National Committee direct Twitter to remove or take action against the New York Post story? No. Mr. Baker same question to you, please.

James Baker:

Not to my knowledge, no.

Rep. Becca Balint (D-VT):

So the evidence is clear neither the Biden campaign nor the DNC had anything to do with Twitter's decision making about the New York Post story. My Republican colleagues are using what 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. Donald's questioning earlier in one email, selectively used by Elon Musk, one Twitter executive sends another a series of hyperlinks on October 24th, 2020, with the comment quote. More to review from the Biden team for the record, is this is tweet number eight in the first installment of the so-called Twitter file. So Ms. Gadde, are you familiar with this email?

Vijaya Gadde:

No, I'm not.

Rep. Becca Balint (D-VT):

Okay. So just to be clear, this email has nothing to do with the New York Post story. It is dated October 24th, 2020, after Twitter had both made and reversed its decisions about the New York Post story. Mr. Baker, do I have that right?

James Baker:

Based on, I think, the exhibit that was shown earlier? That sounds correct, yes.

Rep. Becca Balint (D-VT):

So, Ms. Gadde, can you clarify for the record, if you're able to, what, what's happening here?

Vijaya Gadde:

Can you please be more specific about ...

Rep. Becca Balint (D-VT):

With this, with this email?

Vijaya Gadde:

I was, I don't believe I was a recipient of that email or reviewed it during my time at Twitter, so I'm sorry, I don't have familiarity with that situation.

Rep. Becca Balint (D-VT):

That's okay. Mr. Baker,

James 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 as ... I'm, well, I'm 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 from earlier 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, thank you. I believe that's what, that's what I construe from that email. Appreciate

Rep. Becca Balint (D-VT):

That. So from my understanding of everything that we've heard today, it's really not uncommon for outside entities, including, as we've heard Mr. Trump's campaign to request that Twitter remove content that violates the company's terms of service. Is that correct? Ms. Gadde.

Vijaya Gadde:

That is very common globally.

Rep. Becca Balint (D-VT):

Thank you. So, to your 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?

Vijaya Gadde:

No. Our teams were trained to enforce our rules consistently and fairly without regard to any sort of political ideology.

Rep. Becca Balint (D-VT):

Thank you. So I believe that what's 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 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. Yield back.

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

Lady yields. Chair recognizes Mr. Palmer for five minutes.

Rep. Gary Palmer (R-AL):

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'd like to submit a June 22 study conducted by Princeton University called, powered by Twitter, the Taliban's takeover of Afghanistan.

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

Without objections ordered.

Rep. Gary Palmer (R-AL):

This study covers the timeframe of April to September of 2021, which is a four to five month period between President Biden's official announcement of America's intentions to withdraw in 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% 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 in 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 suggestively straightforward. By the way, the US 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 clearcut content violations by Taliban Twitter accounts?

Yoel Roth:

Thank you for the question, sir. At the time that you referenced, I wasn't responsible for Twitter's work on counterterrorism,

Rep. Gary Palmer (R-AL):

Do you have any idea 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, and injuring hundreds. Imagine that.

Yoel Roth:

It's 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.

Rep. Gary Palmer (R-AL):

I'm not rendering judgment on that. Stuff's 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 US companies, including Amazon, Disney, McDonald's, and on the Twitter accounts of the Taliban Taliban News organization. And their spokespersons and their senior leaders, Ms. Gadde, did did Twitter make money off placed ads on Taliban Twitter accounts on August 26th, 2021 when 13 US men and women died in a suicide bombing?

Vijaya Gadde:

I have no knowledge of this matter.

Rep. Gary Palmer (R-AL):

You don't have any knowledge about whether or not these ads were up?

Vijaya Gadde:

I do not.

Rep. Gary Palmer (R-AL):

According to Twitter, the decision to ban President Trump was after a close review of his tweets in the context around them, specifically how they're being received and interpreted on and off Twitter. On June 3rd, 2018, the Iranian Ayatollah Khomeini.

Unidentified:

Now, did Twitter do that?

Rep. Gary Palmer (R-AL):

Sounds like the Green New Deal to me.

Unidentified:

Shut the building down.

Rep. Gary Palmer (R-AL):

It's your fault.

Unidentified:

Microphone. Check one, two, microphone. Check the media center. Testing, 1, 2, 3. Testing, one, two, three. Media testing, one, two, three. Audio, video check. Chairman, test chairman. Test Testing, 1, 2, 3. Testing, 1, 2, 3. Testing. I gotcha. Okay, how about the video? I see a slate. Okay, thank you. Bye. We are good. Microphone check. 1234-567-8910. Yes. 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 21 54. Rayburn, the oversight committee, one, two thirty four.

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

We'll call the meeting back to order. And I apologize, we've never had this happen with the electricity one out, but the computer is flickering, but the CSPAN is working. So we're being recorded again. As according to the rules where we left off, Mr. Palmer had three minutes remaining, so I now yield three minutes to Mr. Palmer.

Rep. Gary Palmer (R-AL):

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 in the context around them, specifically how they are being received and interpreted on and off Twitter. On June 3rd, 2018, the Iranian Ito 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?

Yoel Roth:

I couldn't say for sure how that tweet was interpreted.

Rep. Gary Palmer (R-AL):

You would have a pretty good idea, though, of, of how many retweets and the amount of traffic it got,

Yoel Roth:

Only from what I can see in that illustration,

Rep. Gary Palmer (R-AL):

Why does the Iranian leader who has explicitly pledged to eradicate the Jewish state of Israel get to remain on Twitter? Mr. Roth,

Yoel Roth:

Like all of Twitter's users, the a is subject to the same set of rules. And while I can't speak for Twitter's decisions today, I can't say that Twitter took a number of enforcement actions against the Ito's account the same way that we would against,

Rep. Gary Palmer (R-AL):

That's still up. You understand how hypocritical this is, right? You banned a sitting US president in a sitting member of Congress, Margie Taylor Green, while a man who's 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'm asking to Mr. Baker, Ms. Gadde, Mr. Roth. Ms. Navaroli, that's amazing, but it shows hypocrisy at Twitter. I wanna 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 US 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 now, yield back

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

Gentleman, yields back chair now recognizes Ms. Lee for five minutes.

Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA):

Thank you, Mr. Chair. This has been an incredibly electric hearing. It'd 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 accu and allegations of anti-conservative bias are actually making Twitter and other social media companies less willing to enforce their own policies against political con conservatives, correct?

Anika Collier Navaroli:

Yes. That was my understanding. Based on research that was done on Twitter,

Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA):

Meaning the same Republicans insisting on making themselves a victim is working.

Anika Collier Navaroli:

Could you repeat the question?

Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA):

The same Republicans folks on this panel who are insisting on making themselves victims in this conversation about Twitter censorship and other accusations they've made, is this working because of the conservative bias and the implications of it, or the allegations of conservative bias?

Anika Collier Navaroli:

I....

Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA):

In other words, are the allegations of conservative bias, making it harder for those in Twitter, those who are working there to enforce these policies against folks who incite hate speech or are making?

Anika Collier 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.

Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA):

Thank you. I'm 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. Navar 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's about public safety. This isn't about censorship. It's about protecting our democracy from misinformation. Ms. Nav 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?

Anika Collier Navaroli:

Yes, thank you for that question. The coded incitement to violence po 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, standby, things like, I am locked and loaded and ready for a civil war, or dog whistles that were not covered underneath the policy.

Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA):

Thank you. Could it have saved lives if it were implemented on January 5th, 2021, or possibly in November of 2020?

Anika Collier Navaroli:

I can't speculate as to what might have happened. And I do wish we would've acted.

Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA):

Thank you. Ms. Gadde, the very same words that were plastered across Twitter were shouted at the January 6th insurrection. What threats do Americans face now that Elon Musk has removed all guardrails and welcome back Donald Trump to the platform.

Vijaya Gadde:

Thank you for the question. I'm actually not really familiar with what the content moderation policies of Twitter are today.

Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA):

Okay, thank you. Social media platforms like Twitter must own up to their responsibility in spreading violence and chaos. I'd argue so to the members of this panel and institution. Thank you. I yield the balance of my time to Mr. Raskin.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD):

Thank you very much. Mr. Roth, I wanted to go back to the whole question of your finding hundreds of thousands of fake accounts set up by Vladimir Putin in the Russian internet research agency, I think they called it, which was the propaganda arm in 2016. And I, I suppose to this day some have been suggesting on the other side of the aisle that it's 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'm just wondering if you would give us a sense of how much work is actually being done. And I was gonna check with you and Mr. Baker about that. How much work does Twitter and the other social media entities do that relies on the FBI and other national security agencies?

Yoel Roth:

Thank you for the question. There is a considerable amount of work to address foreign disinformation at Twitter and, 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

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD):

And Mr. Baker, if you could.

James Baker:

Thank you, sir. Just generally, I mean, it's a matter of public record that the FBI has worked with the public, including private entities for decades. Indeed they've had for some number of years now an office of, I think it's 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 their country.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD):

Thank you. I yield back.

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

The Chair recognizes Mr. Armstrong for five minutes.

Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-ND):

Minutes? Thank you, Mr. Roth. I'm gonna continue down that line of questioning. So when you testified, you were just talking about working very hard to keep foreign troll farms from using Twitter and to get to engage in malign foreign interference, this sounds like a fairly robust undertaking. You said between 2016, 2020, you had different teams stood up to do this constant vigilance.

Yoel Roth:

Yes, sir. That was the phrase that we used.

Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-ND):

Yeah. And these types of attempts are constantly evolving. They're trying to find new ways to penetrate your system, so you have to be engaging with it on a and being willing to adapt on a constant basis.

Yoel Roth:

Yes, sir. That's right.

Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-ND):

And now we look forward to 2020. And earlier you had testified that you were having regular interactions with National Intelligence, Homeland Security, and the FBI.

Yoel Roth:

Yes, I did.

Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-ND):

And primarily to deal with foreign interference?

Yoel Roth:

Primarily, but I would ...

Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-ND):

Say also misinformation information and all of that. But you had said earlier, like your contact with agent Chang was primarily with foreign interference.

Yoel Roth:

Yes, that's right. All right.

Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-ND):

And these were emails, were there meetings?

Yoel 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

Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-ND):

Agents from Homeland Security are intelligence or just primarily the FBI?

Yoel Roth:

Our primary contacts were with the FBI. And in those quarterly meetings, they were, I believe, exclusively with FBI personnel.

Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-ND):

And you had multiple former FBI agents on the payroll. I mean, Mr. Baker, you have 10 years experience with FBI, DOJ.

James Baker:

I was well with DOJ, it's two decades roughly, but I was just, for the record, I was never an FBI agent. Okay.

Yoel Roth:

Yeah.

Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-ND):

And Twitter has such a close relationship with at least one FBI agent that 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's safe to say that you had a consistent dialogue with the FBI for the weeks and months prior to the New York Post. Is that fair?

Yoel Roth:

I had ongoing conversations with the FBI for years, I would say about election security.

Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-ND):

And in response to Mr. Fry, earlier you said you would not categorize the FBI communications as pressure.

Yoel Roth:

No, I would not.

Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-ND):

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 chain, an FBI agent in San Francisco. Now on August 11th, 2020, agent Chan sent you three documents and prep for a meeting and said the documents pertained to a P T 28, 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 14th, 2020, you stated that this feels a lot like somewhat of a subtle leak operation. Earlier today, you testified that you were following national experts, experts on Twitter, national Security experts on Twitter as a reason to take down the New York Post story on Hunter Biden's laptop.

Yoel Roth:

Yes, sir, I did.

Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-ND):

So after 2016, you set up all these teams to deal with Russian interference, foreign interference, you're 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.

Yoel Roth:

Is that question in reference to the day of the New York Post article? Yeah, that's right. We generally did not reach out to the FBI to consult on content moderation decisions, especially where they related to domestic activity. It's not that we wouldn't have liked that information, we certainly would've, it's that I don't believe it would've been appropriate for us to consult with the

Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-ND):

FBI. So in December of 2020, you did a declaration of the Federal Election Commission that the elect intelligence community expected a leak and a hack operation involving Hunter Biden. Recently, Mark Zuckerberg confirmed that the FBI warned that there was a high effort of Russian propaganda, including language specific enough to fit the hunter lip laptop, biden's sec security story. You're 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 'em?

Yoel Roth:

No, sir, I did not.

Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-ND):

Did they reach out to you on or around that day?

Yoel Roth:

To the best of my recollection, no, they did not.

Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-ND):

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 is, Hey, is this what you were talking about?

Yoel Roth:

If that question was directed to me? No, I did not.

Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-ND):

Ms. Gadde, did you talk to anybody from the FBI?

Vijaya Gadde:

Not to the best of my recollection.

Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-ND):

So I guess my question is, what is the point of this program? You have constant communication. They're set up for foreign interference. They've legitimately warned you about this very specific thing, and then all of a sudden everybody just walks away like, this is what you plan for. This is what you prepared for. This is the information. They told you exactly what was gonna happen. And then you want, I, I don't care if it's members of Congress, you legitimately want the American people to believe we just completely cut off compact contact with all of the people who we were supposed to defend against. I don't think it, I don't think it passes the smell test and neither do the American people. I yield back

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

Chair recognizes Mr. Casar for five minutes.

Rep. Greg Casar (D-TX):

I'm 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're dedicating this committee's time to? Is that really what we're gonna dedicate the next two years to our constituents of all political backgrounds are worried they're 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're talking about none of that. It seems to me that we're 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's what house Republicans want to spend their time on, then that's their prerogative. But to me, it's a damn shame we're 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 Headstart and the creation of Medicare. They investigated Watergate, they built the US 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're focusing today on Twitter, the American people deserve better. I yield back my time to Mr. Raskin.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD):

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, 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?

Yoel Roth:

While there was some public discussion of it before the election, most of the confirmed information was only declassified after election day.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD):

Okay. 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 wanna put the thumb on the scale with his intervention for either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump?

Yoel 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's bad for America and it's, it's bad for democracy. I think the hack and lead campaign was a bit more skewed because that focused very specifically on the DNC and on John Podesta.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD):

Okay. 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?

Yoel Roth:

That's what most research concludes, was the objective? Yes. All

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD):

Right. So some people are suggesting that if the US government finds out about a malign foreign influence, disinformation or propaganda propaganda campaign in our elections at any level, the government shouldn't say anything to the public or the news media about it. What, what do you think about that proposition?

Yoel Roth:

I believe that would be a profound failure. I think there's 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.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD):

Okay. Ms. Gadde, do you agree with that?

Anika Collier Navaroli:

Yes, I do.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD):

Okay. and just back to you, Ms. Navali for a moment. Did you follow the, the attempt to overthrow the official election result in Brazil?

Anika Collier Navaroli:

I was not working at Twitter at the time, but I paid attention to the news,

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD):

Yes. Okay. And were you struck by any of the resemblances between what happened in Brazil and what happened here on January 6th?

Anika Collier Navaroli:

Yes. It was the exact same playbook that was played on January 6th, in which a ruling party claims that an election was stolen. And that misinformation continued to spread and lead to political violence.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD):

Thank you I yield back Mr. Chairman.

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

The Chair recognizes Mr. Fallon for five minutes.

Rep. Pat Fallon (R-TX):

Minutes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. If there was ever, you know, if there's ever a time where our government becomes the sole arbiter of truth, then we've lost the United States. Twitter's 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?

Yoel Roth:

I don't know, sir.

Rep. Pat Fallon (R-TX):

We have it here. It was 98.4% of Twitter employees who 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% of Twitter employees donating to Democratic candidates and costs. 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?

Yoel Roth:

No, sir, you

Rep. Pat Fallon (R-TX):

Didn't. That's remarkable because it's pretty obvious you did have strong biases when you compared, ironically, using Twitter, people that worked in the 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?

Yoel Roth:

Yes, I do. As I said, I regret.

Rep. Pat Fallon (R-TX):

I agree. I agree with you. It was, and so your political opinion spilled over into Twitter. I think your biases had consequences, which you intentionally expressed through your propaganda censorship role at Twitter. Additionally, you may have collaborated with the US intelligence community regarding stories that y'all didn't want the public to see. So namely what we refer to as the Hunter Biden laptop story that ran in the New York Post. So I'll 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?

Yoel Roth:

Yes.

Rep. Pat Fallon (R-TX):

You did. See, because it's interesting with 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 pulled Democratic voters in 2020 swing states and found that 17% would've 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 a hundred thousand votes. And if this is accurate, with this poll, 3.2 million votes could've 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 the contents of the New York Post story? Mr. Roth?

Yoel Roth:

Only what I read in the New York Post that day,

Rep. Pat Fallon (R-TX):

And then it was killed by Twitter and the mainstream media followed. So I, I found this interesting in 2019, candidate for president Joe Biden said, and I quote, 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 Mag, Nadia Mennell, Miguel Velasco visited the White House in February, 2014, and he was later photographed. Joe Biden was photographed with him in the White House. Also, in 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 Thatam Pisarski and executive of the now infamous Burma Holdings Company, where Hunter would later magically make millions as a board member, despite having no experience whatsoever and 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 to do those things, men and women never get to put in such power and positions of power again. And Mr. Chairman, I'd also like to see if I'd like to ask you unanimous consent to enter into the record a tweet from Ranking member Raskin. The tweet reads, it's horrifying to see images of border patrol agents whipping Haitian refugees at the Texas border. Not exactly the feeling I get from the statue of liberty....

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

Without objection, so ordered.

Rep. Pat Fallon (R-TX):

Thank you, gentleman.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

Does the gentleman yield?

Rep. Pat Fallon (R-TX):

Yep. Oh, well, I just think that's 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.

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

Gentleman yields.

Rep. Pat Fallon (R-TX):

A yield. .

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

Mr. Baker on top of page two, in your written testimony, you said, I did not destroy or improperly suppress....

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD):

Whose time is this?

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

Any documents at Twitter regarding information important to the public dialogue? The way you worded that? It sounds like there is some

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD):

Chairman, how much extra time is he gonna get during this hearing?

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

You finished the question. He had, he had time. Let him repeat the question and then his time will be expired and

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD):

It expired before he started.

Unidentified:

Clearly it's up to the chairman. Why don't you let him answer.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

Mr. Baker? On top 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 dialogue. The use of the term improperly suppressed suggests there was some kind of suppression done in a proper way. I just wanna 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?

James Baker:

Unfortunately sir, I think I'm constrained from answering that question any more fully than in my testimony because of attorney-client privilege. So I'm, I'm unfortunately, I'm just gonna have to leave it at that.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

I thought that's been waived.

James Baker:

Not the privilege, not the privilege. The, the non-disclosure agreement, my understanding has been waived, but not the attorney's law and privilege understand

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

Gentleman's time's expired.

James Baker:

I do not, I do not have anything in writing to indicate that the Twitter has waived privilege with respect to that matter.

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

Chair recognizes Ms. Crockett for five minutes.

Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX):

Thank you, Mr. Chair. MAGA Republicans can't let go. That should be the name of this hearing. I'm 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 this hearing should be talking about the threats to our democracy. That's the real threat. Not an old article that seemingly couldn't reach the viewership. It sought through its own platform to disparage and 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 in distractions such as Joe Biden, a candidate at the time, not 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 Mrs. Ms. Navaroli. I hope I'm not just killing your name right now. At some point you stated if January 6th and anything like it, that language, if we would've seen that happen in any other country with any other leader, Twitter would've acted completely differently. It is my understanding from this statement, and correct me if I'm 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?

Anika Collier 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 towards Representative Acaia Cortez.

Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX):

And when we talk about bending, it's 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 c e o.

Anika Collier 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.

Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX):

Are you aware of this being an ongoing practice for other individual's Twitter accounts?

Anika Collier Navaroli:

At my time at Twitter, the former president Donald Trump's account was the only account that I did not have access to.

Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX):

Okay. So we know that there weren't individual actors running around Twitter setting off alarms every other day. Is that correct?

Anika Collier Navaroli:

Not to my knowledge, no.

Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX):

Okay. Now, as we talk about January 6th, because I think that's the only thing we should be talking about, what I wanna talk about is what, 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 6th?

Anika Collier 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.

Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX):

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?

Anika Collier Navaroli:

Yes, I believe so.

Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX):

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 6th, correct?

Anika Collier Navaroli:

Yes. People died on January 6th.

Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX):

Thank you. With that, I'll yield the remainder of my time to Chairman Raskin or Ranking Leader Raskin.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD):

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 Database of Republican requests to censor posts published on February 8th, 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

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

Didn't have you pegged for a Rolling Stone reader, but without objection to order. Chair recognizes Mr. Goffman,

Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-WI):

First of all, just a comment. When we talk about the Pledge of Allegiance, that one of the lines in there is to the Republic for which we stand. George I'm sorry. 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 a kind of little story for the three of you on the left here. In January of 2021, the Christian magazine called The Daily Citizen tweeted about President-elect Joe Biden's announcement that Dr. Rachel Levine was his nominee for Secret Assistant Secretary of Health. They commented that Dr. Levine is a transgender woman. This was banned from Twitter. Are you familiar with this story?

James Baker:

I'm, I'm not familiar with it, sir.

Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-WI):

Do you have any reason why it would've been banned?

James Baker:

I can't.

Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-WI):

Okay. They're a local talk radio hosts in, 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's some very prominent doctors in the area that didn't agree, perhaps with everything CDC or NIH said that were banned on Twitter. I'd 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 who are wildly well respected, probably two of the most prominent doctors in Wisconsin thought outside the mainstream. And I think we're 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, their version of events? No. You, you're not aware that ever 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, there were people who disagreed with the NIH recommendations and you took them off of Twitter. You're not familiar with that? None of you are familiar with that.

Okay. well, I'll, I'll, I'll yield some time to Jim Jordan.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

I thank the gentleman for, 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?

James Baker:

Sir, I, again, I'm gonna 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...

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

Let me, let me, yes. Mr. Baker, although you testified today by subpoena, you nonetheless have raised the attorney-client privilege to avoid answering this committee's question. Congress does not recognize the common law attorney-client privilege. With that, I'm gonna allow Mr. Jordan to, to ask the question again.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

Well, there's, there's been two questions I've asked that he's refused to answer. So let me, if, if I could, Mr. Chairman, I'll, I'll ask both again. I'll go back to the one asked a couple minutes ago, top of page two of your testimony. You said, quote, I did not destroy or improperly suppress any documents at Twitter regarding information important to the public dialogue. I would like to know what, what you're 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.

James Baker:

Again, sir as I think we've notified the committee and we've 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 Klein privilege. So unfortunately, I don't think I can go beyond what I've said there already, sir,

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

Unfortunately, Mr. Baker, your assertion that the attorney client privilege, it's overruled as to this particular question and answer. So will you please answer the question by Mr. Jordan?

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD):

Point of order? Mr. Chairman.

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

State your point.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD):

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's for a court to decide. So I don't think there's, I don't think there's anything we can do within this committee at this point, unless I'm missing something.

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

We'll, we'll give you one more chance to answer the question. If, if you don't answer it, then we'll have to deal with it after the committee hearing. Mr. Baker, could you answer the question?

James Baker:

I apologize, but I, I, I believe I have ethical responsibilities to my former client, and I don't think I can go beyond what I've said already. Unfortunately,

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

Yeah, I just said that. I said that all.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

Mr. Baker, you did suppress documents then that in your language was important to the public dialogue.

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

I'm gonna give you an extra minute, Mr. Goldman, you're next.

Rep. Daniel Goldman (D-NY):

Thank you very much.

James Baker:

I'm sorry, sir. Could you repeat the question.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

Again? Going, going to what? You, your written testimony. So you did suppress documents at Twitter regarding information that was important to the public dialogue. That's a yes or no.

James Baker:

I'm 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 his legal obligations.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

Okay.

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

Gentlemen's times expired. I recognize Mr. Goldman for six minutes.

Rep. Daniel Goldman (D-NY):

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. Schoen. It was official US 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's a lot in there about Mr. Schoen. Luckily though, he doesn't even have to do that.

You can just read the New York Post story itself because in that story, CHN admitted that he never opened an investigation into Burisma. He claims to have had quote specific plans to do so. Yeah, sure. Yeah. For two years, Rudy Giuliani had been pedaling Victor Shuchen's bogus story, including with agents of Russian intelligence and Chairman Comer. If you question that, I urge you to look up Andre Deco. 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's Brett Bayer said, quote, 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's a subpoena to the computer repair shop owner, which happened over a, 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?

James Baker:

Yes.

Rep. Daniel Goldman (D-NY):

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?

James Baker:

I believe so, yes.

Rep. Daniel Goldman (D-NY):

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?

Yoel Roth:

Yes, sir.

Rep. Daniel Goldman (D-NY):

And those efforts, I believe you said, and correct me if I'm wrong, by Russian intelligence to interfere in the, our electoral process continued up and through and including the 2020 election. Is that right?

Yoel 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.

Rep. Daniel Goldman (D-NY):

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 2020 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 election? Serious pause.

James Baker:

Well, I think as reflected in the public record I at the time, I thought there were great concerns on, on that side of the equation because in part, with respect to all the, the things that had happened since 2016 with respect to the hack and leak or hack and dump issues there were, there were facts that indicated that the computer might have been abandoned and so on. But which made it a very difficult case, which is why we're sitting here today talking about it.

Rep. Daniel Goldman (D-NY):

Right. And there was a 24 hour delay in continuing to spread the publication of it. Isn't that right?

James Baker:

Yes. Okay.

Rep. Daniel Goldman (D-NY):

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,

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

Chair recognizes Mr. Higgins for five.

Rep. Clay Higgins (R-LA):

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm gonna be yielding some time to my colleague, Mr. Jordan, here momentarily. But for the record, Mr. Baker, Ms. Gadde, Mr. Roth. Mr. Navaroli, are you here under the advice of counsel? And do you have counsel present?

James Baker:

Yes, sir.

Rep. Clay Higgins (R-LA):

That was a yes.

Vijaya Gadde:

Yes, sir.

Yoel Roth:

Yes, sir.

Anika Collier Navaroli:

Yes, I do. Yes, I was subpoenaed.

Rep. Clay Higgins (R-LA):

Good, good. No, I'm glad y'all have counsel present, Mr. Chairman, for the submission. For the record, I'd like consent to submit the Twitter files dated December the eighth posts about a New York Post regarding this suppression of conservative commentators like that submitted.

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

Without objection so ordered.

Rep. Clay Higgins (R-LA):

Mr. Chairman. Thank you. I'd like to also submit for the record a timeline of events with cited sources outline in strong evidence of the Biden family. Organized criminal actions would certainly indicate that we've crossed the threshold of reasonable suspicion. I'd like this timeline submitted for the record.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD):

Excuse, Mr. Truman. just, where is that from? That timeline?

Rep. Clay Higgins (R-LA):

Timeline in my hand, boss? I'll get it to you shortly. 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's the bad news. It's gonna get worse because this is the investigation part. Later comes the arrest part. Your attorneys are familiar with that, Mr. Chairman, I'd like to spend five hours with these ladies and gentlemen during depositions, surely yet to come. But for right now, I'll yield the balance of my time to my colleague, Mr. Jordan.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

Thank gentlemen for yielding. I think he made the right point. And I would just respond to my colleague from New York. You know, who knew the laptop was real, was the FBI they had it for, or, or maybe they had it for a year and just said, you know, what we're gonna put on the shelf. We're not gonna look at it. But if anyone knew it was real, it's them. That's why I asked the question. Again, back to my colleague from New York when he was talking about, that's why I asked the question earlier. I said, did anyone at the FBI, 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's a great point that he made. Mr. Roth, I'm gonna come back to you in something we were at a few hours ago, and we're talking about this visibility filtering, which in my mind I understand to be something short of, of suspending and blocking the account, which the user then knows has happened because there's a notification in a public way like you did to Ms. Green when you suspended her account. But there's other things, this search blacklist, this do not amplify that are 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, of specific users? And you said you hesitated for a while and you said, well, you wouldn't use the term hardcoded, but it seemed to me like something like that went on. Can you elaborate?

Yoel 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 coded, yes, Twitter 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

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

Directly. Were any government officials were those labels and therefore that filtering done to any government officials, any elected officials that where the user wouldn't know about?

Yoel 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.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

So I'm just talking about your time there. In your, your experience there. Do you know if that happened?

Yoel Roth:

It would not surprise me to know that visibility filtering labels had been applied to the accounts of elected officials.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

So visibility filtered labels applied to the accounts, but the user doesn't know.

Yoel Roth:

Yes, it was not Twitter's practice to notify users' accounts.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

Account. But you think that happened to elected officials and government officials?

Yoel Roth:

Again, I couldn't say for sure.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

I appreciate it.

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

Chair recognizes Mr. Fume for five minutes.

Rep. Kweisi Mfume (D-MD):

Well, Mr. Chairman, it's been a long morning and afternoon. And at this point in time there's an adage that says everything that can be said has been said, except that not everyone has said it. So if you'll indulge me for a few minutes, I'd just like to reflect on some observations having sat here and gone through this, and I'm hoping and praying that this is not a problem in search of a solution cuz we're 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 general woman from South Carolina who indicated her ongoing medical condition, which she said she might have to live with the rest of her life.

I just, that just got me for a moment and I wanted to make sure that that's on the record. Now, I would disassociate myself with her remarks when she said, as did the gentlewoman from Georgia, God bless Elon Musk. For me, it's, 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're all covered by congressional immunity in terms of when we're on the floor and when we're in these committees, but sometimes we probably don't 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's 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 often don't. And then we see violence occurring against whether it's 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 sixth 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?

Anika Collier Navaroli:

Yes, thank you for that question. On the morning of January 6th, I did send that message to a Twitter lawyer specifically because I believe 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 their coming in a response of confirming that the information had been received. Would you repeat the second question that you asked?

Rep. Kweisi Mfume (D-MD):

I wanted to know what was their response? What did they do?

Anika Collier Navaroli:

Nothing.

Rep. Kweisi Mfume (D-MD):

Okay. You went on to say that in January of 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?

Anika Collier Navaroli:

Yes, that did occur.

Rep. Kweisi Mfume (D-MD):

And what happened after that?

Anika Collier 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 policy specifically related to content moderation. In that specific instance, I believe the document was relating to foreign policy discourse.

Rep. Kweisi Mfume (D-MD):

So my point here about content moderation on the front end prevents some of the crazy things we see on the backend. 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 that I would ask unanimous consent 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% 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 submitted.

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

Without Objection. So ordered.

Rep. Kweisi Mfume (D-MD):

Thank you, sir.

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

Chair recognizes Mr. Sessions for five minutes.

Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX):

Minutes. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. So I will say it. God bless Ilan Musk because I th I think I feel that way. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, it was Alan Musk that revealed data that uncovered a disturbing cabal. Let's be clear, we're here today because Twitter got caught, not because people wanted to admit mistakes got made, or perhaps because they bought, if not for the Twitter files released by Mr. Ellon Musk. This activity we are discussing today would still be going on. It's 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. We're not truthful. That's 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. Law I would engage you if I could for a minute. By the way, I want to compliment all four of you. You've been here all day. This is hard to do. You've kept your cool to the best of your ability. You're expressing honesty. I admire that. Mr. Roth, can you please tell me about the meetings with the FBI? How many, where'd they take place? How did they accomplish what they wanted?

Yoel Roth:

Thank you for the question. 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 sectors strove to, 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.

Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX):

Ms. 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 in passed to you?

Yoel Roth:

I would say I have a, 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.

Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX):

Do you believe that they today in looking back, misled you?

Yoel Roth:

I don't believe so, no.

Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX):

So you believe that the things which they told you in looking back are truthful even today?

Yoel Roth:

To the best of my recollection, yes.

Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX):

So the chance for FBI, numerous times, dozens of times to meet with you. Did you put out information about the substance when you said you provided the public with information? Did you discuss what those meetings were about?

Yoel 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.

Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX):

And does that reside to the best of your knowledge currently at Twitter?

Yoel Roth:

Yes, sir. I returned all Twitter property to the company when I chose

Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX):

To leave. Yes. And that would be a requirement, generally speaking? Yes. 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?

Yoel Roth:

Yes, sir. It is.

Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX):

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

Gentleman yields back.

Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL):

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You know, I'm beginning to, I'm getting 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 impeaching impugning free speech. And the problem is, is that Donald Trump, he, 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's 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're doing with Joe Biden.

So every day you guys tweet out, Joe Biden is boring. He's sleepy every day you say it on tv. Now, you wanna tell the American people, Joe Biden is an international super mastermind along with his son Hunter. I mean, it's just bananas. You know, the Trump family's 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 you wanna know if the Trump family made any money selling p p e during the pandemic outta the West Wing? Any questions about that? No. I, 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're leaking things. You like your leaker, Matt Isaac and I love, you know, have you seen this guy? I mean, this is, he, he's like a Radio shack dot matrix guy who copied files off a private citizen's hard drive.

Okay? That's your entire theory is based off of, but I, I wanna use his words. These are 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 to the lap, 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 pedaling, 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. Even a 66% increase of anti-Semitism on Twitter since Elon Musk said it free. Mr. Chairman, I agree with you. It's not fair to say all conservatives are Nazis. That's preposterous. That's not true. But your Lord and Savior, Donald Trump is having tea and dinner with them at Mar-a-Lago. Nick Fuentez right here, who's a picture that is tweeted at me all the time saying, Jews are a virus in response to my tweets. Donald Trump's dinner with him. Nazis at Merl Largo. And so, no, not all Republicans are Nazis. But I got, I gotta 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's 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'd love to know. Is it because maybe they're your voters? I mean, they certainly aren't voting them for me. I yield back.

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

Chair recognizes Mr. Langworthy for five minutes.

Rep. Nick Langworthy (R-NY):

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 and companies have too much power. Well, I think you're 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 a natural right of the people to a free and fair election. Twitter knowingly suspended the New York Posts 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 are part of the secretive sip pest censorship team at Twitter, correct?

Yoel Roth:

No, sir. I'm not sure what that refers to.

Rep. Nick Langworthy (R-NY):

Mr. Roth, the Twitter files revealed that you rarely adhere to company policy in making your censorship decisions. One reporter from the Twitter files called your group a quote, 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?

Yoel Roth:

No, I do not.

Rep. Nick Langworthy (R-NY):

Can you explain the process for these quick decisions?

Yoel Roth:

Thanks for the question. I think the core of content moderation, whether it's 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 well 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, 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.

Rep. Nick Langworthy (R-NY):

So Mr. Roth, as part of the Supreme Court of moderation at Twitter, did you have the final call over political censorship decisions?

Yoel Roth:

No, sir, I did not.

Rep. Nick Langworthy (R-NY):

Then, who had the final call on these decisions?

Yoel Roth:

There was a team of people, some of whom 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.

Rep. Nick Langworthy (R-NY):

So your team labeled high profile accounts as vitz standing for very important tweeters. What was the threshold for being labeled as a vit?

Yoel Roth:

That's an excellent question for which there is not a consistent answer. I don't think Twitter was particularly well put together on that definition.

Rep. Nick Langworthy (R-NY):

So was the New York Post labeled a vit?

Yoel Roth:

I believe the New York Posts account is verified and verification conferred some of that status of being a V I T. But again, the definitions here are a little squishy.

Rep. Nick Langworthy (R-NY):

Now, is it true that the Twitter comms director, Trenton Kennedy said in regard to the post story, I'm struggling to understand the policy basis for marking this unsafe Yes.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

No interest?

Yoel Roth:

Yes. It's my understanding that Mr. Kennedy said that

Rep. Nick Langworthy (R-NY):

Was the New York Post story regarding Hunter Biden's laptop marked unsafe regardless of uncertainty.

Yoel 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.

Rep. Nick Langworthy (R-NY):

Well, it's 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 in Big Tech to go ahead and play God and interfere in a natural free and fair election in 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 you, 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,

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

Gentle me yield with gentleman yielded Jordan Jor, Mr. Jordan. Okay, thank you. Mr. Roth in your, in Missouri v Biden, your declaration to the F E C you said, I also learned in these meetings with the government that a hack and leak operation would involve Hunter Biden. Mr. Chan has, 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?

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

Gentlemen time, please answer the question.

Yoel Roth:

My recollection is that a representative of another tech company may have mentioned it, but those meetings were several years ago. I, I truly don't recall.

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

Okay. Chair recognized Ms. Stansbury for five minutes.

Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-NM):

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I wanna 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 wanna thank you all for spending your day with us. But I also wanna 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 gonna put food on their table at the end of the day, how we're gonna address the economy, how we're 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're here right now, but I do wanna clarify some key facts about what we've heard today. So I'm gonna 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?

Vijaya Gadde:

Yes, that's correct.

James Baker:

I don't think I have stated that publicly yet, but that is what the CEO of the company said.

Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-NM):

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?

Yoel Roth:

Yes.

Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-NM):

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 6th in the Capitol. So, Ms. Navoroli, I wanna 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?

Anika Collier 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?

Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-NM):

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 is represented here today, has been dissolved in the accounts of individuals like Donald Trump, who inside violence in the Capitol have been restored. And we are seeing antisemitism 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.

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

Would the gentle lady yield to a question?

Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-NM):

Mr. Chairman? I yield back.

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

All right, chair recognizes Ms. Boebert for five minutes.

Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO):

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Matt Taibbi, a respected reporter who published much of the Twitter files, said quote, Twitter's contact with the FBI was constant and pervasive as if it were a subsidiary. Now, I wanna better understand why he would suggest that Mr. Roth, while at Twitter, how many meetings did you have with the FBI?

Yoel Roth:

I couldn't say for sure, but I would say....

Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO):

Say more than 10.

Yoel Roth:

That's a reasonable, more or less estimate. I couldn't say for sure.

Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO):

More than 50.

Yoel Roth:

That seems a bit high.

Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO):

Many meetings with the FBI? Well, we know how many FBI agents worked at Twitter while you were there?

Yoel Roth:

I don't believe any active FBI agents.

Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO):

Former FBI agents. How many worked there while you were there?

Yoel Roth:

I'm aware of perhaps two.

Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO):

Well, we know of at least nine because they started the FBI group chat. Now, Mr. Roth, did the FBI ever ask you to share information like users' communication data without going through proper legal channels?

Yoel Roth:

No, they did not. And I would've refused if they had.

Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO):

That's 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's 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 questionably legal?

Yoel Roth:

Not a lawyer, but certainly not to the best of my recollection or knowledge.

Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO):

From the hearing that I've been a part of today it's 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's you, you are the collusion between the federal government and the FBI. Now with it, this is such a problem because we're seeing censorship all over Mr. Roth. Ms. Gaty, did either of you approve the shadow banning of my account at Lauren Bobert, yes or no?

Yoel Roth:

No, I did not.

Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO):

Not to the best of my recollection. Well, let me refresh your memory because I'm March 12th, 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'll ask again, did you shadow ban my account, yes or no?

Yoel Roth:

Again, not to the best of my recollection.

Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO):

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's a freaking joke about Hillary Clinton being angry that she couldn't rig her election. It's 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, 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. Yeah, 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 a sitting president was banned from Twitter. You know, I bet that Putin is sitting in the Kremlin wishing he had as much election interference as you for hear today, we've heard about threats to democracy. Well, what about shutting down a duly elected member of Congress? This is fundamental to our nation's governance. And you all attacked that very foundation. Two 30 protections. Well, those are for publishers, not for editors. And it's clear you are not acting as publishers. You are acting as editors. And Mr. Chairman, I think it's far past time that we remove two 30 protections for big tech platforms who are abusing this protection. And let me just say I'm not angry for myself. I'm 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

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

We're over seven seconds over.

Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO):

... And saving free speech. And even Twitter, Mr. Chairman, I yield.

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

The lady yields. Went over 24 seconds. I'll give Ms. Porter 24 an extra 24 seconds.

Rep. Katie Porter (D-CA):

Well, I appreciate your indulgence, Chairman Comer, but I won't, I won't need it. So today's hearing gaveled in at 10:00 AM for nearly six hours power outage. 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 we are. This was ever a problem. Look, criminal activity is always a concern, but if, 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 ex exercise in misinformation and disinformation, a free for all health scape. That's 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.

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

The lady yields back.

Rep. Katie Porter (D-CA):

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

Ms. Boebert.

Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO):

I ask unanimous consent to submit to documents and to the record, both, both from Twitter.

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

Without objection, so ordered. Thank you. Chair recognizes Ms. Luna for five minutes.

Rep. Anna Luna (R-FL):

Thank you, chairman. Mr. Roth, have you communicated with government officials ever on a platform called Jira? Yes or no? Real quick answer, we're on the clock, yes or no?

Yoel Roth:

Not to the best of my recollection.

Rep. Anna Luna (R-FL):

Not to your recollection. Great. Have, if you did in the event, communicate who would've had access to this platform.

Yoel Roth:

That's the nature of my confusion. Jira's

Rep. Anna Luna (R-FL):

Okay, did you ever speak to government officials on Jira regarding taking down social media posts?

Yoel Roth:

Again, not to the best of my recollection.

Rep. Anna Luna (R-FL):

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 wanna 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'm gonna refresh your memory for you this flow chart.

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

Objection so ordered.

Rep. Anna Luna (R-FL):

Thank you chair. This flow chart shows the following Federal agency's social media companies, Twitter, leftist, nonprofits, and organizations communicating regarding their version of misinformation using Jira, a private cloud server. On this chart, I wanna annotate that the Department of Homeland Security, which has a following branches, cybersecurity and infrastructure security agency, also known as CISA Countering Foreign Intelligence Task Force, now known as the Misinfo, Disinfo and Mal-information, MDM, this was again, used against the American people. The Election Partnership Institute or 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, CISA- 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 of these groups though, have in common? And I'm going to refresh your memory. They were all communicating on a private cloud server known as Jira. Now, the screenshot behind screenshot behind me, which is an example of one of thousands shows on November 3rd, 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 of 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?

Yoel Roth:

I wouldn't agree with the characteristics.

Rep. Anna Luna (R-FL):

I don't care if you agree. Do you, this is, 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?

Yoel Roth:

The question was, if I…

Rep. Anna Luna (R-FL):

Yes or no? Yeah, I'm on time. Yes or no?

Yoel Roth:

Ma'am, I don't believe I can give you a yes or no.

Rep. Anna Luna (R-FL):

Well, I'm gonna 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'm so glad that there's many attorneys on this panel, joint state actors, it's 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?

Vijaya Gadde:

Yes, I am.

Rep. Anna Luna (R-FL):

Okay. For those who have said that this is a pointless hearing, and I just wanna let you guys all know, we found that Twitter was indeed communicating with the federal government to censor Americans. I'd like to remind you that this was all in place before January 6th. So, to say that these mechanisms weren't in place, and to make it about January 6th, I wanna let you know that you guys were actually in control of all of the content and clearly 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.

Rep. Kweisi Mfume (D-MD):

Mr. Chairman chairman, point of order

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

Chair.

Rep. Kweisi Mfume (D-MD):

Yeah. I just want to call to the attention of the chair and members...

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

Yes.

Rep. Kweisi Mfume (D-MD):

That we were getting awfully close to witness intimidation, and I would ask the chair to intervene.

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

I'm sorry, I didn't hear what you said, Mr. Mafu.

Rep. Kweisi Mfume (D-MD):

I said I would caution all members that we were getting very closely 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 this.

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

Okay. Ms. Cortez? Yeah.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY):

Thank you Mr. Chairman. And follow up to that. I was curious about the committee's rule or the committee's disposition towards accusing witnesses of a crime discussing arrest, discussing, you know, these, making these illusions and threats. I, I want to clarify for the record, what is the committee's policy around threatening a witness?

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

We got that decor. Is that what you're that's the member depart witness. We, we have the, we have the member decorum. Do we have a witness? Decorum.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY):

Okay. And around the rules of decorum. Can we, yes, can we agree that threatening a witness comes close to broaching general decorum? It does broach general decorum of the committee.

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

With all due respect, Mr. Ocasio-Cortez, we don't agree that there was any witness threatening.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY):

In threatening when we discuss arrest, when we discuss a potential arrest of a witness and, and alluding to a witness or suggestion of a witness committing a crime without evidence and without, without documents being supported to the

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

Record. Can can you be more specific?

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY):

When, when we talk about arresting a witness or when we talk about a witness in insinuating a witness is lying without documentation, I fear that this constitutes threatening a witness. And that comes and that will broach the rules of decorum of this committee.

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY):

And I'd like to ask that we request witnesses be treated with respect. Thank you. With

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

Appreciate that, and I'll remind everyone of the members of Decorum and witness decorum to treat everyone with respect. I thank you Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Do you have anything to add?

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD):

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's communicated directly with Twitter or received any information relating to the witnesses who has that, who plans to use it, distribute it to the committee in advance, if that's okay.

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

I think that most of the, I think the evidence is coming from, I think a lot of the, the quotes and emails are on the laptop.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD):

Well, I think that at least one member indicated...

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

The Twitter and the Twitter files, Twitter files that Elon Musk, well,

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD):

One member had indicated that, that she had received information directly from Twitter.

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

Okay. Chair recognizes Mr. Edwards shall request.

Rep. Chuck Edwards (R-NC):

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're clear and to stage my next line of questioning in December, 2019, we've established that the FBI subpoenaed Hunter Biden's laptop from a computer store owner. And then we've 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 co 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?

Yoel Roth:

Yes, I did.

Rep. Chuck Edwards (R-NC):

And Mr. Roth, that event was hosted specifically by the Aspen Digital Hack and Dump Working Group, is that correct?

Yoel Roth:

I know it was hosted by the Aspen Institute. I couldn't say who specifically within that

Rep. Chuck Edwards (R-NC):

Mr. Roth, this event was before the release of the Hunter Biden laptop story, correct?

Yoel Roth:

That's my recollection, yes.

Rep. Chuck Edwards (R-NC):

And during that event, a scenario that was discussed was a hypothetical October, 2020 release of records related to Hunter Biden. Is that correct?

Yoel Roth:

Again, that's my recollection of the event, yes.

Rep. Chuck Edwards (R-NC):

And Ms. Roth, did you participate in the design of this hypothetical scenario?

Yoel Roth:

Not to the best of my recollection, no.

Rep. Chuck Edwards (R-NC):

Are you telling me that you never had any conversation with anyone regarding the contents of this scenario?

Yoel 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 this scenario in a specific way. No.

Rep. Chuck Edwards (R-NC):

So you're, you're, you're, you're telling me that I will find no witnesses that would testify they had conversation with you regarding the development of this scenario?

Yoel Roth:

I genuinely could not say what other witnesses might or might not say.

Rep. Chuck Edwards (R-NC):

Why was Hunter Biden chosen as the subject of this scenario? Just weeks before the October 14th, 2020 publication of the first Hunter Biden story?

Yoel Roth:

I don't know.

Rep. Chuck Edwards (R-NC):

But you participated in the conversation?

Yoel Roth:

I was invited to and joined an event hosted by the Aspen Institute. Yes.

Rep. Chuck Edwards (R-NC):

And so surely there had to be some level of conversation as to why Hunter Biden was the topic in that scenario?

Yoel Roth:

Not that I can specifically recall. Right.

Rep. Chuck Edwards (R-NC):

Mr. Roth representatives from Facebook attended this event also, correct?

Yoel Roth:

To the best of my recollection, yes.

Rep. Chuck Edwards (R-NC):

Right. 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 US Intelligence community participate in the September, 2020 Hunter Biden hack and dump exercise?

Yoel Roth:

I don't recall.

Rep. Chuck Edwards (R-NC):

Mr. Roth, I'd like to point you to a sworn statement that you previously made. I believe this was to the FEC. You've 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?

Yoel Roth:

Yes, it was.

Rep. Chuck Edwards (R-NC):

And Mr. Roth, you said since 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?

Yoel Roth:

Yes, sir.

Rep. Chuck Edwards (R-NC):

All right. And Mr. Roth, you were told there would likely be a hack and leak operation occurring in October, is that correct?

Yoel Roth:

I believe the FBI has objected to the word likely or expected, but we certainly discussed that possibility with them.

Rep. Chuck Edwards (R-NC):

Alright, thank you Mr. Chair. I yield back.

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

Gentlemen, yields back. Chair recognizes Ms. Bush for five minutes.

Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO):

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 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 in aberration. Social media played a key role in fanning the flames of violence on January 6th on that attack on R US Capitol. The impact has spread all over the world. Last fall after Reuters reported that disinformation about Chili'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 6th and asked repeatedly for a retrospective meeting to discuss what happened in the lead up to that day. Management told you, quote, it wasn't a priority for the company. Why was it not a priority for Twitter to learn lessons from January 6th?

Vijaya Gadde:

I don't believe you're referring to me. Apologies. I'm the chief legal officer. I did not, I did not make that statement.

Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO):

Okay. Ms. Navaroli?

Anika Collier Navaroli:

Would you mind repeating the question?

Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO):

Sure. On January 6th, on January 6th, 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 6th?

Anika Collier 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 ask that we do a retrospective to understand not just what happened on January 6th, but leading into January 8th in the permanent suspension of the president.

Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO):

And what can you say is Twitter's top priority?

Anika Collier 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 and safety and to ensure the safety and lack of harm for people on the ground.

Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO):

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 this 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. The 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

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

Chair recognized Mr. Perry for five minutes.

Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA):

Thank the chairman. I thank the witnesses. It's been a long day. Mr. Roth. Going back to your statement, Mr. Edwards talked about I wanna just kind of revisit that a little bit. Where it was communicated to you, at least per 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, and those at the bottom here, the meetings that were rumored in those meetings were rumored that the hack and leak operation would involve Hunter Boden subsequent to that. Well, first of all, who told you that was that? Did you get that? Can you tell, can you tell us where you got that information? If you know

Yoel Roth:

The subject of the possible hack and leak was raised by a number of representatives of the FBI.

Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA):

Was one of them Mr. Chan? Elvis Chan?

Yoel Roth:

Yes. Mr. Chan was a part of it.

Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA):

So are you familiar with the fact that in his testimony in, in November of 2022, that he says We did not see any similar competing intrusions to what happened in 2016. And of course you had 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?

Yoel Roth:

I was not aware of...

Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA):

Mr. Clinton's deposition.

Yoel Roth:

No.

Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA):

Fair. Did, did they ever give you any evidence of the hack and dump operation that happened in 2016? And what I think I'm referring to is the allegation that the Clinton campaign the DNC server was hacked and that information was spread about through WikiLeaks or other information channels. Did they ever give you any evidence of that occurrence during these discussions?

Yoel Roth:

That information was made public by the intelligence community in the Mueller report and by the Senate intelligence committee.

Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA):

Yeah. 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 you to your knowledge?

Yoel Roth:

I think that would be a question better directed at

Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA):

Fair enough. But the point is, you, you never saw any evidence. Right. You're just taking it on and, and I'm not blaming you cuz a lot of people wanna believe the FBI. I've always wanted to believe the FBI. The question is, did they ever give you any evidence to believe that because they're making the case, they're making the case that there's a hack and leak operation coming and it's gonna be about Hunter Biden Right. Before the election, did they ever give you any evidence?

Yoel Roth:

It didn't come up. There

Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA):

Was Okay. Yeah, I didn't figure it did. And then y'all set up a secret channel between Twitter and the FBI. Who, who did that from the FBI? Was that Roth or you're Roth, was that Elvis? I'm sorry.

Yoel Roth:

Mr. Chen was part of that work? Yes.

Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA):

Yes, he was part of that. And that, so you set up and you actually set up a war room as well, right?

Yoel Roth:

I believe the FBI operated a war room.

Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA):

Okay, fair enough. I didn't join. And you participated in that?

Yoel Roth:

No, sir. I did not.

Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA):

You did not. Did Twitter participate in it?

Yoel Roth:

I believe Twitter may have sent a representative.

Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA):

Okay, fair enough. And then, and then you did this table talk 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, and you participated in that, right?

Yoel Roth:

Yes, I did.

Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA):

Who facilitated that exercise? I know the Aspen Institute. But who facilitated the exercise? Was was anybody from a government agency facilitating any part of that? Were they involved in the discussions during the exercise?

Yoel Roth:

No, I don't believe so. No.

Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA):

So they were just spectators?

Yoel Roth:

I wasn't aware that they were spectators either, but I don't recall exactly who was there.

Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA):

I know you don't recall who was there, but who then who facilitated? Do you recall that?

Yoel Roth:

My recollection is that the event was facilitated by Garrett Graff, who was a member of the Aspen Institute and Aspen Digital.

Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA):

All right. Do you find it odd now after the fact, and I know you've already testified here, that you didn't see to Mr. Sessions, that you didn't see that you were misled or potentially duped? It sure seems highly coincidental. Would you agree it at least seems highly coincidental knowing that the FBI had the laptop that FBI set up the war room in the channel and told you per your statement that this was gonna happen. Do you find it highly coincidental that it actually happened and it was Hunter Biden at all?

Yoel Roth:

I wanna be clear that my statement to the FEC does not suggest that the FBI told me it would involve Hunter Biden. That's a popular reading of that declaration, but it was not my intent. I think there is a coincidence there and I, I really can't speak as to how that came about.

Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA):

Yeah, it's really coincidental. One, one last question. Did the CIA or the other, other governmental agency ever ask Twitter to look at something that violated Twitter's policy?

Yoel Roth:

I don't recall specific outreach by the CIA specifically

Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA):

Other government agency is what it was called in the Twitter files.

Yoel Roth:

Yes. Twitter regularly received reports from the government requesting review under our rules.

Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA):

The one, the other government agency, that one, did they ever request information regarding violations of Twitter's policies? The CIA ...

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

Gentleman time's expired, but please answer the question.

Yoel Roth:

Thank you, chairman. Again, I don't recall specific contact from the cia. No.

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

Okay. Chair recognized Mr. Burleson for five minutes.

Rep. Eric Burlison (R-MO):

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I've sat here listening. I'm glad to be last and rank. I get to listen to all the testimony and what's 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 were so concerned and hell bent and worried about the interference of outside groups in the 2016 election became willing participants to interfere in the following presidential election. These three groups worked together, and it's clear, worked hand in hand to hide the truth from the American people. The fact that the FBI had the Hunter Biden laptop, heck, 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's, it's clear to me why they reached out to you because they knew you would buy the lie. They knew that an organization with 99% of its employees donating to Democratic candidates and efforts would absolutely not look at any information with a John Desai. 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 when all of that leading up to the, to the October 14th, 2020 when the New York Post published its story every it, everything was already in place. So Mr. Roth, my question to you is, when 51 Intelligence officials told you, 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's real?

Yoel Roth:

Sir, I never held that belief.

Rep. Eric Burlison (R-MO):

Do you believe that the story is Russian disinformation?

Yoel Roth:

No, sir. I didn't then, and I don't now.

Rep. Eric Burlison (R-MO):

Okay. I have a question. Mr. Baker, you started your role as Twitter's Deputy General Counsel in June of 2020, correct?

James Baker:

Yes, sir.

Rep. Eric Burlison (R-MO):

Who hired you for that role?

James Baker:

Who specifically hired me? My boss was a person named Sean Edge, who was the general counsel,

Rep. Eric Burlison (R-MO):

Sean En...

James Baker:

Edgett.

Rep. Eric Burlison (R-MO):

Edgett. And that's who you interviewed with?

James Baker:

I interviewed with numerous people, but Sean was my boss.

Rep. Eric Burlison (R-MO):

Anyone anyone that comes to mind outside of Sean?

James Baker:

Ms. Gadde I interviewed with other, you're saying other people that I interviewed with at Twitter,

Rep. Eric Burlison (R-MO):

But ultimately the hiring agent was Sean Edgett.

James Baker:

I'm not sure exactly who made the decision to be frank with you, but Sean was my boss.

Rep. Eric Burlison (R-MO):

Okay. My next question is, when you were fired from Twitter in December of 2022, after the release of the first installment of the Twitter files, did you destroy any internal communications related to that first batch of the Twitter files?

James Baker:

As I said in my testimony, I didn't destroy any documents.

Rep. Eric Burlison (R-MO):

What reason were you fired?

James Baker:

You'll have to ask Mr. Musk about that.

Rep. Eric Burlison (R-MO):

That was not, that was not given, you were not given any information. He

James Baker:

Made a public statement about it in a tweet, but I think you would have to ask him for the precise reason.

Rep. Eric Burlison (R-MO):

Okay. 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 and asked you to whitelist those accounts?

Yoel 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've shared that data with the world and research about it has been published.

Rep. Eric Burlison (R-MO):

Was that, was, was that only in efforts against foreign entities or were there any efforts against United Citizens of the United States?

Yoel 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.

Rep. Eric Burlison (R-MO):

Okay. Thank you. And Mr. Chairman, I wanna just say thank you for this hearing. I would like, I would hope that we would be asking for documents or, and communications, whether it's on personal devices or private devices between these individuals and government officials. So not very good. Thank you.

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

Chair recognizes Ms. McClain for five minutes.

Rep. Lisa McClain (R-MI):

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you all for being here today. It is a long day. I'm gonna try and make this quick and easy. Mr. Roth, part of your job at Twitter dealt with assessing dis- and misinformation, correct?

Yoel Roth:

Yes.

Rep. Lisa McClain (R-MI):

Wonderful. How did you determine what disinformation and what misinformation was? What's your criteria for making that decision?

Yoel Roth:

Twitter had established policies covering each of those areas, and I'll take them in turn. We used the term disinfo. We actually generally didn't use the term disinformation, but we focused on platform manipulation. So behaviors like running in authentic 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.

Rep. Lisa McClain (R-MI):

So technical, it, it was all technical on that side of things?

Yoel Roth:

Yes. Okay. When it comes to misinformation, which broadly is a question of the content of tweets. Yeah. Twitter would establish written policies,

Rep. Lisa McClain (R-MI):

Which was,

Yoel Roth:

I'm, which policies did Twitter maintain?

Rep. Lisa McClain (R-MI):

Yeah, I, I mean, I think what the, the, the problem with America is we have one set of rules for this team and another set of rules for this team. So we're trying to look at what is the e equal playing field. I'm under the assumption that when we use disinformation and we use criteria, the criteria is the same for both sides. So I'm 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?

Yoel Roth:

Thank you for the question. We used a three part test across all of our misinformation policies. Okay. 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. Okay. 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 expert 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's a claim of fact that it's provably false and that it's dangerous, Twitter might intervene under its policies. No part of that test is viewpoint based.

Rep. Lisa McClain (R-MI):

And in your opinion, was that applied to all tweets?

Yoel Roth:

No.

Rep. Lisa McClain (R-MI):

Thank you. Mr. Roth you're familiar with the reports that the Biden administration was considering establishing a disinformation governance board under the Department of Homeland Security?

Yoel Roth:

I am aware of public reporting about that,

Rep. Lisa McClain (R-MI):

Yes. Thank you. And that board was never established, correct?

Yoel Roth:

That's my understanding.

Rep. Lisa McClain (R-MI):

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 did you, how often were you meeting with people from the federal government while you were at Twitter? Weekly, daily, monthly?

Yoel Roth:

I would estimate somewhere between weekly and monthly.

Rep. Lisa McClain (R-MI):

Okay. And were you aware that Mr. Baker was also taking these meetings with the federal government as well?

Yoel Roth:

I was not aware of Mr. Baker's calendar, no.

Rep. Lisa McClain (R-MI):

So you had no idea that he was meeting, there was no inter you just worked in silos?

Yoel 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.

Rep. Lisa McClain (R-MI):

Okay. What did you understand Mr. Baker's role to be at Twitter? Besides offering general legal advice,

Yoel 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

Rep. Lisa McClain (R-MI):

<Laugh>. Okay. And how about Ms. Gadde's role at Twitter? Besides offering general legal advice?

Yoel Roth:

I believe for a year and a half of my tenure at Twitter, Ms. Gadde was my direct supervisor.

Rep. Lisa McClain (R-MI):

Okay. What was her role, just to supervise you, to make sure you followed those three claims?

Yoel 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.

Rep. Lisa McClain (R-MI):

Okay. And she oversaw you and, and the trust to make sure that your three claims of fact provable faults and would call harm. She was, she oversaw that?

Yoel Roth:

Yes. Ms. Gadde ultimately oversaw Twitter's policies and enforcement

Rep. Lisa McClain (R-MI):

Decisions. 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?

Yoel Roth:

We did not.

Rep. Lisa McClain (R-MI):

You did not. Okay. Thank you so much.

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

Gentle ladies' time has expired.

Rep. Lisa McClain (R-MI):

Thank Mr. Chair.

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

Chair recognized Mr. Laturner for five minutes.

Rep. Jake LaTurner (R-KS):

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 as unnecessary and a waste of time. I'd 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's a congressional hearing. I'm here because my constituents are genuinely concerned that they'll 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 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, deter those determinations?

James Baker:

That's, excuse me, sir. That's a very broad question on people in power. I'm not sure I can answer that effectively.

Rep. Jake LaTurner (R-KS):

Could, could you try?

James 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's 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.

Rep. Jake LaTurner (R-KS):

Mr. Chairman, I would like to yield the rest of my time to Mr. Jordan

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

Yield to Mr. Jordan.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

I thank the gentleman. Mr. Roth, I wanna go back to your statement. In your, in your declaration of the FEC I learned that a hack and leak operation would involve Hunter Biden. Who did you learn that from?

Yoel Roth:

My recollection is it was mentioned by another technology company in one of our joint meetings. But I don't recall specifically whom.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

You don't know the person's name?

Yoel Roth:

I don't even recall what company they worked at. No. This was a long time ago.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

And you're, you're confident that it was from a tech company, not from someone from the government?

Yoel Roth:

To the best of my recollection, yes.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

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?

Yoel Roth:

No, they did not.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

Did Hunter Biden's name come up at all in these meetings?

Yoel Roth:

Yes. His name was raised in those meetings, but not by the government to the best of my recollection.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

Okay. Mr. Baker, I'm gonna go back to the question we had a few hours ago. Did but I wanna 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?

James Baker:

I don't think I understand. I think I understand the question. I don't recall ever having such a conversation with the FBI.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

Okay. 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 a pol as some kind of potential concern?

James Baker:

I was always concerned that the FBI adhered to the Constitution laws of the United States period.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

And you didn't think that crossed the line?

James Baker:

Well, what crossed the line, sir?

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

I just asked you that the idea, they're sending you a list of accounts that they want, they say these violate your, your, your terms of service.

James Baker:

Again, I'm making sure that I can answer the question. Had I thought that they were doing something unlawful, I would've taken appropriate steps to address it.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

Okay. Mr. Roth why were you reluctant? Based on what I read in the Twitter files, why were you reluctant to work with the GEC?

Yoel Roth:

It was my understanding that the G E c 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 is 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 state craft. 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'd be, we'd be addressing that as well.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD):

Mr. Chairman, I think the gentleman's time expired. I want, again, thank our panelists for being here. I know it's been a long day. We apologize for the electricity going out. That's never happened in my six years in Congress. But before we close the ranking member and I are gonna have very brief closing statements, aye, yield to the ranking member.

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's gonna be over soon. I wanna, with a simple point that I, I hope will be sympathetic to you, and I began the long day with this. It's even more important now that we have members who are actually threatening witnesses with arrest and prosecution for clearly imaginary offenses, or at least 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've got no constitutional right to go there. So I think there's 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's a state action requirement. There is no state action here. Now there's an attempt to perhaps Jerry rig some state action by claiming, well, it was really the FBI that committed whatever offense was there, but, well, what do we have in terms of what we found today? Well, today's witnesses, each and everyone testified that no US 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 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 wrecked upon this institution not far from where we sit today on January 6th, 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 at Twitter at least, the brass there specifically rejected the pleas of employees to take seriously all of the signs and clues of coming violence in the insurrectionary action that took place. That's a serious problem that we're gonna have to deal with at some point, at a serious hearing. Mr. Chairman, I yield back to you,

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

Gentleman yields back. I will conclude by saying, reminding my friend, the ranking member that you've gone through a, 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's 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've had this hearing is because the laptop has been mislabeled by many in the mainstream media as being Russian 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.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD):

You mean mainstream media outlets, CBS? You don't think CBS is credible?

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

No. I thought you were just calling the mainstream media. No, no. CBS News has done forensic audit that shows that the hard drive's 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's important is because there's evidence on there that should concern every American about potential corruption as well as evidence that would suggest that there's a possibility that this administration could be compromised because of the millions and millions of dollars that they've received from our adversaries around the world. We believe that's worth investigating. We believe national security's important. We had a hearing yesterday on our border.

We believe there's 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've received from our adversaries around the world. That much of that evidence is contained in the laptop. So I think this was a very successful hearing. I appreciate the witness's time. I know it was a very long day. And again, we've never had the electricity go out before, but again, we appreciate your, your sincere testimony. And with that, and without objection, all members will have five legislative....

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY):

Mr. Chair, I apologize to interrupt. It just came to my attention that I have to seek your unanimous request in order to submit some additional documents.

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

Without objection so ordered.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY):

Thank you.

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

Apologies. 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 forwarded to the witness for their response. If there's no further business without objection, the committee stands adjourned.