Toomey to Twitter: Turn Over Biden Nominees’ Deleted Tweets
Incendiary Tweets Raise Serious Concerns Over Nominees’ Policy Views, Character, Temperament, and Fitness for Office
Washington,
D.C.
– U.S. Senate Banking Committee Ranking Member Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) today wrote to Twitter’s
Chief Executive Officer Jack Dorsey requesting the deleted tweets of two of
President Biden’s nominees for senior positions at the Department of Housing
and Urban Development (HUD).
Mark
Colón, nominee for HUD Assistant Secretary for Community Planning and
Development, and Solomon Greene, nominee for HUD Assistant Secretary for Policy
Development and Research, may appear before the Senate Banking Committee as
early as next month.
In
the letter, Ranking Member
Toomey writes:
“The content of these tweets raise serious
concerns about Mr. Colón’s and Mr. Greene’s policy views, as well as their
character, temperament, and fitness for office . . . Because these recent,
formerly public statements by Mr. Colón and Mr. Greene are likely to shed light
on how they would carry out their duties at HUD, it is critical that Senators
on the Committee quickly receive this deleted information from Twitter to allow
us to fully evaluate these nominations to senior leadership positions in the
federal government.”
Based
on a review of Mr. Colón’s publicly available tweets, including archived,
deleted tweets found on the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine, the nominee
routinely used his Twitter accounts to mock and attack public officials,
propagate baseless conspiracy theories, and exhibit other divisive and
unprofessional behavior. For example, Mr. Colón called Republican Senators
“traitors,” “clowns,” and other disparaging names, such as “Senator
Snagglepuss,” “Senator Jellyfish,” and “Senator Shameless.” He referred to
then-President Trump as “the Devil, only stupider and in human form,” in
addition to routinely using profanity to describe the former president, and
captioned a photo of President Trump, Vice President Mike Pence, Attorney
General Bill Barr, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo as “The Wu Tang (Ku Klux)
Klan,” insinuating they are white supremacists.
Mr.
Greene was also a prolific Twitter user, routinely using his account to advance
radical views, such as defunding the police. In since deleted tweets, he
advocated “No More Money for the Police” and retweeted posts raising serious
questions about his views on violent demonstrations.
To
ensure the Committee has the opportunity to fully evaluate Mr. Colón’s and Mr.
Greene’s nominations, Ranking Member Toomey requested the nominees’ deleted
tweets by June 3, 2021.
Click
here to read the full
letter.
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