House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff’s (D-Calif.) office urged Twitter to ban a journalist, according to documents.
Journalist Matt Taibbi posted a photo of the email between Schiff’s office and Twitter with the caption, “Here, the office for Democrat and House Intel Committee chief Adam Schiff asks Twitter to ban journalist Paul Sperry.”
In the email from November 2020, Schiff’s office sought feedback from Twitter related to “alleged harassment from QAnon conspiracists” against one of the lawmaker’s staffers.
“Remove any and all content about Mr. Misko and other Committee staff from its service- to include quotes, retweets, and reactions to that content,” the email to Twitter stated.
It continued, “Suspend the many accounts, including [Greg Rubini] and [Paul Sperry] which have repeatedly promoted false QAnon conspiracies.”
Additionally, Schiff’s office asked Twitter to “stop the spread of future misinformation on Twitter” about staff and “label and reduce the visibility of any content.”
In another tweet, Taibbi wrote, “‘WE DON’T DO THIS’ Even Twitter declined to honor Schiff’s request at the time. Sperry was later suspended, however.”
Read the message below:
28.“WE DON’T DO THIS” Even Twitter declined to honor Schiff’s request at the time. Sperry was later suspended, however. pic.twitter.com/9PX2Zw5Nzj
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) January 3, 2023
Sperry is currently an investigative reporter for RealClearInvestigations.
He also serves as a longtime media fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution.
Sperry explained to The Daily Caller, “The real reason Chairman Schiff lobbied to have me banned from Twitter stemmed from the fact he was angry [I] outed his anonymous impeachment ‘whistleblower.’”
The reporter added, “He lobbied to get me banned under the false premise of ‘promot[ing] false QAnon conspiracies’ which I have never done and [I] challenge Schiff to produce evidence to back up his defamatory remarks to Twitter.”
The request from Schiff’s office was shared as part of the “Twitter Files.”
CBS News noted the “Twitter Files” are the “brainchild” of Twitter CEO Elon Musk, who has declared “he wants to show ‘what really happened’ behind the scenes regarding content moderation decisions at the social media company before he bought it in October.”
The outlet noted the files have been released throughout December with journalists Taibbi, Bari Weiss and Michael Shellenberger doing a deep dive into the documents and discussions around Twitter’s most “high-profile” decisions.
