I wrote earlier about the effort by Rep. Adam Schiff’s office to have journalist Paul Sperry suspended from Twitter.
It’s incredibly concerning that Schiff would try to muzzle a journalist because that raises all kinds of constitutional questions about a violation of the First Amendment. Twitter head Elon Musk called Schiff out for his hypocrisy because Schiff had been chastising Musk for suspending (for about 12 hours) members of the media who were passing on a link that was doxxing Musk. Twitter had a long-standing rule against doxxing, so it was more than a little disingenuous on Schiff’s part to go after Musk, particularly when his office was trying to get a journalist banned.
But on top of the hypocrisy, now Sperry is talking more about why he thinks Schiff wanted to get him banned.
“How is a Congressional leader demanding the banning of a veteran journalist from the nation’s digital town square not state censorship?” Sperry tweeted.
“Here’s the real reason House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff secretly lobbied Twitter to have me banned — he was angry I outed his anonymous impeachment ‘whistleblower,'” Sperry said.
Sperry reported on then-CIA analyst Eric Ciaramella was talking in the White House with Sean Misko, a holdover staffer from former President Barack Obama’s administration and how Misko then went to work for the Intelligence Committee that Schiff chaired. The specific request from Schiff’s office was that Twitter, “Remove any and all content about Mr. Misko and other Committee staff from its service — to include quotes, retweets, and reactions to that content.”
Sperry said around that same time that Schiff’s office was trying to get him banned on Twitter, “Schiff’s chief of staff Patrick Boland was making threats to my employer http://RealClearInvestigations.com about my stories exposing Schiff’s impeachment whistleblower & his ties to Schiff’s staffer.”
Sperry declared that prior to Elon Musk, “Twitter was just an app for the U.S. Intelligence Community — FBI, DHS, ODNI, CIA, NSA CISA and, now we learn, Schiff’s HPSCI as well as SSCI.”
“Talk about cyberbullying!” Sperry exclaimed. “@AdamSchiff used his power as head of House Intel to muscle Twitter into banning a journalist–muzzling the reporter who outed his impeachment “whistleblower” as an anti-Trump partisan Democrat, exposing Schiff’s impeachment proceeding as a political ops.”
“Explains why Twitter could never give me a reason for my suspension. It was Schiff!” Sperry declared.
Hopefully, Sperry will take action against Schiff and pursue all the communications surrounding his banning. Schiff needs to be held accountable for his actions and the House should demand accountability as well.