Feb. 8 (UPI) — House Republicans will turn their investigative focus toward the Biden family and big tech on Wednesday in a hearing on Twitter’s handling of a news story regarding a laptop belonging to President Joe Biden‘s son, Hunter Biden.
The hearing, titled “Protecting Speech from Government Interference and Social Media Bias, Part 1: Twitter’s Role in Suppressing the Biden Laptop Story” comes after the new Republican majority last week started a string of investigations expected to run through the 2024 elections.
For Republicans, the investigations bring long-needed accountability to the Biden administration, even if their efforts go no further than the chamber. For Democrats, the probes are nothing more than political score-settling and using the committees as a two-year campaign commercial.
The investigations, led by new Judiciary Committee Chair Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, and House Oversight Chair Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., are expected to cover numerous areas, from Ukrainian aid, the Afghanistan withdrawal and the National Archives handling its probe over classified files.
The committee on Wednesday will begin the probe of Twitter and its handling of a New York Post story on the laptop once owned by Hunter Biden where the social media platform limited its posting as he accused Twitter and the FBI of “colluding” to censor the story.
“Americans deserve answers about this attack on the First Amendment and why Big Tech and the Swamp colluded to censor this information about the Biden family selling access for profit,” Comer said in a statement announcing the hearing. “Accountability is coming.”
The probe into Twitter’s handling of the story is likely just the tip of the iceberg of Republican investigations into the major social media site. Paul Lekas, senior vice president of global policy for the trade organization the Software and Information Industry Association, told UPI that further oversight will likely have to do more with the changes at the company under new owner Elon Musk.
“There are a number of questions around the ways in which Twitter is managing information is moderating content, whether it is allowing or not allowing different voices to be heard,” Lekas said.
“From an industry perspective, there are other platforms out there with very responsible and thorough approaches to addressing the really challenging issues of content that is available online. I think some of the focus on Twitter stems from the fact that there’s so much uncertainty right now.”
Lekas added while he believes Congress has an important role to play as far as content moderation, it would be beneficial to its users and the industry to work in a bipartisan fashion and ensure its debates and recommendation doesn’t fall along ideological lines.
He said there is a potential to find some bipartisan support around TikTok, which is owned by a Chinese firm where lawmakers on both sides of the aisle believe there are legitimate concerns over privacy.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee announced last month that it will hear testimony from TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chow in March about the company’s links to the Chinese Communist Party as well as the app’s consumer privacy and data security practices and its impact on children.
“I think [with TikTok] there are concerns that are very specific around privacy and data protection, and the safety and security of that particular platform,” said Lekas. “That may not be reflective of other social media platforms that are out there. So, I think that that investigation is very, very important.”
Another early focus for the Republican House has been immigration with a hearing on the “Biden border crisis” last week seeing Republicans blaming Biden for high numbers of migrants coming across the U.S.-Mexico border while Democrats, including Ranking Member Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., accused Republicans of using the hearing for “showboating.”
On Tuesday, the House Oversight Committee held another hearing where it heard testimony from border agents who claimed an influx of immigrants has made it difficult to stem the flow of drugs and human smuggling into the United States.
Mike Howell, director of the Oversight Project at the conservative Heritage Foundation, said the House investigation into migrant crossings at the U.S.-Mexican border should lead to the impeachment of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
“From our view, there’s not much investigation required,” Howell said. “The proof is in the pudding. There are well over five million illegal border crossers that have basically been invited to this country. There are border policies that have been ripped off the books on purpose to cause mass chaos and laws that are being ignored and drugs that are pouring into the country.
“So my take on this and the Heritage Foundation’s take is what is there to investigate for the House?”
Lindsey Cormack, associate professor of political science at the Stevens Institute of Technology in New Jersey, said, though, such an investigation, like many others, will be used to keep GOP issues on the minds of voters for the next two years. She said there are simply not the votes in the Senate to remove Mayorkas and the Republicans know it, regardless of what they come up with in their investigation.
“The Senate doesn’t have a majority that probably thinks Mayorkas should be impeached even though the House might bring charges. It’s a bit of like a two-year campaign issue. I think there are people who are legitimately unhappy about what’s happening at the border.
“As far as the politics of it goes, it’s going to be really hard to see that one through just because the numbers aren’t there in the Senate.”
Republicans also plan to put Democrats on the hot seat now leading up to the 2024 presidential election after two years during which Democrats called many Republican lawmakers to task in its investigation of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Howell said target-rich for investigations are bills Biden has championed have his signature achievements, such the infrastructure law, the American Rescue Plan and the Inflation Reduction Act.
He said House investigations into those bills will target how the money is being spent, and who is directly benefitting from those bills while trying to establish some checks and balances to where the money is going.
The Oversight Committee is also looking into John Kerry‘s work as Biden’s international lead on climate change along with alleged waste and fraud connected with COVID-19 pandemic relief programs.
Cormack said efforts to look into, for example, how money was spent during the COVID-19 pandemic may fall flat because of the public fatigue around the issue.
“I think bringing up those issues are more for the purpose of making sure that it’s on the national radar,” Cormack said. “The hearings will do some of that work for them. I think [pandemic investigations] will be a little bit less useful because I don’t think that’s probably as good of a political issue moving forward.”
Regardless of what investigations the House gets into, Howell said there is enough for every committee in the House and time is of the essence with the presidential election coming.
“I mean, it should be all go and no brakes,” Howell said. “I want to emphasize that every committee needs to be an oversight and investigative committee. This House leadership understands that it’s about accountability, not just oversight.”