Editor's note: at around 10 a.m. EST this morning, Michael Shellenberger and I will be testifying at the "Hearing on the Weaponization of the Federal Government on the Twitter Files" for the House Judiciary Committee, in the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government. Just before, around 9:00 a.m., we'll also be releasing a TwitterFiles "Statement to Congress" thread, which will be submitted to the record. It contains some surprises. My opening:
Chairman Jordan, ranking member Plaskett, members of the Select Committee,
My name is Matt Taibbi. I've been a reporter for over 30 years, and an advocate for the First Amendment. Much of that time was spent at
Rolling Stone magazine. Over my career, I've had the good fortune to be recognized for the work I love. I've won the National Magazine Award, the I.F. Stone Award for independent journalism, and written ten books, including four
New York Times bestsellers. I'm now the editor of the online magazine Racket, on the independent platform Substack.
I'm here today because of a series of events that began late last year, when I received a note from a source online.
It read:
"Are you interested in doing a deep dive into what censorship and manipulation... was going on at Twitter?"
A week later,
the first of what became known as the "Twitter Files" reports came out. To say these attracted intense public interest would be an understatement. My computer looked like a slot machine as just the first tweet about the blockage of the Hunter Biden laptop story registered 143 million impressions and 30 million engagements.
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