The wheels are turning in the alleged Biden family shake-down emails. The Republican National Committee floated a story to Fox News about its complaint regarding Twitter’s election tampering, and now the right is holding its breath to see if anything will come of it. The mega social platform has been suspending, banning, and throttling conservative political speech for several years. Still, this last move, shutting down all information-sharing on its platform regarding explosive New York Post articles may have been a bridge too far.
Since the Post reports first came to light, Twitter’s CEO Jack Dorsey has been backpedaling as fast as humanly possible. His responses to Twitter’s high and heavy hand have included apologetic statements like “Straight blocking of URLs was wrong.” In another tweet, Dorsey whined: “Our communication around our actions on the @nypost article was not great. And blocking URL sharing via tweet or DM with zero context as to why we’re blocking: unacceptable.” However, the GOP is signaling that it is fed up and is having none of Dorsey’s mea culpas.
Thus, the nastygrams from Senators Ted Cruz (R-TX), Josh Hawley (R-MO), and a few choice words from Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) indicate its time to take Dorsey & Company to the woodshed.
Twitter in Trouble
The Republican National Committee jumped on the anti-Twitter bandwagon with a legal complaint to the Federal Election Commission (FEC) claiming that the social media giant is nothing more than a “partisan actor, run by partisan Democrats.” Moreover, the RNC asserts that Twitter’s actions amount to “in-kind contributions to Biden for President” campaign. RNC’s complaint reveals how furious they are at Twitter:
“As of this filing, Respondent [Twitter] is engaged in arguably the most brazen and unprecedented act of media suppression in this country’s history, and it is doing so for the clear purpose of supporting the Biden campaign.”
Does this complaint have any real, legal teeth? Liberty Nation asked Legal Affairs Editor Scott Cosenza, Esq. to weigh in. “Practically speaking, this complaint will go no-where, at least for a good while,” Cosenza says. “The Federal Election Commission cannot act on this complaint, because according to the law, four of the six authorized persons on the Commission must vote to move forward.” Cosenza went on to explain that, currently, there are only three people on the Commission; one Republican, one Democrat, and one independent. “So, until the Commission has one or more new appointments that must be nominated by the president and approved by the Senate, this complaint will not be going anywhere,” he concludes, before describing how the RNC complaint would play out before a fully-functional FEC:
Hypothetically, however, if we did have a functioning Federal Election Commission, it’s important to remember that just because some action a corporation takes benefits a candidate, that doesn’t make the activity an in-kind contribution. The relevant question is whether the action was taken for the purpose of influencing the election. That kind of analysis can only occur with more facts about how the Hunter Biden story’s Twitter suppression came to be. Facts the Commission may learn if it chose to investigate the claim.
The complaint may benefit Republicans in one regard – to put Twitter and Mr. Jack Dorsey on notice, that there are other potential consequences of being a hypocrite and treating speech from conservatives differently.”
You can bet subpoenas will be flying, and CEO’s Jack Dorsey and Mark Zuckerberg will have some explaining to do before at least one congressional committee this week. Those on the right are asking whether any of this will amount to a hill of beans for Election 2020. Whether it is too little, too late, or right on time remains an open question, but for sure, the train has finally left the station regarding this one-sided blackballing of political speech.
~
Read more from Leesa K. Donner.
