Earlier this month, The Dispatch’s David French weighed in on the Twitter Files and, quite frankly, didn’t seem to think there was much there to get worked up about.
Musk is referring here to Biden team requests to remove pornographic pictures of Hunter. Biden was not president in 2020, and therefore there was no government involvement in his campaign's requests. The First Amendment is not implicated when only private actors are involved. https://t.co/vVsGweKYEC
— David French (@DavidAFrench) December 3, 2022
That’s not what Musk was referring to. At least it’s not all that Musk was referring to. Suggesting that this was about protecting Hunter Biden’s dignity is so insanely intellectually dishonest, and French is in good (re: pathetic) company in making such a suggestion. By focusing on the pornographic photos of Hunter Biden, kneejerk Biden administration defenders are willfully engaged in an effort to distract the public from the real story of the laptop: the evidence of the Biden administration’s extremely shady foreign dealings.
David, there are proven and reported emails between the Biden Admin's CDC & Twitter showing accounts were banned over COVID. I know that's not this, but it certainly shows they knew they could influence twitter and used that. That's a larger point here.
— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) December 3, 2022
If they thought they could get away with emailing twitter to get tweets removed as a private campaign, and that happened, it means they knew they could, and did it, once in power, and that happened also.
— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) December 3, 2022
That’s exactly right. And David accidentally admitted it in tweet that he’s since deleted and, um, corrected:
Deleted this tweet because I meant to say Biden *campaign* not Biden administration, yet my edit button disappeared! Of course if the Biden *administration* asks Twitter to take action, then we need to think through the 1A implications. pic.twitter.com/Er3PPN4XWJ
— David French (@DavidAFrench) December 21, 2022
He totally didn’t mean to say “Biden administration.” But he did say it, didn’t he? And it was still in line with his opinion on the matter.
*jim halpert face at camera* https://t.co/ctCT8Ai0P1
— kaitlin (@thefactualprep) December 21, 2022
We’re right there with you, Kaitlin.
"no first amendment implications" you said, remember?
— HoodlumDoodlum (@HoodlumDoodlum) December 21, 2022
Ahem:
— HoodlumDoodlum (@HoodlumDoodlum) December 21, 2022
“The First Amendment is not implicated.” Which is it, David? Do we need to think through the First Amendment implications, or are there no First Amendment implications?
Reasoned take by @DavidAFrench on the 1A implications of FBI engagement w/ Twitter as framed in the #TwitterFiles (to date). Useful case law analysis. Punchline: no coercion, thus no 1A violation. It’s almost like the FBI understood the guardrails. https://t.co/T9QwQj2HTI
— Chris Krebs (@C_C_Krebs) December 21, 2022
The FBI definitely understood the guardrails; that’s how they knew how to destroy them.
People who are not me get off on licking the oddest boots. And I am not being bawdy like this just to be mean, it is because this take is so ludicrous that assigning it to kink is gracious on my part. https://t.co/HDeh7MdqCp
— alexandriabrown (@alexthechick) December 21, 2022
Harsh but fair.
This is blackpill for me on French
I was actually hoping he would stay quiet rather than write a "the FBI did nothing wrong" defense of gov't censorship
How revolting https://t.co/EfRG6fY3xH
— PoliMath (@politicalmath) December 21, 2022
I'm not going to argue about this one. A defense of the FBI paying a private company to secretly censor specific citizens should *at the very least* be seen as a massive scandal, even if it is not functionally illegal.
— PoliMath (@politicalmath) December 21, 2022
I don't want to hear some faux-moderate "well, the first amendment really only counts if the government literally holds a gun to someone's head and threatens to shoot them. If they hold the gun but ask nicely, that's not a 1st amendment violation"
Don't insult us like that
— PoliMath (@politicalmath) December 21, 2022
Editor’s note: This post has been updated with additional text and tweets.
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Update:
If lawyer and ex-CISA head thinks he’s lending cred to David French’s #TwitterFiles case, he’s wrong https://t.co/s3TuCUNaUf
— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) December 21, 2022
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