George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley appeared on Fox News host Sean Hannity’s show Friday and told guest host Tammy Bruce that the “Twitter Files” is a damning “indictment of Congress” for encouraging censorship, calling an investigation “long overdue.”

(Video Credit: Fox News)

Bruce dove right in, asking Turley what he thought about the FBI taking no responsibility for its complicity with Twitter concerning censorship.

“The FBI has admitted no wrongdoing. Let me start with this. They have admitted no wrongdoing — why would they? Writing in a statement here, ‘The bureau regularly engages with private sector entities… [which] make decisions about what if any action they take on their platforms and for their customers after the FBI has notified them.’ FOX News contributor Jonathan Turley, what is your reaction to that kind of statement with what we know now from this recent drop of the Twitter Files?” she asked.

“What’s disturbing about this statement is it shows no self-awareness of what has already been disclosed. It’s showing utter contempt for the American people. The FBI could have said, look, we find these allegations disturbing, we are going to conduct our own immediate investigation to see if these types of contacts went too far, and instead they are saying we did nothing but correspond with companies. That is not what these new files are suggesting. They are suggesting censorship by surrogate, by proxy,” Turley pointed out.

“You have dozens of FBI agents who supposedly were tasked to go through social media, you have 150 contacts with just one Twitter executive giving lists of users that should be banned, including satirical sites, there’s very little runway left for the FBI to continue to deny that there isn’t a serious problem here. People, I think largely agree, I hope that while the First Amendment applies to the government, it also applies to agents of the government. So if the FBI uses a proxy, uses an agent like Twitter, it’s still censorship, it’s still a violation of the First Amendment,” the constitutional scholar continued.

…According to some reports, as many as 80 FBI agents may have been tasked to assist in the censorship efforts. Yet, the FBI has offered little more than a shrug in the face of credible constitutional concerns.

— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) December 17, 2022

https://twitter.com/mcg_doc/status/1604046830173655041

Bruce noted that despite it being shown over and over again that the FBI has manipulated Americans and attempted to control the political narrative, nothing ever seems to happen to them.

“What is interesting here too and I think Americans are frustrated because with the FBI, they’ve seen whether it’s the Russia dossier hoax, their interference, some argue, in the 2016 and 2020 elections is that nothing ever seems to happen,” she adamantly stated.

“Are we missing something that Congress can do other than have reality television committees every day? Is there something that can be done immediately, especially with your remarks about their statement which effectively confirms that they seem to be fine, they knew about it, they weren’t outraged or shocked — what are the options here?” Bruce asked Turley.

The professor then addressed actions that should be taken against the FBI as well as Congress in the wake of the “Twitter Files” disclosures.

The Democratic Party has turned the FBI into their very own KGB.

— John Betts (@JohnFromCranber) December 17, 2022

“Obviously it’s going to take some time to build the type of case for substantive change. I don’t think most people are talking about dismantling the FBI. What the representative is talking about is dismantling these troublesome components of the FBI, if there is a censorship program going on and we do need to look at that but a case has to be made,” he insisted.

“These files are not just an indictment of the FBI, they are an indictment of Congress. Congress has shown a steadfast refusal to dig into the censorship allegations, many of us have been writing about this for years. The Democratic members have refused to pursue this and, in fact, Democratic members have pushed social media companies to expand censorship,” he remarked, flatly accusing Democrats of not only censorship but being in bed with the FBI and Big Tech.

Turley went on to elaborate on how Democrats never backed off but instead, doubled down on controlling Twitter, ordering the company to silence conservatives in order to gain more political power and control the narrative.

…Musk seems to be forcing a reckoning that few in Washington relish. Political and media figures will be forced to dispense with any pretense of support for free speech in defending censorship, election manipulation, blacklisting and shadow banning.

— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) December 10, 2022

“In the very hearing where Jack Dorsey apologized for the Hunter Biden laptop debacle, the immediate reaction of Democratic senators were to tell him don’t backslide on us, we want more censorship. Now we have not just censorship, we have blacklisting, we have these shadowbans, all of that is open to the public. In some ways, Musk has forced people to choose sides,” he pointed out.

“I think that some of the anger that you are seeing in the media borders on self-loathing, they are having now to embrace not just being censorship apologists but blacklisting and shadowbanning and also lying because that’s what we’ve seen for the last three years. That’s a lot to take on yourself and still claim that you are a journalist or you believe in free speech,” he commented.

“It’s going to take a while but I cannot tell you how long overdue this is, we need to see it all and hopefully the House is going to pursue that,” Turley concluded.

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