Fired Twitter executives James Baker, Vijaya Gadde, Yoel Roth and Anika Collier Navaroli testified at a hearing on social media bias. (Credit: Haiyun Jiang/The New York Times)
Jim Baker, the controversial former FBI counsel who served as deputy general counsel for Twitter between 2020 and 2022, testified at a hearing of the House Oversight Committee today alongside former Twitter executives, to answer for the platform’s politically partisan censorship in the runup to the 2020 election.
FULL EVENT: “Protecting Speech from Government Interference and Social Media Bias” 2/8/23
Baker, a prominent defender of the USA Patriot Act, has been described as “Mr. FISA” for his defense of the controversial secret courts system.
In his comments before the House Oversight Committee, Baker denied any improper conduct with regards to the platform’s suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story, which was broken by Breitbart News Emma-jo Morris in the New York Post shortly before the 2020 election.
“I was not aware of, and certainly did not engage in, any conspiracy or other effort to do anything unethical, improper, or unlawful while i was at Twitter, period,” Baker told the assembled lawmakers.
“I did not act unlawfully or otherwise inappropriately in any manner with respect to the Hunter Biden laptop,” said Baker. “I urged caution with respect to the matter and noted that we needed more information to fully assess what was going on.”
What’s more, the former FBI lawyer said that Twitter took no direction from the government or political campaigns in its decision to suppress the story, which had a major impact on the 2020 election.
“I am 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,” said Baker.
“At no time was I an agent or operative of the government or any political actor when I worked at Twitter,” said the former FBI counsel.
But documents released via the Twitter Files, the disclosure of which triggered Baker’s departure from the company, show an intense effort by the FBI, aimed at Twitter executives, to discredit the Hunter Biden laptop story. (Read more: Brreitbart, 2/08/2023) (Archive)