House Republicans Warn: Subpoenas Will Fly To The FBI Over 'Twitter Files'
Outspoken Members of the Incoming US House Republican majority have warned the FBI that subpoenas and hearings will be high on the agenda in the next Congress. This after the latest release from the Twitter Files shows direct contact between the Bureau and the pre-Musk social media company. Also today: House Democrats warn Facebook to keep censoring opinions they don't like. And...military-industrial complex runs wild at Ukraine's DC party.
Hello everybody and thank you for tuning in to the Liberty Report.
With us today is Daniel McAdams, our co-host.
Daniel, good to see you this morning.
Good morning, Dr. Paul.
Gloomy Monday today.
Yes.
Rainy and gloomy.
But there's a heat on some people, but we're not going to feel it this week in the weather.
We have the present.
Can you imagine it freezing in Texas?
That's terrible.
But anyway, we'll survive that, but I'm not sure people are going to survive some of the heat going on in Washington and the FBI.
I hope they never discover what my position is on the FBI.
They might cancel me.
But anyway, we're going to start off with talking a little bit about the FBI.
And I'm on record, and I think it's been published before, that even before, I even surprised myself when I went back and it was probably a libertarian thing, I called for the elimination of the FBI.
I didn't think I knew that much back then.
But anyway, FBI, this comes from Zero Head, FBI faces subpoenas after Twitter files exposing social media ties.
And that's like they're getting a taste of their own medicine.
And you know what?
They don't like this.
And somebody else made the point that all the precedents for what the Republicans could do have been sort of opened up the door with the January 6th hearing because they just went after everybody and anybody.
And some of it is controversial about who has to come forth.
I was never too keen on the politicians being the executioner of justice.
And they're running into some of those things.
But here the FBI says that they're going to use it.
The subpoenas are going to be the people that are in knowledge about this.
This is a big deal as far as every day I read more of this.
But there's not much talk about it on the mainstream media.
Matter of fact, they're sort of taking as a badge of courage that they stand up and they're going to insist that this process continue.
But I don't know how they're going to do it if they're out of office.
But anyway, these subpoenas, it will be a lot of action in January.
There's a lot already because, you know, they are so obsessed with Trump hatred.
And they don't deal with his fallacies in his policy.
It's always hatred because they don't like this guy.
So they're going to, they're even up to now to the last minute.
That's their whole thing.
How can we stick it to Trump?
It's sort of an obsession.
It's extreme.
It's almost like if he's so dangerous, why do they keep bringing his name up?
Because the supporters of Trump, and I imagine over time, people, the media wouldn't accept this, but over time, he tends to get more support.
So people come over just saying, what are they doing to this guy?
Why don't they leave him alone?
We must just move on.
But people are, you know, not, I think, ganging up on Trump as much as the media would like us to think.
Yeah.
Well, this really should be the scandal of the decade.
There's no question about it.
And I think the fact that it isn't, A, shows how corrupt, as you mentioned, the mainstream media is in the United States.
They're trying to ignore it.
And B, how dumbed down and apathetic most of the American public is, and that's a real shame.
But you can't blame them because they're consuming garbage on TV rather than looking for the truth.
But I mean, what we learned over the weekend from the latest release of the Twitter files, and you mentioned it today in your column, is that the FBI literally joined Twitter.
I think Matt Taibbi called it a subsidiary.
Twitter was a subsidiary of the FBI.
And this is exactly what you've said all along.
The problem is not that it's a private company endorsing certain values that they would like, but it's in fact operating as an arm of the government.
And we've seen that now with this latest release.
We've seen it right there in the open.
Over 80 FBI and other intelligence agency assets who are solely dedicated to telling Twitter which tweets they should ban, who they should ban, who they should censor, how they should censor.
It's literally the FBI in there twirling the needles here.
And this is a good response.
We saw this.
This is from the Epoch Times, if we can put that first one up, because the incoming House Republicans have noticed this.
Now, we don't have any illusions about the incoming House Republicans, so they're not superheroes, but we do like what we see.
FBI faces subpoenas after Twitter files, exposing social media ties.
And this is, if you can actually put the next one, this is Mike Turner, who's the incoming House Intelligence Committee chair.
And this is from the Epoch Times piece.
He said, the FBI is facing subpoenas after the so-called Twitter file is revealed that the Bureau had been working closely with the social media company.
And this is Turner, Representative Turner.
We are definitely pursuing the Department of Justice and also the FBI, he told Fox News, before adding, we certainly intend to pursue subpoena power to expose the extent to which the FBI is doing this.
The Beginning of Unwinding00:13:40
And I'm doing one more, actually, because I like what he's saying here, and that's why I highlight it.
He mentions about the contacts between the FBI and Twitter, and he says it's been our objective to get a hold of these files to see the extent of this, how we can stop it, we can cut off funding, which of course is the power they have.
And I think this is an interesting bit of turnabout, Dr. Paul, because normally, when we remember this, years and years, Congress would call the heads of these companies to browbeat them into censoring and all this.
And now they're actually going to call the FBI and saying, why have you been involved in it?
I think that's a positive move.
You know, why I'm fascinated with this is because I've used the term that we're engaged in a secret coup.
And it's been going on a while.
It wasn't just one day.
But gradually, over many decades, there has been a coup.
The Constitution has been destroyed.
And the control has fallen into the hands of some radical progressives who have no concept of right and wrong.
And I call them nihilists because they do anything they want and they think they're doing the right thing.
But because of this, this reveals, I think it supports my argument, which I didn't have as much factual proof as what has come out now.
Because there really was a control by the government over the economy and over these people.
So in that sense, there were.
But I think the coup has infiltrated the educational system, the medical system, the judicial system on Donna here.
But this is, you know, makes them squirm, but it's still amazing to me that they'll come, you know, the people who participate as part of the coup, because I think it's because they don't know right and wrong, they don't believe their duty is to do what they do.
Just because it's a lie doesn't matter to them.
So they have no shame or guilt.
And that's probably a tougher enemy to deal with because they get control of the media and the social media.
But eventually it ends.
And that's why this is so important.
I think it's the beginning of the end.
If the people who are getting sick and tired of it, and there's more and more people doing this, that we can reverse this trend.
And otherwise, if we don't, things are going to deteriorate very badly, you know, economically and civil liberty-wise.
And it's going to be, the longer we go, the worse it's going to get.
Right now, we're facing the difficulty about getting our message out because of this cancellation and all.
But this is good, but it's great service for the American people.
And Representative Turner makes a very good point, and I think this is actually the key point.
And this is from the article.
He says, the FBI had, under the cover of saying they were pursuing foreign malign influence, really exploded into activities that involved engaging with mainstream media and social media and really impacting what is the normal debate of democracy.
And this is the thing that's very important because we had so many years of absolute lies about Russian influence in the elections, Russia having influence over Trump, RussiaGate, TrumpGate, Impeachgate, what have you.
The fact is they use this as an excuse.
The FBI use it as an excuse.
Oh, we're just looking in there for foreign malign influence.
And then when you look under the hood, you find out they're sending, they're churning out list after list, ban this guy, ban this one, do this, do that, and the other.
So that's how they got their foot in the door.
And they use that, you know, they use that to terrify Americans.
Oh, the Russians are coming.
They're coming to get us.
We have to let the FBI go after them.
Well, they didn't go after the Russians.
They went after us.
And that's what we've learned from this.
You know, we have had to live with an organized effort to destroy the principles of truth.
And they established the truth.
But I work on the principle that no matter what you do, you can harass, you can arrest, you can shoot, you can do everything.
But it doesn't touch truth.
Matter of fact, it reinforces it for the people who wake up.
But that's what they do.
They think they can destroy truth by ignoring it or punishing it.
And I don't think they can, because if truth is truth, you can't change it.
It's just a matter of how people are going to perceive it.
And that is why, as I was leaving, as I did in the Congress, I emphasize mostly it is our freedom of expression that is so crucial so that we can combat the ideas and the values put out by the opposition.
And this is probably what we, in a way, talk about all the time.
But like I said, I like this idea of exposure of the people because even though I think our enemy has distorted and devalued the principle of truth, there's still a lot of Americans that still sense it and they know it.
I think it's a natural thing to be able to distinguish truth from fiction and lies and cheating.
But there's also the temptation by people who are benefiting on sometimes they say, yeah, I know that's true, but in the meantime, I might as well make use of it.
And everybody else is, you know, putting a hand in the cookie jar.
I'm going to do it and I'm going to play.
I've had some constituents tell me that was.
He says, they agreed with the way I voted.
They said, but what we want is somebody up there to get more stuff for us before it all falls apart.
And that is not my position.
More goodies.
Well, here's a couple of tweets from some members.
Excuse me.
And I would say if we put our faith in the Kevin McCarthy's of the House Republican group, we will not be satisfied.
But there are some more radical members, and I use that term in a positive way, who are going to hold their feet to the fire, I think.
And I'd be surprised if these guys caved.
Let's put up the next one.
This is Matt Gates from Florida.
He's reacted to the latest Twitter files by saying the FBI has a lot to answer after the latest drop of Twitter files.
Jim Jordan, Mike Johnson, Andy Biggs, and Dan Bishop and I will be asking the questions.
Clear your calendar.
And these will all be taking a senior positions.
I think Jordan is going to head judiciary from what we hear.
So he will have a lot of power.
And let's do the next one.
This is Congressman Greg Stoiba from Florida, and he makes a great point.
80 FBI agents were colluding with Twitter to police content and moderate American speech.
Sounds like communist China to me.
Investigations are coming.
Very good point.
It does.
And the last one from Marjorie Taylor Green, who's been on this from the beginning, she said, and this is something else to talk about, Dr. Paul, now apply what we know they did at Twitter to Facebook and Google and more.
I'm really looking forward to Republican control, committee work, and subpoena power.
So that will maybe be the next shoes to drop will be Facebook, which you know has been hassling the Ron Paul Institute and myself personally without any evidence of anything, just locking us out.
And Google, who knows what they're doing to suppress people looking at our organization and other organizations.
So let's hope this will whet the appetite of Americans and of decent people in Congress of both parties to start looking into what the government is doing to suppress the speech of Americans.
You know, the abuse that we have suffered didn't come overnight.
It's been there for a long, long time.
It's the nature of government.
You're always going to see, but it's really magnified year after year.
I think the 20th century wasn't a very good century, you know, for protecting our privacy and our liberties.
But I think this is a sign that there's the beginning of the unwinding.
All of a sudden they're picking away and say, well, it's just Twitter, you know, who knows?
Maybe they're only bad guys.
Well, the bad guys are people who believe that evil is good and that they're doing good and they can help people.
And even if they get caught, you know, for some reason, you never see them say, you know, I should have done that or something like that.
But I think this is the beginning.
And I think if the Republicans do half of what they pretend they're going to do, there will be an unwinding and it won't be ended with Twitter come fighting back and getting rid of Musk or something like that.
Because there's a mountain of dirt out there that need clean, but I really think this is the beginning of the unwinding and a reversal to people concentrating on truth and justice rather than the politics of the conventional politics of the last many, many years.
So there is reason to say this is certainly a benefit.
And like you say, let's just hope a lot of people wake up from this.
Well, speaking of a mountain of dirt, that's a good segue because that reminds me of a certain member of the U.S. House who himself is a mountain of dirt.
If we can put this next one on, I hate to be rude, but Dr. Paul, I can't help myself when it comes to Adam Schiff, a truly horrible person.
And this is from Jonathan Turley, one of the best commentators, one of the best holding the line on free speech.
He points out, even as the public outrage over censorship at Twitter, government censorship at Twitter, even as it's rising, and you mentioned, I think, in your column today, a new poll coming out about how Americans are really mad about this.
Even as that's happening, well, good old teenager Adam Schiff, he sent a letter to Facebook demanding that they increase their censorship.
Don't back off.
You must continue censoring people because they can't be allowed to speak freely.
This makes my point that they have no concept or desire of dealing with truth.
I mean, their goal is to distort the truth.
And then, no matter how bad, how many evil things that they do, their political operation is blame the opposition.
How could anything be more perfect with a tool than that than the Hillary approach during the campaign?
You know, everything they were doing, the Russia gate, was all the real evil was done by them, and they were able to flip around, and they still can do it.
They still do it right now.
But it amazes me that people will tolerate this for so long.
But like, I believe, I believe that no matter what they do, they can't kill truth.
But it can lay dormant for a long time, and that's why our efforts, I believe they're worthwhile, because doing nothing I don't think is worthwhile.
But to point out these things and wake people up makes a big difference.
And I still love the waking up of the people during COVID.
You know, how did things get returned to a little bit of normalcy?
And that's ongoing.
You know, they infiltrated all the spots that they were able to influence government and laws and all.
But right now, there's a reversal going on in our school system, our school boards.
They're getting elected, and they're doing it in a much more legitimate manner.
So let's hope that momentum code continues that way.
We'll do our best effort to keep it going.
Yeah, well, here's the real irony about Adam Schiff.
Now, he sent a letter to Nick Clegg, who's, by the way, a failed British politician.
But Clegg's got a new gig where he makes a lot more money.
He's the president of global affairs of Meta, which is the parent company of Facebook.
He and a few other Democratic members of the House sent a letter to Clegg demanding that Facebook continue censoring disinformation.
And Turley very, very well points out, put on the next clip, for Schiff to talk about disinformation is pretty disingenuous.
And here's Turley.
He says, Clegg has given Schiff's telephone number to discuss Facebook's compliance, an ironic contact point for a letter on censoring disinformation.
After all, points out Jonathan Turley, Schiff was one of the members of Congress who, before the 2020 presidential election, pushed the false claim that the Hunter Biden laptop was Russian disinformation.
And he has been criticized for pushing false narratives on Trump-Russia collusion in the 2016 election.
Schiff has previously pressured social media companies to expand the censorship.
So this is a guy who is the chief of disinformation and misinformation.
He's the chief of lying.
He's the chief of making up fake news.
And here he's demanding that Facebook get more involved in censoring what he would call fake news, which you and I would call true news.
Now, I'm getting some information here.
It's also from Jonathan's article.
And he's going to be quoting a very famous person that knows all the answers to this.
And her name is Senator Elizabeth Warren.
She's a source of truth and all this kind of stuff.
Okay, he goes, others, like, and they're talking about who should penalize and direct who should be spied on.
Like others, like Senator Elizabeth Warren, have called on social media companies to use enlightened algorithm.
Big Business and Government collusion00:05:55
I never learned that.
I didn't learn it in Sunday school about the enlightened and all algorithms in order to know what was right and wrong.
There were other ways to learn right and wrong.
Okay, the algorithms to protect, protect the people from their own bad choices.
Can you imagine that?
Wouldn't that be a miracle?
I mean, just think if everybody in this world all of a sudden wasn't allowed to make a bad choice, then you also wouldn't have any choices, so they would be all dictated to it.
He says, after all, as President Joe to Biden asked, without censorship and wise editors, How do the people know the truth?
You know, and they did this so seriously.
You know, that's what we're up against.
But this is stupid, too.
If we can't win over this, that's why I always wondered why we don't do better on defending the free market economy because it's so wonderful.
It works.
The evidence is overpowering.
And I put some of the blame on us who deliver the message of freedom and free markets and sound money because it should go pretty easily because it's a lot of common sense.
But here, Biden has it.
How else?
If they don't do it, how else are you going to know?
And he uses the word, how will anybody know the truth if you don't go to the government?
And every truth that Senator Warren has pushed has been exposed as a lie from Russia Gate to COVID and beyond.
Everything has been exposed as a lie.
So it's, yeah, I think it's an insult to our intelligence.
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Dr. Paul, the next thing we're going to talk about is more corruption.
What a bad day this is for us.
But let's put it up.
And this has to do with Ukraine and the military-industrial complex.
And we saw this at Vox via our friends at anti-war.com.
This DC party invite shows all the money to be made off the Ukraine war.
And I'll set it up for you, Dr. Paul, but what it is, is a Ukrainian embassy held a reception.
And the invitations they sent out were literally, and we can look at this, literally, the next one, literally sponsored by the military-industrial complex.
This is, and I can attest to this is how these invitations work, because I got many of them when I worked for you on the Hill, Dr. Paul.
But on the bottom, I've never seen this.
Sponsored by Northrop Grumman, Raytheon Technologies, Lockheed Martin.
It reminds me of the movie Idiocracy, but unfortunately, it's real.
You know, I like the word corporatism because sometimes people use socialism and fascism carelessly, and everybody has a definition for it.
But corporatism, I think, is more descriptive, and I think even Mussolini liked that term.
So it is the combination of business and government.
And I was just thinking here that this little party they were having is the epitome of corporatism.
It's big business coming together with government people and playing that game.
But I would like to ask you if you know anything about this.
But I was a little bit annoyed that we didn't even get an invitation.
They didn't want us there at their little party.
But it is tragic.
And I just think that people can catch on to it.
You know, this is the opening that I've had for so long, but it's not as strong as it used to be.
If you understand, excuse me, if you understand corporatism and the subsidy to big business, you should have an open door to talking to the progressives.
And there's still, there are some very strong progressives that work with us in the anti-war civil liberty issues.
And that is, I think, because they, you know, even a person like Elizabeth, you know, Warren, she's always hacking away at the corporation.
But now she's part of the gang.
So maybe she wasn't ever really with us on that.
Well, I've been to a lot of these embassy receptions, I'll have to say, and I can attest to the fact that they are not serving PBJ sandwiches there.
They are spending high on the hog, and that money is directly provided by the military-industrial complex.
It's right there on the invitation.
They provide the money for the caviar and who knows what else they were serving there.
But that money ultimately came from us, taxing us to pay for this lavish party.
But there's a lot of money involved, Dr. Paul.
Government Funding Controversies00:07:42
And here's from the article.
If you can go to the next one, this is a quote from the article.
That Ukraine and those U.S. military contractors have a strong relationship isn't surprising.
America's allies and partners around the world bought some $50 billion in U.S. weapons last year.
These four companies produced some of the most high-profile missile defense systems.
And the next one, I know this is going to shock you, Dr. Paul, but this is the free market.
This is from the article.
It's also been good for business for U.S. defense contractors.
Among the biggest winners are Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, and Northrop Grumman.
Each of their stocks has climbed since Russia's invasion, with Lockheed up about 38% this year.
These guys are, I'm sure, cheering the Russian invasion because it is buying new mansions in McLean day after day after day.
And, you know, I assume that they probably at these parties drink a little alcohol.
Oh, yeah.
So therefore, you know, it's they're involved in drugs.
Yeah.
Alcohol is a very dangerous drug, but nobody talks about that, you know, the danger of alcohol.
So but that is that is something that will not change because that's typical of what you should expect for the type of system we have now, unless we take a few more suggestions and review and not think they're ancient rules,
the setup that we were given by the Constitution, which is I would not try to declare it was a perfect institution, but I would argue that it was the best or one of the very best guides for the way government should treat the people.
And the one thing that people tend to forget about that arrangement is it's federal, it's federal.
Jonathan Terley always mentioned it.
This is a federal law.
This is a federal law.
So there's room, like right now on COVID, there was room for the states to individually do worse things and better things.
And it was an o you know, a vehicle.
But that is not available to us now because you have to have a logarithm and figure it out and that will decide what is truth or not.
Well, there's always been this kind of corruption in D.C. and we know that, but never before has it been this obvious and this absolutely shameless.
And in fact, we talked about Bill Hartung.
He's over at the Quincy Institute.
And he is quoted in this Vox article.
We can put that up because he does make the point.
He says, I've never quite seen this kind of public embrace of a country and the weapons contractors as is happening in Ukraine, said Bill Hartung.
I can't imagine another situation where the contractors would sponsor an event for a country that they're arming in the middle of a war.
It really, really is remarkable, I would add, to Hartung's content.
So blatant, so blatant and corrupt.
Well, I'm going to close out, Dr. Paul, and if you'll put that next clip up, just to remind our viewers that the Ron Paul Liberty Report is a project of the Ron Paul Institute, a 501c3 charity.
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Dr. Goodwin, I want to talk a minute about the whole principle of the First Amendment and corporations, because a lot of people still are confused that they're private and therefore they can do these things.
But Jonathan Turley is very good in pointing out, and we have pointed this out as well, is there's a big difference between being a private company or a private organization and you voice an opinion compared to getting all your orders from the government.
And I think what we've demonstrated here today is that's the real crime here.
They've been getting orders from the government and threats and innuendos, economic benefits, economic pain and suffering.
So that is absolutely totally different.
And I think what has happened is along the way, it took many, many decades, especially since the 30s, that the principle of private property ownership has become blurred.
Most people realize that there's a so-called separation of church and state, that if you have a church and you're teaching a certain religion, that nobody has a right to walk into your church and say, I want equal time, get away, I've got to give my speech.
Everybody knows that's wrong.
But the whole thing is, is we have blurred what private property is.
There was a time when most schools were private.
Our early universities, they were private universities.
And then there was the state organization that would also be involved.
But I think the owner, it makes the big difference.
The owner can't do that.
And if it goes too far, it's a fraud and libel.
And there's ways to combat it.
But we don't have the property is now equally owned.
When you share ownership with the government, and if you don't have ownership, you have control, which is probably even worse than ownership because you don't know where you stand and they own everything.
It's sort of like, oh, well, we own our income.
No, you don't.
The government owns 100% of it, and they give you permission on how much you're allowed to keep for yourself.
So, ownership and private property is very important.
Believe me, if people would accept that principle, we could go a long way in sorting this out.
Who can say what?
And algorithms is not going to be a substitute, you know, for the whole principle of finding out what truth is.
Truth cannot be destroyed just by a bunch of hoodlums coming in and saying, It's not true, that's terrible, because they don't even believe in it.
And I just don't consider those concepts that complicated.
That's why, on the bottom line, I work very hard at being optimistic because it's a horrible mess that we've allowed ourselves to get into.
Whether it's the national debt, the ruination of our monetary system, a foreign policy that has made us commit to maintaining an empire around the world, I mean, what they've done to the medical system, how could that be easily solved?
It can be.
Understanding the principles of personal liberties, having a very, very limited government, and one of my suggestions has been that if you get a little bit annoyed what the FBI was doing to us, maybe my suggestion is: why don't we just get rid of the FBI and see what happens then?