Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) hit back at Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) over her claims that Republicans were “weaponizing” the House Oversight Committee.
The New York Democrat made the comments during a hearing on Twitter’s handling of the New York Post’s Hunter Biden laptop investigation.
“They’ve dragged a social media platform here in Congress. They’re weaponizing the use of this committee so that they can do it again,” Ocasio-Cortez said during the hearing.
“A whole hearing about a 24-hour hiccup in a right-wing political operation. That is why we are here right now,” she said.
SQUAD GOALS: HOW EFFECTIVE HAVE AOC AND COMPANY BEEN AT LEGISLATING?
Jordan countered her characterization in an appearance on Fox News. He painted the Republicans’ hearing as an essential defense of the First Amendment.
“We’re focused on the First Amendment, the right to free speech, the right to, you know, speak in a way that you can communicate on a platform that has now become the public square. I would come back to sort of the fundamental question: Why is the FBI sending accounts to Twitter and saying, ‘We think these violate your terms of service, Twitter’? Why are they doing that? I mean, it’s one thing if it’s really like some terrorist activity and they’ve got to do it. But this was just election issues. This is people speaking out. Why is the FBI doing that? That, to me, is the sort of the fundamental question,” Jordan said.
CLICK HERE FOR MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
“And it truly is, I think, censorship by surrogate, an attack on the First Amendment and our right to speak, which I always say the rights we have under the First Amendment, the most important one, is your right to talk because if you can’t talk, you can’t share your faith, you can’t petition your government, you don’t have freedom of the press. That is the most fundamental right we have. And that’s exactly the right that the FBI was trying to restrict,” he concluded.
