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OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author’s opinion.
President Joe Biden’s official Twitter account has received another embarrassing “fact check” after “context” was added to a tweet regarding a claim made about falling unemployment during his two years in office.
“The White House bragged about reduced unemployment claims since President Joe Biden took office, pointing out that they had declined from 18.8 million to 1.4 million over the course of his presidency,” The Western Journal noted on Monday. “The tweet made no reference to unemployment stemming from coronavirus, and the ‘Community Note’ that was inserted made that important distinction.”
The fact check noted: “Context: COVID rapidly drove significantly higher than normal claims beginning in 3/20, peaking at 33M in 7/20, and then gradually declining to today. For reference, the average from 2017-2019 was 1.8M.”
White House BOGUS claims fact checked again 😂 https://t.co/QqSCfeyP9E pic.twitter.com/hE5u9ni3FT
— Joni Job (@jj_talking) December 6, 2022
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It should also be noted that, as the Western Journal reported, two federal financial assistance programs passed to help Americans who lost jobs get through the pandemic have expired since Dec. 31, 2020, which also drove people back into the workforce, analysts said.
Several states, most led by Republican governors, ended those programs early amid pleas from business owners who were having difficulty filling open posts.
This is the second time since October that Biden’s official Twitter account has been hit with a fact-check.
Then, the account posted: “Let me give you the facts. In 2020, 55 corporations made $40 billion. And they paid zero in federal taxes. My Inflation Reduction Act puts an end to this.”
The platform added context along with links to justify the correction: “The Inflation Reduction Act imposed a minimum tax on corporations with average pre-tax earnings greater than $1 billion. Out of the 55 corporations the tweet references, only 14 had earnings greater than $1 billion and would be eligible under Biden’s tax law.”
The latest fact check comes as new Twitter boss Elon Musk continues to make major changes at the platform, including Monday’s firing of James Baker, the FBI’s former top legal counsel who was also linked to the phony “Russiagate” narrative then-GOP presidential nominee and later President Donald Trump was saddled with throughout his tenure.
Baker was dismissed by Musk after it was revealed that he, as deputy counsel for the platform, was heavily involved in censoring the Hunter Biden laptop story in the weeks before the 2020 election.
“In light of concerns about Baker’s possible role in suppression of information important to the public dialogue, he was exited from Twitter today,” Musk tweeted on Monday.
In light of concerns about Baker’s possible role in suppression of information important to the public dialogue, he was exited from Twitter today
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 6, 2022
Fox Business Network noted: “Baker was involved in discussions about whether the laptop falls under Twitter’s ‘hacked materials’ policy.
“I support the conclusion that we need more facts to assess whether the materials were hacked,” Baker noted in one email chain. “At this stage, however, it’s reasonable for us to assume that they may have been and that caution is warranted.”
28. To which former Deputy General Counsel Jim Baker again seems to advise staying the non-course, because “caution is warranted”: pic.twitter.com/tg4D0gLWI6
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 3, 2022
An article Musk shared in his tweet from Georgetown University law professor Jonathan Turley noted that Baker was “at the center of the Twitter suppression scandal.” He also wrote: “Baker has been featured repeatedly in the Russian investigations launched by the Justice Department, including the hoax involving the Russian Alfa Bank.”
Several notable conservative figures and journalists responded to the firing.
Editor-in-chief of The Federalist, Mollie Hemingway, tweeted, “James Baker, implicated in the Russia Collusion hoax that so damaged the country, now gone from Twitter.”
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Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) indicated that Baker should be brought before Congress.
“Republicans should call Baker, former FBI lawyer before he went to @Twitter, to testify on possible FBI attempts to coerce @Twitter into election interference,” he tweeted.
Commentator Ian Miles Cheong tweeted, “Cleaning house. There should be no space for those who would seek to undermine Twitter’s role in the dissemination of truth over establishment narratives.”
Baker’s firing comes on the heels of a dump of “Twitter Files” provided to journalists Matt Taibbi and Bari Weiss. In a lengthy Twitter thread posted last week, Taibbi noted that the platform colluded with both political parties, but mostly Democrats, to squelch content deemed harmful to certain narratives.
He went on to explain that Baker apparently hindered the search for information, adding that there will be more to come now that he is gone.
“Over the weekend, while we both dealt with obstacles to new searches, it was @bariweiss who discovered that the person in charge of releasing the files was someone named Jim. When she called to ask ‘Jim’s’ last name, the answer came back: ‘Jim Baker.’ ‘My jaw hit the floor,’ says Weiss,” he continued.
“Baker is a controversial figure. He has been something of a Zelig of FBI controversies dating back to 2016, from the Steele Dossier to the Alfa-Server mess. He resigned in 2018 after an investigation into leaks to the press,” the journalist continued.
“Reporters resumed searches through Twitter Files material – a lot of it – today. The next installment of ‘The Twitter Files’ will appear. Stay tuned,” he added.
