Democrat Delegate Threatens Matt Taibbi With Prison Over Reporting Error

A Democrat delegate who some describe as far-left has told American journalist Matt Taibbi that he may be locked up over a reporting typo that she herself has referred to as a “mistake.”

Del. Stacey Plaskett (D-VI), who Fox News refers to as the ranking member of the House Judiciary Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, contacted Taibbi with a letter accusing him of falsely alleging that the government-run Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) had worked to censor Americans on social media rather than the privately operated Center for Internet Security (CIS).

This small error by Taibbi came as he was reporting on the “Twitter Files,” a series of drops that were covered by himself and other journalists who were selected by Twitter CEO Elon Musk to detail various shady activities in the platform’s history, including its censorship of many Americans, often in collusion with U.S. government agencies such as the FBI and CIA.

As Fox noted, Taibbi realized the error in his report and issued a correction.

“This mistake is important because, by adding an ‘A,’ you weren’t making a harmless spelling error. Rather, you were alleging that CISA — a government entity — was working with the EIP [Election Integrity Partnership] to have posts removed from social media,” Plaskett wrote in the letter. “When presented with this misinformation, you acknowledged you had made ‘an error’ by intentionally altering the acronym CIS and you subsequently deleted your erroneous tweet.”

“Prior to your appearance before the subcommittee on March 9, you signed the Judiciary Committee’s Truth in Testimony form, certifying that you understand that ‘knowingly providing material false information to this committee/subcommittee or knowingly concealing material information from this committee/subcommittee, is a crime (18 U.S.C. 1001),'” she continued.

Plaskett appeared to contradict herself; she notably referred to Taibbi’s alleged malpractice as a “mistake” while also saying he had mistyped the acronym “intentionally.”

“In addition, at the beginning of the March 9 hearing, you swore ‘under penalty of perjury that the testimony you [were] about to give [was] true and correct to the best of your knowledge, information, and belief.’ Under the federal perjury statute, 18 U.S.C. 1621, proving false information is punishable by up to five years imprisonment,” threatened Plaskett.

There were some tense exchanges seen during Taibbi’s testimony, particularly with him and Plaskett. An iconic moment recognized by many was seen when Taibbi told the Democrat delegate that he is not a “so-called journalist” before detailing some of the various experiences he has had during his 30 years of reporting.

A clip of the display was shared by Citizen Free Press, with the poster seemingly delighted by Taibbi’s “epic” response.

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