VIDEO—“Why Are We Here?:” Rep. Stansbury Calls Out GOP Using Committee Resources to Chase Conspiracy Theories During Oversight Hearing

VIDEO LINK: Watch Rep. Stansbury’s full remarks and questions here.

WASHINGTON – During today’s House Committee on Oversight and Accountability hearing, U.S. Representative Melanie Stansbury (N.M.-01) called out House Republicans for holding a hearing on social media conspiracy theories instead of addressing the real and urgent issues that are facing communities across New Mexico.

The Republican majority convened today’s hearing, “Protecting Speech from Government Interference and Social Media Bias, Part 1:Twitter’s Role in Suppressing the Biden Laptop Story,” in response to conspiracy theories put forward during the 2020 presidential election.

During her questioning, Rep. Stansbury established that House Republicans failed to present compelling evidence of wrongdoing or bias by Twitter. Rep. Stansbury further condemned Committee Republicans’ use of Congressional resources to elevate spurious claims designed to distract from their unpopular agenda to raise taxes on the middle class, slash critical benefits, and roll back abortion rights.

“Now, the mission of this committee is to root out waste, fraud, and abuse and to conduct oversight on behalf of the American people. And if you need any evidence of waste, fraud, and abuse, how about the use of this Committee's precious time, space and resources to commit to this hearing?” said Rep. Stansbury in her opening statement.

Rep. Stansbury continued by directing questions to the witness panel of former Twitter employees, including Ms. Vijaya Gadde, Former Chief Legal Officer of Twitter. “You have already stated publicly that Twitter's handling of this issue was a mistake. Is that correct?”

“Yes, that's correct,” Ms. Gadde responded.

 “I have traveled to every corner of my district, and New Mexicans are depending on us to defend our democracy and to ensure that we are holding not only those who are committing waste fraud and abuse accountable, but ourselves,” Rep. Stansbury concluded. “So let's not waste the precious taxpayers time and dollars by holding hearings about Four Seasons Total Landscaping-style conspiracy theories, and actually get to work for the American people.”

Rep. Stansbury’s remarks as delivered can be found below.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to just start this afternoon by thanking our panelists who have been sitting here all afternoon. And to the many members of the public who are with us—I see a lot of tired faces out there, and I want to thank you all for spending your day with us.

But I also want to start out by asking—what are we doing here in this committee today? Why are we here? Why is this committee devoting a day-long hearing about a political conspiracy theory that was planted in the media by Rudy Giuliani to support Donald Trump's reelection campaign?

Of all the topics we could be focused on in this Committee to support the American people—how people are going to put food on their table at the end of the day, how we're going to address the economy, how we're going to address critical issues that are on people's minds every day—we are devoting an entire day to this conspiracy theory involving Twitter.

Now, the mission of this committee is to root out waste, fraud, and abuse and to conduct oversight on behalf of the American people. And if you need any evidence of waste, fraud, and abuse, how about the use of this Committee's precious time, space and resources to commit to this hearing?

You know, I don't even understand why we're here right now. But I do want to clarify some key facts about what we've heard today. So, I'm going to get into it for just a few moments.

Ms. Gadde, thank you for being here today. Mr. Baker. You have already stated publicly that Twitter's handling of this issue was a mistake. Is that correct? Yes or no is fine.

Gadde: Yes, that's correct.

Mr. Baker: I don't think I have stated that, but that is what the CEO of the company said.

Rep. Stansbury: Yes, and at the time, only weeks before one of the most consequential elections of our lifetime in 2020, Twitter made a decision based on policies put into place to protect the public from political disinformation, and from foreign interference. Is that correct, Mr. Roth?

Mr. Roth: Yes.

Rep. Stansbury: In fact, the failure of Twitter and other social media companies to moderate political disinformation not only fueled its use in election tampering in 2018, but allowed for election denialism to run rampant in 2020. And that is exactly what led to the insurrection here on January 6 in the Capitol.

So, Ms. Navaroli, I want to ask you—thank you, for sitting here all day answering these questions. Do you believe that Twitter has put into place policies that would adequately protect free speech, but also protect the American people from another violent insurrection and the kind of hate speech that we are seeing run rampant right now on the platform?

Ms. Navaroli: Thank you for that question. I cannot speak to the current policies because I haven't worked there in quite some time. But I can say that my job at Twitter was to balance free expression and safety. And one of the things that I constantly pushed for was for us to include more analysis within that simple balancing act. And instead of asking just free expression versus safety to say, free expression for and safety, for whom, so who’s free expression are we protecting at the expense of safety? And who’s safety are we willing to allow to go to the wind so that people can speak freely?

Rep. Stansbury: Exactly right, because Twitter refused to sanction Donald Trump's account long before it was actually banned. When violent rhetoric, and other rhetoric was already being used on the platform, and in fact, since the latest acquisition of Twitter by Elon Musk, the company's Trust and Safety Council as represented here today has been dissolved.

And the accounts of individuals like Donald Trump, who incited violence against the Capitol, have been restored. And we are seeing antisemitism hate speech, dangerous rhetoric, violence, being put on Twitter every single day.

Election tampering, disinformation, violence, the attack on our Capitol, Mr. Chairman, that is what we should be holding oversight hearings on in this Committee.

I have traveled to every corner of my district, and New Mexicans are depending on us to defend our democracy and to ensure that we are holding not only those who are committing waste fraud and abuse accountable, but ourselves. So let's not waste the precious taxpayers time and dollars by holding hearings about Four Seasons Total Landscaping-style conspiracy theories, and actually get to work for the American people.