Trump White House Pressed Twitter To Remove Chrissy Teigen Insult, Ex-Exec Testifies

Topline

A former Twitter employee-turned-whisteblower told the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday the Trump White House urged it remove a 2019 Tweet by celebrity Chrissy Teigen insulting then-President Donald Trump—a claim that contests Republicans’ narrative that Democrats colluded with Twitter to suppress conservatives content on the site.

Rep. James Comer (R-KY), Chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee (Photo by Anna … [+] Moneymaker/Getty Images)

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Key Facts

Anika Collier Navaroli, Democrats’ witness in the hearing, said that the Trump White House contacted the company to remove a 2019 tweet by Teigen that referred to the then-president as a “p—y a– bitch.”

Navaroli said the company evaluated the tweet under its policy against abusive behaviors, which allows up to three insults per tweet, but ultimately decided against removing the tweet, which remains on the platform today.

Teigen, responding to the development, tweeted: “I…oh my god” on Wednesday.

The Trump White House’s bid to remove the tweet appears to negate Republican criticism of the FBI’s and other federal agencies’ communications with the company flagging tweets that appeared to violate its policies, which was the subject of questioning by Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) during Wednesday’s hearing.

In addition to Navaroli, Twitter’s Head of Trust and Safety Yoel Roth, former Chief Legal Officer Vijaya Gadde and former Deputy Counsel James Baker also appeared before the committee for the hearing titled: “Protecting Speech from Government Interference and Social Media Bias, Part 1: Twitter’s Role in Suppressing the Biden Laptop Story.”

Roth and Baker refuted Jordan’s claims that the FBI urged the company to take down a 2020 New York Post story that suggested President Joe Biden had ties to his son Hunter Biden’s Ukrainian business partners: “I think you guys got played by the FBI,” Jordan said, without presenting evidence to back up the allegation (the FBI has previously denied the claim).

Baker testified that he was unaware of any “unlawful collusion with, or direction from, any government agency or political campaign” regarding Twitter’s handling of the New York Post’s Hunter Biden story.

Contra

Democrats both characterized the hearing as a waste of time, and also rebuked Twitter for serving “as central organizing and staging grounds for the January 6 violent insurrection,” Ranking Member Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) said in his opening statement. The White House, meanwhile, called the hearing “the latest effort by the House Republican majority’s most extreme MAGA members to question and relitigate the outcome of the 2020 election.”

Crucial Quote

“Big Tech autocrats wield their unchecked power to suppress the speech of Americans to promote their preferred political opinions . . .Twitter was once one of these platforms – until Elon Musk purchased the company a few months ago,” Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) said during his opening statement.

Key Background

Twitter disabled the New York Post’s account and removed other Tweets about its story revealing the contents of Hunter Biden’s laptop just before the 2020 presidential election—a decision Roth called a mistake after multiple other outlets verified the legitimacy of the laptop’s contents. He said again during Wednesday’s hearing that “Twitter should not have taken action to block the Post’s reporting,” noting “just 24 hours after doing so, the company acknowledged its error.” Republicans seized on Twitter’s decision to censor the story, casting it as an example of their claims of left-leaning bias by social media companies. The allegations were bolstered by Musk’s release of the “Twitter files” in December that revealed the company’s internal deliberations about removing the story, which ultimately hinged on fears that it was a product of a Russian hacking scheme in violation of Twitter’s anti-hacking policy.

Tangent

Musk has increasingly leaned to the right in recent years, and his decisions to gut Twitter’s content moderation staff, reinstate banned GOP accounts and unveil the company’s internal communications about censorship decisions have bolstered Republicans’ claims of left-leaning bias. Musk laid off Gadde and fired Baker, citing his role in the decision to remove the Hunter Biden story. Roth resigned following Musk’s takeover and later faced threats from right-wing extremists after Musk suggested Roth endorsed child sexualization by highlighting Roth’s former tweets that were taken out of context by right-wing extremists.