For those who watched Thursday’s Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government hearing regarding the Twitter Files, the arrogant, dismissive, (and hilariously ignorant) attitude on display by the subcommittee’s Democrat members was hard to stomach. While most hearings are dog and pony shows to some degree, the Dems’ seek-and-destroy mission aimed at undermining the credibility of witnesses Matt Taibbi and Michael Shellenberger and muddying the waters was blatant. As a former Democrat (of the “classical liberal” variety) the disdain for journalistic ethics and best practices and utter indifference to the gross governmental overreach revealed by the Twitter Files demonstrated by the Democrats who questioned (or, rather, bellowed at and over) Taibbi and Shellenberger made my blood boil. There were no liberal ideals on display Thursday — at least not by the Democrats. And the irony that their ire was directed at two decidedly-non-Republican witnesses simply because they’ve dared question the authoritarian methodology embraced by the “progressive” ruling class was thick. None of the Democrat committee members covered themselves in glory at Thursday’s hearing, but Rep. Dan Goldman (NY) went on a smarm-offensive with his questioning, first, during time yielded to him by fellow Democrat committee member Linda Sánchez (CA). (Video is cued up to Goldman’s initial questioning.) Though he started out with an awkward compliment to Shellenberger on his tie (presumably because it was similar to the one he was sporting), Goldman quickly pivoted to attempting to discredit the NY Post/laptop story. He asserted that the hard drive provided to the Post by Rudy Giuliani had been tampered with while Giuliani was “openly cavorting with agents of Russian intelligence,” though Shellenberger pushed back pointing to the fact that multiple news outlets, including CBS, had since authenticated the contents of the laptop. Goldman also whipped out the “Trump Ukraine Impeachment Inquiry Report,” asking Shellenberger if he’d read the 300-page tome before asserting in Twitter Files #7 that “Every single fact in [the NY Post story on the laptop] was accurate.” Of course, Shellenberger had not, though he testified he was generally familiar with his contents. Goldman referred to the first paragraph of the Post’s story, which asserted that the prosecutor (Viktor Shokin) who was fired at the behest of Joe Biden was investigating Burisma:
This is where Goldman had his Matlock Moment, as he punctuated each word with the Report for emphasis, proclaiming that:
Of course, Goldman’s argument (and the “expert” testimony he holds in such vaunted esteem) conveniently dismisses the evidence to the contrary and executes a clever semantic two-step there. If that’s what he’s hanging his hat on to discredit Shellenberger, I’d submit he’s failed to make his case. Goldman got another shot at questioning, which he snarkily reclaimed when Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) seemingly forgot to return to him, using that segment to relitigate 2016 and the Mueller indictments. When Taibbi pushed back on the premise of his questioning, Goldman barked, “Let me move on. That’s how this works — you should know that by now!” He then quibbled with Shellenberger over what constituted “direction” from the FBI to Twitter to remove posts or accounts before detouring to complaining to Jordan about the committee not discussing Republican book banning and the horrific misdeeds of one Donald J. Trump. For his grand finale, Goldman bemoaned the fact that the committee was there discussing Twitter — “Twitter!” — contending that “Even with Twitter, you cannot find actual evidence of any direct government censorship of any lawful speech.” When Jordan offered an example of a White House official contacting Twitter two days after Biden assumed office to request a tweet be taken down, they got into a back-and-forth about whether it involved “lawful speech.” When Jordan didn’t immediately have the tweet handy, Goldman snidely replied, “Oh, shocking.” The tweet in question, it turns out, was from Robert Kennedy, Jr. regarding Hank Aaron’s death after he received the vaccine. (Read: Lawful but contradicting the preferred narrative.) It would appear that Mr. Goldman, after chiding the witnesses for not having committed the Ukraine Impeachment Report and Mueller indictments to memory, hadn’t bothered to do his own homework. I knew Goldman seemed familiar, but it took me a few moments to place him. The way he revered the Impeachment Report should have tipped me off: That he’s a partisan with an aim toward discrediting Republicans and running interference for the Biden administration is hardly surprising. What is interesting, however, is the connection Goldman has to a consulting firm overseeing the funds being marshaled to combat investigations into Biden, as reported by Fox News Digital.
It’s all so…cozy. Almost like the relationship the FBI developed with Twitter. |
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