Former President Donald Trump is hailing Twitter owner Elon Musk for releasing the documents known as the “Twitter Files.”
During an interview with One America News’ Chanel Rion, Trump was asked about Musk’s decision to release internal Twitter documents to shine a light on the platform’s content moderation decisions.
Rion asked the former president about a document showing Twitter received $3.4 million from the FBI and whether he believes the payment constituted a bribe to censor information.
“Well, I’d characterize it as terrible. Yeah, $3.7 million or something like that, and possibly a lot more, because that’s only what they have right now,” Trump responded.
CNN notes the payment was due to a Twitter policy posted on its website that stated it “may seek reimbursement for costs associated with information produced pursuant to legal process and as permitted by law (e.g., under 18 U.S.C. §2706).”
According to the outlet, the law states the federal government will reimburse companies for their efforts in “obtaining the contents of communications, records, or other information” it requested.
Still, Trump went on, “I’m just telling you, the country can’t believe what they’re seeing. And Elon Musk did a big service when he released all of this stuff. Because our country is corrupt. Our elections are corrupt. We have a very sad and sick country, but we have a very corrupt country.”
“Who would have ever thought we would have seen the FBI putting their hand on the election? Not only putting their hand on it, but you saw the poll companies come out, could have made a 20-point difference,” he added.
Trump is referring to Twitter’s decision to block the sharing of a story about a laptop belonging to Hunter Biden, which conservatives believe the FBI played a role in. However, it’s unlikely salacious pictures and videos of the adult son of a presidential candidate would have altered the outcome of the 2020 election as Trump insisted in the latter part of his comments.
Watch the video below:
In his first interview since the release of The Twitter Files, 45th President Donald Trump spoke with OAN's Chief White House Correspondent @ChanelRion Here's part of that discussion as well as Trump's reaction to Elon Musk's Twitter Files release. pic.twitter.com/RaS4l1IDRL
— One America News (@OANN) December 20, 2022
At a separate point, Trump again claimed Musk is “showing what a corrupt country we’re living in.”
Just to take a little detour here, it would be nice if a former president and current presidential candidate would stop putting down the country by calling it “corrupt” with every breath.
To wind down the interview, Rion asked if Trump views Musk as a hero.
“I’d say he’s a hero. I think that it’s a big part of his legacy. I think it’s more important than other things he’s done,” Trump responded. “And it’s very important he’s showing our country was off the rails and still is. We’ll see whether or not this helps fix it, but the Republicans have to get a lot tougher.”
Musk is the owner of Twitter and he has the right to release whatever information about the company he wants.
And the amount of communication between Twitter and the FBI shown in those documents does appear to be suspicious. Does the FBI have nothing better to do with its time than sit on Twitter and send emails to its executives flagging tweets for misinformation and wishing them a Happy New Year?
What appears to be a fairly close relationship between a company aimed a facilitating conversations and a law enforcement agency, exchanging emails about tweets and holding quarterly calls, on its face appears to be a little unnerving. However, it is important to note there is no clear evidence so far that the FBI overstepped and was pressuring Twitter to censor tweets or block accounts.
Musk may not have proven the FBI was pressuring Twitter to make certain decisions — at least yet. Still, he has confirmed what a lot of conservatives believed, but could not prove, about how Twitter decided to ban Trump, and limit the reach of certain conservatives.
So he should get some credit for showing they were not crazy. But being labeled a hero may be a little high of a bar.
