House Republican Asks Elon Musk for Records on Twitter Censorship of Hunter Biden Laptop Story

Elon Musk, founder of SpaceX, speaks during the Satellite 2020 at the Washington Convention Center in Washington on March 9, 2020. Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images

A Republican congressman is urging Elon Musk, Twitter’s new owner, to hand over all records related to the social media company’s suppression of a story about Hunter Biden’s laptop in the weeks leading to the 2020 presidential election.

Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), the top Republican on the House Oversight Committee, said in a letter that he expects Twitter’s new leadership to cooperate with the investigation into “the Biden family’s pattern of influence peddling to enrich themselves and President Biden’s involvement in these schemes.”

“As part of this investigation, Committee Republicans are reviewing the role Big Tech—including Twitter—played in supporting the Biden campaign in 2020 by suppressing certain stories implicating the Bidens,” Comer wrote in an Oct. 28 letter (pdf) to Musk.

A previous attempt to obtain relevant information from Twitter was unsuccessful, according to Comer, as former Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal never responded to the congressional request that the company “preserve all documents and communications” regarding the decision to limit the reach of a New York Post article about emails retrieved from Hunter Biden’s laptop.

Those emails, according to the Post, showed a direct link then-presidential candidate Joe Biden had with his son’s dubious business dealings in China and Ukraine. Shortly after the story’s publication, Twitter not only prohibited users from sharing it, but also suspended the Post’s account for two weeks.

Users who tried to share the story’s link were greeted with a message saying, “We can’t complete this request because this link has been identified by Twitter or our partners as being potentially harmful.” Those who tried to open the link in existing posts were also warned that it was “potentially spammy and unsafe.”

Twitter flagged the New York Post article about Hunter Biden's laptop as potentially spammy and unsafe. Twitter screenshot

Meanwhile, Facebook also algorithmically censored the laptop story after getting a general warning against “Russian disinformation” from the FBI.

New Leadership Called to Correct Mistake

Musk has expressed sympathy with the Post, saying in April that “suspending the Twitter account of a major news organization for publishing a truthful story was obviously incredibly inappropriate.”

In a more recent post, the billionaire said the reason he acquired Twitter is that “it is important to the future of civilization to have a common digital town square, where a wide range of beliefs can be debated in a healthy manner, without resorting to violence.”

Musk can honor his pledge to freedom of speech and information by correcting the “error made by the company’s former leadership,” Comer wrote.

Specifically, the congressman asked Musk to hand over “all documents and communications to, from, between and among Twitter and Twitter employees related to the October 2020 New York Post articles on Hunter Biden’s laptop” by Nov. 11. He also asked for all of the records between Twitter and the FBI or any other U.S. law enforcement or intelligence agency regarding that matter.

Comer also asked Musk to provide “all documents and communications regarding the decision to censor or suppress the Hunter Biden laptop story on Twitter’s platform.”

“We believe open communication and access to information is a fundamental principle for any free people, and the American people deserve to know the reason Twitter suppressed or censored the Biden laptop story shortly before the 2020 election.”