Mr Chairman, let me put what you have seen today in *** broader context. At the very outset of our hearings, we described several elements of President Trump’s multipart plan to overturn the 2020 election. Our hearings have now covered all but one of those elements, an organized campaign to persuade millions of americans of *** falsehood That the 2020 election was stolen by widespread fraud. *** corrupt effort to pressure Vice President Pence to refuse to count electoral votes. An effort to corrupt the US Department of Justice, efforts to pressure state election officials and legislators to change state election results, *** scheme to create and submit fake electoral slates from multiple states. And today you saw how President Trump summoned *** mob to Washington for January six and then knowing that that mob was armed, he directed that mob to the United States capitol. Every one of these elements of the planning for January six is an independently serious matter. They were all ultimately focused on overturning the election and they all have one other thing in common. Donald trump participated in each substantially and personally, he oversaw or directed the activity of those involved. Next week we will return to January six itself As we have shown in prior hearings Donald Trump and his legal team led by Rudy Giuliani were working on January 6 to delay or halt Congress’s counting of electoral votes, The mob attacking and invading the Capitol on that afternoon of January six was achieving that result and for multiple hours. Donald trump refused to intervene to stop it. He would not instruct the mob to leave or condemn the violence. He would not order them to evacuate the capital and disperse the many pleas for help from Congress did no good. His staff insisted that president trump call off the attack. He would not here are *** few of the many things you will hear next week from mr Sipple oni. Is that right? Was it necessary to continue to push for *** statement directing people to leave all the way through that period of time until it was ultimately issued. After I felt it was my obligation to continue to push for that and others felt it was their obligation as well. Wouldn’t have been possible at any moment for the president to walk down to the podium in the briefing room and help talk to the nation at any time Between when you first gave him that advice 2:00 and 4:17 video statement. Would that be possible? Would have been possible? Yes possible. And you will hear that Donald Trump. He never picked up the phone that day to order his administration from him to help. This is not ambiguous. He did not call the military. His Secretary of Defense received no order from him. He did not call his attorney general. He did not talk to the Department of Homeland Security, Mike Pence did all of those things. Donald trump did not. We will walk through the events of January six next week. Minute by minute and one more item after our last hearing, President Trump tried to call *** witness in our investigation. *** witness you have not yet seen in these hearings. That person declined to answer or respond to President trump’s call and instead alerted their lawyer to the call. Their lawyer alerted us, and this committee has supplied that information to the Department of Justice. Let me say one more time. We will take any effort to influence witness testimony. Very seriously. Thank you, Mr.Chairman. I yield back.
A former Twitter employee told the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection that the company considered imposing a stricter content moderation policy following a September 2020 comment by then-President Donald Trump telling the right-wing extremist group the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by.”Trump’s comment to the Proud Boys came during a 2020 presidential debate, after Joe Biden called for Trump to condemn the group. “Proud Boys, stand back and stand by,” Trump said, adding that “somebody has to do something about Antifa and the left because this is not a right-wing problem, this is a left-wing.” who was on the company’s content moderation team through 2020 and 2021, according to the committee, said their “concern was that the former president, for apparently the first time, was speaking directly to extremist organizations and giving them directives,” according to an interview aired during the House committee hearing Tuesday. Twitter did not end up imposing the policy — the details of which were not shared during the hearing — following Trump’s comment, the employee said. Related video above: Liz Cheney’s closing statement in Tuesday’s Jan. 6 hearing In their interview with the committee, the Twitter employee said that while the company was worried about Trump using the platform to talk to people who could incite violence, Twitter “relished in the knowledge that they were also the favorite and most used service of the former president and enjoyed having that sort of power. “”If former President Donald Trump were any other user on Twitter, he would have been permanently suspended a very long time ago,” the employee said.”We are clear-eyed about our role in the broader information ecosystem in regards to the January 6th attack on the US Capitol, and while we continue to examine how we can improve moving forward, the fact remains that we took unprecedented steps and invested significant resources to prepare for a nd respond to the threats that emerged during the 2020 US election,” Twitter Vice President of Public Policy for the Americas Jessica Herrera-Flanigan said in a statement, adding that the company is engaging directly with the House committee.Herrera-Flanigan added that Twitter “deployed numerous policy and product interventions to protect the public conversation” before and after the 2020 election, and said that on Jan. 6 the company “leveraged the systems we had built leading up to the election to respond to the unprecedented attack in real- time.”Twitter designated the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers as violent extremist groups in July 2018 and September 2020, respectively, and says it has permanently suspended accounts associated with the groups in line with its policy prohibiting violent organizations, according to a company spokesperson . The spokesperson added that many of the groups and individuals responsible for organizing the Jan. 6 insurrection had been suspended from Twitter prior to the attack. Among its efforts following the 2020 election, Twitter’s teams began in December 2020 observing tweets about a large protest in Washington , DC, set for Jan. 6, and started monitoring related content, taking action against election misinformation, references to “last stands” and few direct violent threats, according to the company. As for Trump, after saying in 2019 that it would place a disclaimer on tweets by world leaders that broke its rules but are in the “public interest,” Twitter began in May 2020 labeling some tweets by the then-President as “potentially misleading,” in an effort to provide context around his remarks. In the wake of the Jan. 6 insurrection, Twitter suspended and then permanently banned Trump’s account, citing a “risk of further incitement of violence.” attack. On the night of Jan. 5, 2021, the employee said they “sent a Slack message to someone that said something along the lines of, ‘when people are shooting each other tomorrow, I will try and rest in the knowledge that we tried. ‘ … I don’t know that I slept that night.” The employee continued: “For months, I had been begging and anticipating and attempting to raise the reality that if … we made no intervention into what I saw occurring, people were going to die.And on January 5, I realized no intervention was coming, even as hard as I had tried to create one or implement one, there was nothing and we were at the whims and the mercy of a violent crowd that was locked and loaded.”
A former Twitter employee told the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection that the company considered imposing a stricter content moderation policy following a September 2020 comment by then-President Donald Trump telling the right-wing extremist group the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand-by.”
Trump’s comment to the Proud Boys came during a 2020 presidential debate, after Joe Biden called for Trump to condemn the group. “Proud Boys, stand back and stand by,” Trump said, adding that “somebody has to do something about Antifa and the left because this is not a right-wing problem, this is a left-wing.”
The former Twitter employee, who was on the company’s content moderation team through 2020 and 2021, according to the committee, said their “concern was that the former president, for seemingly the first time, was speaking directly to extremist organizations and giving them directives, “According to an interview aired during the House committee hearing Tuesday. Twitter did not end up imposing the policy — the details of which were not shared during the hearing — following Trump’s comment, the employee said.
Related video above: Liz Cheney’s closing statement in Tuesday’s Jan. 6 hearing
In their interview with the committee, the Twitter employee said that while the company was worried about Trump using the platform to talk to people who could incite violence, Twitter “relished in the knowledge that they were also the favorite and most used service of the former president and enjoyed having that sort of power.”
“If former President Donald Trump were any other user on Twitter, he would have been permanently suspended a very long time ago,” the employee said.
“We are clear-eyed about our role in the broader information ecosystem in regards to the January 6th attack on the US Capitol, and while we continue to examine how we can improve moving forward, the fact remains that we took unprecedented steps and invested significant resources to prepare for and respond to the threats that emerged during the 2020 US election,” Twitter Vice President of Public Policy for the Americas Jessica Herrera-Flanigan said in a statement, adding that the company is engaging directly with the House committee.
Herrera-Flanigan added that Twitter “deployed numerous policy and product interventions to protect the public conversation” before and after the 2020 election, and said that on Jan. 6 the company “leveraged the systems we had built leading up to the election to respond to the unprecedented attack in real-time.”
Twitter designated the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers as violent extremist groups in July 2018 and September 2020, respectively, and says it has permanently suspended accounts associated with the groups in line with its policy prohibiting violent organizations, according to a company spokesperson. The spokesperson added that many of the groups and individuals responsible for organizing the Jan. 6 insurrection had been suspended from Twitter prior to the attack.
Among its efforts following the 2020 election, Twitter’s teams began in December 2020 observing tweets about a large protest in Washington, DC, set for Jan. 6, and started monitoring related content, taking action against election misinformation, references to “last stands” and few direct violent threats, according to the company.
As for Trump, after saying in 2019 that it would place a disclaimer on tweets by world leaders that broke its rules but are in the “public interest,” Twitter began in May 2020 labeling some tweets by the then-President as “potentially misleading, “in an effort to provide context around his remarks. In the wake of the Jan. 6 insurrection, Twitter suspended and then permanently banned Trump’s account of him, citing a “risk of further incitement of violence.”
But in their testimony, the Twitter employee suggested the company should have done more ahead of the attack. On the night of Jan. 5, 2021, the employee said they “sent a Slack message to someone that said something along the lines of, ‘when people are shooting each other tomorrow, I will try and rest in the knowledge that we tried. ‘ … I don’t know that I slept that night.”
The employee continued: “For months, I had been begging and anticipating and attempting to raise the reality that if … we made no intervention into what I saw occurring, people were going to die. And on January 5, I realized no intervention was coming, even as hard as I had tried to create one or implement one, there was nothing and we were at the whims and the mercy of a violent crowd that was locked and loaded.”
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George is Digismak’s reported cum editor with 13 years of experience in Journalism