Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., reaffirmed his stance on the First Amendment on Monday as the only Democratic figure who criticized Twitter’s decision to suppress the New York Post story on Hunter Biden’s laptop.
On Friday, journalist Matt Taibbi, with permission from Twitter CEO Elon Musk, released the "Twitter files" which revealed communications between political figures and employees at the company. Among them included the decision in Oct. 2020 to block users from sharing the breaking report from the New York Post that showed Hunter Biden’s laptop being discovered in a repair shop in Delaware.
Khanna, Taibbi noted, was the only Democratic official within the files who reached out to Twitter executives showing concerns over the New York Post’s First Amendment rights.
The California lawmaker stood by his comments during an interview with CNN's Erin Burnett and called on more Democrats to stand up for free speech.
"What surprised me is that Twitter made the decision in the first place to censor. Look, liberal Democrats should be, for the principle of standing up for First Amendment speech. The [New York Times Co. v. Sullivan] said we want free speech to be open, uninhibited wide-ranging. I get Twitter’s a private actor, but they’re effectively a modern public square. And it was disappointing to me that they were suppressing the New York Post," Khanna said.
He also continued to stand by his statements made in his emails.
"Look, we’ve all written emails, and I’m glad that they released that one. I’m sure I’ve written things that weren’t as thoughtful. But when I read it, I said I stand by every word. I got into politics partly because I believe American democracy is great where we have everyone have a voice to stand up and participate in speech. And I do hope more Democrats will stand up for the broader principle, which is we want to be, have forums that don’t have censorship, that allow for all perspectives," he continued.
Several mainstream media pundits and Democratic figures have attempted to downplay the "Twitter Files" as well as the Hunter Biden laptop story. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre suggested that the release of the files was a "distraction" orchestrated by Musk to push "old news."
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Regardless of how he felt about the story, Khanna argued that the issue has nothing to with the content and everything to do with limiting journalism.
"This was about a journalist at the New York Post writing an article about the situation. And there’s no justification for suppressing that, even if the source of that had gotten that information through something that was hacked. That was the case of the Pentagon Papers. Journalists should be allowed to publish things as long as they aren’t participating in the hack," Khanna said.
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Khanna also called on the FBI to be more transparent on its reasons for warning Twitter about "hack-and-leak operations" by "state actors" involving Hunter Biden that likely motivated the decision.
"I think it’s perfectly appropriate to ask the question and to have full transparency and let the facts come out. And so the FBI should explain what they were doing and what the rationale was. I certainly hope and expect that they weren’t trying to do it to bias Twitter for or against a particular candidate," Khanna said.
