Jim Jordan Was Made to Look 'Foolish' in Twitter Hearing: Kirschner

By Fatma Khaled On 2/9/23 at 10:35 AM EST

U.S. Jim Jordan Republicans U.S. Politics

Representative Jim Jordan, an Ohio Republican, looked "foolish" during Wednesday's GOP-led House committee hearing over Twitter's decision to temporarily block the Hunter Biden laptop story, according to former federal prosecutor Glenn Kirschner.

"Former Twitter executives testify at congressional hearing; make Jim Jordan, MTG [Marjorie Taylor Greene] and other House Republicans look foolish," Kirschner tweeted on Wednesday.

Some former Twitter employees who attended the House Oversight and Accountability hearing were questioned by Republicans about allegedly colluding with the FBI to suppress the Hunter Biden story.

Twitter temporarily prevented users from sharing the New York Post article in October 2020, fearing that the story about the laptop's contents was the result of illegal hacking.

Jim Jordan Was Made to Look 'Foolish' — Representative Jim Jordan, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, delivers remarks during a business meeting prior to a hearing on U.S. southern border security on Capitol Hill on February 1, 2023, in Washington, D.C. The congressional hearing that was held on Wednesday by a GOP-led House committee over Twitter's decision to temporarily block the Hunter Biden laptop story made Jordan look "foolish," according to former federal prosecutor Glenn Kirschner. Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images

During the hearing, Vijaya Gadde, Twitter's former chief legal officer and former head of trust and safety Yoel Roth admitted that it was "wrong" and a "mistake" to temporarily block access to the story just weeks before the 2020 election.

Jordan, who chairs the House Judiciary Committee and serves on the House Oversight committee, claimed that the former Twitter workers were "played" by the FBI and argued that the company's executives searched for reasons to remove the Hunter Biden story.

The story by the Post reported that the laptop allegedly contained a 2015 email from Vadym Pozharskyi, an adviser to the board of Ukrainian energy company Burisma, who was seeking a meeting with Hunter's father, who was serving as vice president under President Barack Obama at the time.

"So Jim Jordan might think in that head of his that 'you got played by the FBI,' but the actual witness testimony from the witnesses, that Jordan and his merry band of fellow committee members insisted come in and testify at this Twitter hearing, refuted Jim Jordan's beliefs," Kirschner said during a video of Justice Matters on Wednesday.

Former Twitter deputy counsel James Baker told the committee that there was no collusion with the federal government in censoring contents on the social media platform.

"I am aware of no unlawful collusion with, or direction from, any government agency or political campaign on how Twitter should have handled the Hunter Biden laptop situation," Baker said in his opening statement. "Even though many disagree with how Twitter handled the Hunter Biden matter, I believe that the public record reveals that my client acted in a manner that was fully consistent with the First Amendment."

The hearing is part of an ongoing effort to investigate the alleged "weaponization" of federal agencies under the Biden administration.

In a 221 to 211 House vote in January, the Republican-controlled House pushed through a resolution to launch the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government to look into a number of subjects, including the Department of Justice's criminal investigations into former President Donald Trump and whether or not the FBI has attempted to censor conservative voices. The subcommittee is chaired by Jordan, one of Trump's allies.

Newsweek reached out to Jordan for comment.