Matt Taibbi to Newsmax: Dems 'Surreal' in Attacking Motives

Democratic Party members of a House subcommittee surprised journalist Matt Taibbi last week when they attacked his and fellow journalist Michael Shellenberger's motives on their "Twitter Files" reporting.

"I thought it was surreal," Taibbi said on Newsmax Monday, while appearing on "The Record With Greta Van Susteren."

"We expected to have a serious conversation about the material, which, frankly, is neither specifically a right nor a left issue. But instead, [it was] like an episode of "Veep" broke out, it was crazy," said Taibbi.

The Republican-created House Judiciary Select Committee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government called Taibbi and Shellenberger to talk about their findings as they looked into what was being reported as the collusion of federal law enforcement agencies and politicians, mostly Democrats.

But Democrats "mostly spent the entire time going after the motives of both myself and Mr. Shellenberger," Taibbi said. "The words of the day were 'cherry-picked,' 'money'" and 'Elon Musk.' And apart from that there really was no content to a lot of the discussion."

As Del. Stacy Plaskett, D-V.I., the ranking Democrat, began her turn at the hearing, she immediately took aim at the two journalists, saying, "The Republicans have brought in two of Elon Musk's public scribes to release cherry-picked, out-of-context emails and screenshots designed to promote his chosen narrative — Elon Musk's chosen narrative — that is now being parroted by the Republicans because the Republicans think that these witnesses will tell a story that's going to help them out politically."

Plaskett also characterized the two men as "so-called journalists," whom Musk is helping politically, "and you're going out of your way to promote and protect him and to praise him for his work. ... There are many legitimate questions about where Musk got the financing to buy Twitter."

Taibbi, the son of NBC News correspondent Mike Taibbi, has been working as a journalist for 20 years, including stints as a contributor to "Rolling Stone" and "Imus in the Morning."

Shellenberger is an author and journalist whose writings largely focus on the environment and has been named Hero of the Environment by Time magazine. Shellenberger ran as a Democrat candidate for California governor in 2018.

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