Democrats on an important House of Representatives committee attempted to force journalist Matt Taibbi to give up his sources regarding his reporting on the Twitter Files, which resulted in a refusal from the journalist and significant consternation during the committee hearing.

The demand for sources follows the major revelations by the social media giant since Twitter’s purchase by Elon Musk. Musk allowed for a number of crucial communications from the company to be released to independent journalists.

The resulting reporting has become known as Twitter Files.

The revealed information showed that the former Twitter leadership coordinated with the Democratic Party and with left-wing causes.

The information regarding the internal communications came to the fore this week during a hearing before the House Judiciary Committee.

Journalist Matt Taibbi, who reported on the Twitter Files, was asked to reveal the sources of his reporting. Taibbi told Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX), “I’m a journalist — I don’t reveal my sources.” 

Taibbi has worked with other journalists to reveal the information within the Twitter files, including the revelations of close cooperation with the Democratic Party. 

Garcia asked Taibbi if Musk was the source, which Taibbi did not divulge. Garcia said that Taibbi couldn’t “have it both ways.” Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), the chair of the committee, stated “No, he can. He’s a journalist.”

https://youtu.be/ckw1PJ9e94I

Following the disagreement, there was a commotion in the room, including a temporary loss of order. Rep. Jordan said that Taibbi said, “that he is not going to reveal his source and the fact that Democrats are pressuring him to do is such a violation of the First Amendment.”

Taibbi published the first portion of the Twitter Files in December 2022, which included revelations that Twitter regularly aided Democratic causes far more than Republican ones. In particular, Taibbi released that in 2022, 99.73% of donations from Twitter employees went to Democrats. 

https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1598822959866683394?s=20

Taibbi also revealed that Twitter officials directly squashed the New York Post‘s reporting on the Hunter Biden laptop story right before the 2020 election. Taibbi wrote that the company “took extraordinary steps to suppress the story,” including removing links and “posting warnings” that the story could be unsafe.