Democrat Legislator Threatens Journalist With Jail Time for Perjury

(Daily360) – Back in March award-winning journalist Matt Taibi testified before Congress about the “Twitter Files” and detailed government strong-arming and narrative shaping at Twitter. House Ranking Member Sylvia Plaskett (D-USVI) referred to Taibi as a “so-called journalist” and grilled him about giving up his sources. When he wouldn’t she charged that Elon Musk was his source, and when he said Musk was not his source Plaskett derided him further. That headline-making session seems to have just been an opening round as the Democrat is back again, alleging Taibi is a perjurer. Plaskett sent Taibi a letter citing something he said during testimony that she says is a lie and could warrant jail time.

This error revolves around a small acronym error, during his testimony Taibi referenced “CISA” the government-run Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, whereas he should have been citing “CIS,” the Center for Internet Security, which is a non-government organization. Taibi has since corrected his mistake publically in interviews including on MSNBC. Plaskett is using his admission as a statement of guilt. She said that by “adding an A” Taibi was implicating the government in working with Twitter to remove posts. Plaskett also points to Taibi signing a “Truth in Testimony” form prior to his testimony as being broken by this misstatement. Plaskett then referenced 18 U.S.C. 1621, which states perjury in this instance could result in five years in prison.

This matter is nuanced as Taibi likely didn’t know he was making an error until after his testimony. He stated during his testimony in their communications Twitter did not distinguish between CISA, DHS, and a group called EIP (Election Integrity Project). He pointed to emails where Twitter execs would write “from CISA escalated to EIP” showing to the Twitter people all these entities were entwined and he could not have known there was a CISA versus CIS distinction to be made. Plaskett who holds a non-voting seat seems undeterred by these factors.

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