McCarthy seeks subpoenas for 51 Hunter-report foes
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has vowed to subpoena 51 former intelligence officials who called The Post’s Hunter Biden exposé Russian disinformation in the wake of the “Twitter Files” revelations about how the social-media colossus censored the reporting.
The California Republican — who is expected to become speaker when the GOP takes control of the House of Representatives in January — said what Twitter did with The Post’s bombshell October 2020 report was “egregious.”
“Those 51 intel agents that signed a letter that said the Hunter Biden information was all wrong, was Russia collusion, many of them have a security clearance,” McCarthy said on Fox News’ “One Nation” on Saturday.
“We’re going to bring them before a committee. I’m going to have them have a hearing, bring them and subpoena them before a committee. Why did they sign it? Why did they lie to the American public?” he said.
Former CIA Director John Brennan and ex-National Security Council Director James Clapper were among a group of former intelligence officials who signed a statement days after The Post’s report was published, claiming it “has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.”
McCarthy questioned the move by the officials.
“Why did you use the reputation that America was able to give to you . . . but use it for a political purpose and lie to the American public?” he said on Fox.
Republicans are preparing to launch a number of investigations into the Biden family as a result of The Post’s reporting about Hunter Biden’s overseas business relationships while his father was vice president in the Obama administration.
One of those deals involved a Chinese company that GOP Rep. James Comer, the incoming chair of the House Oversight Committee, said President Biden was involved in after his VP stint ended.
“This is China trying to buy ownership into our American industry, which is a national security threat — and oh, by the way, it was being conducted by Joe Biden. That’s a problem and that’s why we’re concerned that this White House is compromised,” Comer, of Kentucky, previously told The Post.
Internal revelations
Twitter owner Elon Musk has been releasing company documents since early this month through a number of journalists detailing the internal decisionmaking behind blocking The Post’s story, censoring conservative figures and banning former President Donald Trump after the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot.
The first installment of the “Twitter Files,” released Dec. 2 through Matt Taibbi, showed that a group of top executives decided to label The Post’s story as “hacked material” and kept their deliberations secret from thenCEO Jack Dorsey.
Taibbi said that Twitter “took extraordinary steps to suppress” the Hunter Biden laptop story, removing links to the article shared by users and posting warnings that it may be “unsafe.”
McCarthy in his Fox interview also said a Republican-run House would turn a spotlight on Facebook and Google, as well, saying the tech giants “became an arm of the Democratic Party.”