WATCH: Kevin McCarthy condemns FBI for ‘weaponizing’ businesses against citizens
Steff Thomas
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House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy criticized the Federal Bureau of Investigation for “weaponizing” social media against citizens after a recent “Twitter Files” dump revealed “constant and pervasive” communications between the Big Tech company and the agency.
“This is becoming so detrimental that they’re using the government agencies. But they’re [also] weaponizing American businesses at the same time,” McCarthy said Saturday on Fox & Friends.
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“We’ve got to turn it on its head and get to the bottom of this,” he told the hosts.
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McCarthy said the information from the “Twitter Files” showed that social media and the government’s influence on the public is “even worse” than previously feared.
“It’s what we feared. But it’s even worse,” McCarthy said, particularly with “government weaponizing businesses to go around the Constitution, to go after Americans [and] never giving that information.”
Instead of “going after people” and removing useful information from the platforms, the California Republican said the FBI agents should have been investigating human trafficking, kidnappings, and other crimes.
“What about Facebook? What about Google? What about the 51 intel agents who signed a letter in regards to saying it was Russian collusion when it came to the Hunter Biden laptop [story]?”
McCarthy, who is running to take the speaker’s gavel in January as Republicans take over the House, said there are plans to subpoena all 51 officers.
“We need to be able to have the strength to stop this … and get the answers for the American public,” he said, adding that “we would’ve never known this had it not been for Elon Musk bringing it out.”
Asked how House Republicans can hold the FBI agents accountable, McCarthy pointed out that the agency’s oversight and funding come from lawmakers. With the House majority, Republicans will hold the power of the purse.
“We cannot delay. We [must] make sure that we can start on day one with the subpoenas and get the answers,” he told the hosts.
“We have to follow the truth to put in any safeguards [and] make sure that this can never happen again,” McCarthy said.
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Throughout his 2020 campaign, Joe Biden denied having any knowledge of the foreign business dealings of his son, Hunter Biden. Those denials were echoed by 51 former high-ranking intelligence community officials, led by James Clapper and John Brennan, in an open letter dismissing his son’s laptop report as Russian disinformation.
In his first release, Taibbi shared screenshots of internal conversations in which Twitter employees noted tweets that had been flagged by the Biden team or the Democratic National Committee.
The new information, revealed on Friday by Taibbi, said there were over 150 emails shared between the bureau and former Twitter trust and safety chief Yoel Roth that were dated between January 2020 and November 2022.
Roth stepped down from his post after Musk became the social media company’s CEO despite initially being embraced by the new leader.