Top Dem on House Weaponization Subcommittee Threatens Journalist Matt Taibbi With Prison Over #TwitterFiles
“Under the federal perjury statute, 18 U.S.C. § 1621, providing false information is punishable by up to five years imprisonment.”
Stacey Plaskett, a non-voting delegate for the U.S. Virgin Islands in the House of Representatives, is the top-ranking Democrat on the House Weaponization Subcommittee. You may remember how she grilled Matt Taibbi and Michael Shellenberger during a March hearing on the #TwitterFiles.
She is now threatening Taibbi with prison for allegedly lying to Congress over a simple mistake in his reportage.
Remember how the media howled any time Trump criticized the press? Where are they now?
Chuck Ross reports at the Washington Free Beacon:
Weaponization Committee’s Top Dem Threatens ‘Twitter Files’ Journalist With Jail Time
The top Democrat on the House Weaponization subcommittee threatened a journalist with prison time over his congressional testimony that exposed the government’s attempt to influence Twitter.
Congresswoman Stacey Plaskett (D., V.I.) made the threat in a letter to reporter Matt Taibbi, who testified on March 9 about his “Twitter Files” series, which revealed details of interactions between the FBI, federal agencies, and Twitter executives. Plaskett, noting a discrepancy in Taibbi’s testimony, warned him in the letter that providing false information to Congress is “punishable by up to five years imprisonment.”
Plaskett took issue with Taibbi’s claim that the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency pressured Twitter to censor various news articles on its platform. While the agency did correspond with Twitter regarding the censorship of content on the platform, Taibbi acknowledged in a television interview that he mixed up the federal agency with the Center for Internet Security, a nonprofit that receives federal funding, during his testimony.
You can read Plaskett’s letter here.
This is after an agent from the IRS visited Taibbi’s home while he was appearing before the weaponization committee.
To make matters worse, it looks like Plaskett got this idea from MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan.
The journalist Lee Fang pointed this out:
Mehdi's viral deception that Taibbi lied under oath about DHS/CISA now has House Dems explicitly threatening Taibbi w/ imprisonment. Taibbi was accurate in this quote, yet here's a letter from Rep. Stacey Plaskett citing Mehdi to float a threat of 5 years of jail against Taibbi pic.twitter.com/VYf2tw8LDE
— Lee Fang (@lhfang) April 20, 2023
Ryan Grim of the Intercept says she should resign from Congress over this.
She should resign from Congress for this and at minimum should be removed from the committee. The press is not the enemy of the people and threatening reporters with prison — especially as we work to free Evan in Moscow — is reckless and dangerous. https://t.co/sA7ez6gJxA
— Ryan Grim (@ryangrim) April 20, 2023
Other reactions:
Please look at this tweet and this thread.
The repellent fake-Congresswoman @StaceyPlaskett took the bullshit lies from MSNBC and Mehdi Hasan on how @MattTaibbi confused acronyms when testifying before Congress, and sent him a letter threatening him with prosecution and prison: https://t.co/ZyplAohBDp
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) April 20, 2023
Reckless behavior by @StaceyPlaskett. Disagree with Taibbi all you want, but there’s no better way to confirm the point of his reporting than to threaten him with imprisonment for telling Congress about his reporting. https://t.co/wOKJ3BMqLh
— Matt Stoller (@matthewstoller) April 20, 2023
Democrat House Reps are now threatening journalists with prison. Are the norms restored to everyone's satisfaction now? https://t.co/LGB3lVqojf
— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) April 20, 2023
Mehdi Hasan and Stacey Plaskett are going after Taibbi for the same reason. They’re running interference for the Democrats. It’s so obvious.
Featured image via YouTube.
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Comments
Plaskett isn’t even a real Congressman. She really shouldn’t be there, at all … but since they have to have her around she has absolutely no business being on any committees or anything. She is not a real member. She’s just a trans-Congressman, pretending that she’s in the House.
Free the Virgin Islands from colonialism!
Glen Greenwald did a nice expose on this story on his nightly show on Rumble Thursday night including her, She has zero ties to the Virgin Islands prior to running for office.
And the fake Congresswoman is the top Dem on the committee!
It’s easy to forget that these people aren’t honest, yet mistaken. They are part of a very large group that hates our society, hates our founding principles, hates us, and has absolutely no moral compunction against using literally any means as long as it furthers their end.
They aren’t friends that need to be persuaded, but enemies that need to be defeated.
Affirmative Action in Action. “It’s not faaaiiir that people with mid-50 IQ’s can’t be in Congress tooOOOOooo“
“Hey! That’s not very inclusive! What about those of us with an IQ equivalent to our shoe size! That’s not fair!”
Hank Johnson
Virgin Island?
No, they are delegates from China.
Watch these despicable, slavish, water-carrying media lapdogs and propagandists, such as the vile Hassan and his ilk, gleefully run interference for and whitewash brazen censorship efforts by the U.S. federal government, in collusion with the private sector.
seems to me there is a word for the wholesale cooperation between private enterprises and the central government… but it gets overused and means nothing anymore, much less its intended usage. It has to do with Godwin’s Law.
Today that ‘word’ simply means any Republican that stands in the way of whatever Democrats want at the moment..
She looks like she belongs on the Supreme Court. If she and 6 like her joined as replacements, they could could call themselves The Devine Nine and issue their opinions musically from a Vegas floor show.
The irony and lack of self awareness is breathtaking.
The issue that fairly blares at me is Stacey, of the Subcommittee on Government Weaponization against conservatives, weaponizing her government committee against a conservative.
Getting a minor fact wrong is not a crime, much of the media reporting these past few years are completely fictional. Fiction is also free speech. Let’s hold all the reporting on Jan 6 and COVID to the same standards.
And was the statement “materially” false? CIS is, as I understand the situation, almost entirely funded by the federal government. It is a marionette. In any discussion of government censorship and weaponization, is it “material” that the conduit for the abuse is a “private” company? Twitter, Google, and FB demonstrate that it is not material. Censorship and weaponization of government includes government use of proxies.
This is a blatant attempt at censorship by the Democrats
NEVER contradict the Thought Police!!!
a non-voting delegate
Hmmm, seems she would NOT be protected by the Speech and Debate clause. Taibbi should file charges under 18 US Code 242. Then he should sue under 42 US Code 1983.
Weaponization Committee’s Top Dem
Wait, whut? Their top person isn’t even a real Representative?! BWAHAHAHAHA!!!
(Or is the writer at the Free Beacon that ignorant?)
And I would reply to her letter with the legal equivalent of a hearty FU! Right after I pressed the charges and filed suit.
I thought it just meant that all the other Democrat on the committee were bottoms.
You bring up a good point and I’d actually like to see whether or not a non-voting delegate is an actual Congressman protected by the same rules as voting members or not. It would seem to me that she has “observer” status and nothing more.
Does Congress have representatives from Guam, The Marshall Islands etc? I’ve never heard of this before.
If you’re that terrified of the truth. You might have thought about that before.
This example aptly demonstrates the buffoonery of some members of Congress. This woman appears unable to distinguish between Twitter postings and Congressional testimony as does her staff. Though if she wants people held accountable with jail time for false statements on Twitter she can start with the many d/prog politicians who routinely make less than forthright statements and unsupported allegations on Twitter.
Adam Schitt would get 25,000 years
Fake representative makes fake allegations. What is authentic is her obnoxious demeanor.
I wanna know who wrote that letter for Plaskett to sign. I don’t assume she came up with this idea all on her own.
I thought we established that perjury, even on a FISA request going to the most secret court in the country, was only worth a $500 fine.
Information will be dealt with severely.
That said, she needs a hero, a Democrat hero, who will shoot first, and ask questions later… never.
If “under the federal perjury statute, 18 U.S.C. § 1621, providing false information is punishable by up to five years imprisonment,” on what basis are the “Virgin” Islands virgin?
They never were. They were named after Victoria, the “Virgin Queen.”
Or so I was assured by a professor from Blue Ball, PA.
So US Virgin Islands elected a true Marxist, way to go.
“I am, as you can see, not too bright.”
“Under the federal perjury statute, 18 U.S.C. § 1621, providing false information is punishable by up to five years imprisonment.”
Boy, is Fauci and Garland in trouble