Who is Ro Khanna? California Rep was sole Dem who raised flag over Twitter censoring Hunter Biden story
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA: US Rep Ro Khanna, D-California, was apparently the only one who raised a red flag over Twitter's decision to censor the Hunter Biden laptop story in 2020. Twitter CEO Elon Musk promoted a series of tweets on Friday, December 2, revealing internal documents about how the company handled New York Post's reporting about Biden, controversially blocking people from tweeting and direct-messaging about it. In that thread of tweets about what went behind the scenes at Twitter, author Matt Taibbi wrote that Khanna was the only Democratic official who had a concern.
Taibbi wrote, "In one humorous exchange on day 1, Democratic congressman Ro Khanna reaches out to Gadde to gently suggest she hop on the phone to talk about the “backlash re speech.” Khanna was the only Democratic official I could find in the files who expressed concern." In a follow-up tweet, he further wrote that former head of legal, policy and trust Vijaya Gadde replied quickly, "immediately diving into the weeds of Twitter policy, unaware Khanna is more worried about the Bill of Rights." He shared the screenshots of October 14, 2020, communication made between Gadde and Khanna, who said, "Generating huge backlash on hill re speech. Happy to chat if you're up for it." To which Gadde replied, "We put out a clarifying thread of Tweets earlier this evening to explain our policy around the posting of private information and linking directly to hacked materials. The press secretary’s account was not permanently suspended – we requested that she delete the tweet containing material that is in violation of our rules and her account is restricted until she complies."
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Gadde replies quickly, immediately diving into the weeds of Twitter policy, unaware Khanna is more worried about the Bill of Rights: pic.twitter.com/U4FRLYYPaY
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 3, 2022
Writing further, Taibbi mentioned that "Khanna tries to reroute the conversation to the First Amendment, mention of which is generally hard to find in the files," and mentions, "If there is a hack of classified information or other information that could expose a serious war crime and the NYT (New York Times) was to publish it, I think the NYT should have that right." "A journalist should not be held accountable for the illegal actions of the source unless they actively aided the hack. So to restrict the distribution of that material, especially regarding a Presidential candidate, seems not in keeping of the principles of NYT v. Sullivan," wrote Khanna in reference to 1964 US Supreme Court case that limits the ability of public officials to sue for defamation.
32.Khanna tries to reroute the conversation to the First Amendment, mention of which is generally hard to find in the files: pic.twitter.com/Tq6l7VMuQL
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 3, 2022
Who is Ro Khanna?
Khanna is a representative of California’s 17th District in the 117th Congress, which covers communities in Silicon Valley. He was elected to Congress in 2016 and is now serving his third. In addition to this, he is the Chair of the Oversight Subcommittee on the Environment and a member of the House Oversight and Government Reform, Agriculture, and Armed Services Committees. Not just that, Khanna is also the Deputy Whip of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, an Assistant Whip for the Democratic Caucus, and the Democratic Vice Chair of the House Caucus on Indian Americans.