The office of California Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff asked Twitter to ban investigative journalist Paul Sperry, according to documents published Tuesday by veteran journalist Matt Taibbi.
Schiff’s office emailed Twitter analysis from the House Intelligence Committee related to “alleged harassment from Qanon conspiracists” against a Schiff staffer, according to an email tweeted by Taibbi as part of the latest “Twitter Files” reporting.
28.“WE DON’T DO THIS” Even Twitter declined to honor Schiff’s request at the time. Sperry was later suspended, however. pic.twitter.com/9PX2Zw5Nzj
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) January 3, 2023
Schiff’s office asked Twitter to remove all content about his staff from the platform and suspend accounts, including Paul Sperry and author Greg Rubini. The company told Schiff’s office “we don’t do this” in response to removing content about the staffers, according to Taibbi.
Twitter promised Schiff’s office they would review Rubini and Sperry’s accounts, with Sperry being permanently suspended in August 2022. Sperry is an investigative reporter for RealClearInvestigations and a longtime media fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution.
“The real reason Chairman Schiff lobbied to have me banned from Twitter stemmed from the fact he was angry [I] outed his anonymous impeachment ‘whistleblower.’ He lobbied to get me banned under the false premise of ‘promot[ing] false QAnon conspiracies’ which I have never done and [I] challenge Schiff to produce evidence to back up his defamatory remarks to Twitter,” Sperry told the Daily Caller.
Twitter received similar requests from the Senate Intel Committee and multiple intelligence agencies, Taibbi said. The company typically honored requests for accounts to be banned, Tabbi continued. (RELATED: Twitter Bowed To Dem Lawmaker Pressure, Buddied Up With Intel Agencies, Docs Show)
Schiff has been Chair of the House Intelligence Committee since 2019 and was first elected to the House in 2001. He rose to prominence for promoting the committee’s “Russiagate” investigation of former President Donald Trump’s relationship with the Russian government.
A House Intelligence report found no collusion between Trump and the Russian government, a claim echoed by Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.
Schiff’s office did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller’s request for comment.