Twitter suspended the Trump campaign’s account on Thursday for attempting to tweet out a video calling Joe Biden a “liar” and citing leaked emails revealing high-dollar negotiations between his son Hunter Biden and foreign companies.
The Trump campaign’s Twitter account, @TeamTrump, attempted to tweet a video to its 2.2 million followers on Wednesday along with the caption, “Joe Biden is a liar who has been ripping off our country for years.”
Mike Hahn, the Trump campaign’s director of social media, tweeted a screenshot of Twitter’s message reading, “Your account has been locked” and citing the tweet which Twitter said “violated out rules against posting private information.”
“You may not publish or post other people’s private information without their express authorization and permission,” Twitter’s message read.
Earlier on Wednesday, Twitter blocked users from tweeting out the link to the New York Post story that revealed Hunter Biden’s emails.
In leaked emails from 2014, Biden appears to try to leverage his influence with his father, then-vice president Joe Biden, in negotiations regarding his lucrative position on the board of the Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma. He refers to his father, who was heavily involved in U.S. policy on Ukraine at the time, as “my guy.”
Emails from 2017 show Biden discussing a deal with the former chairman of Chinese energy company CEFC China Energy, Ye Jianming, saying Ye agreed to improve the terms of Biden’s three-year consulting contract with CEFC, which initially promised Biden $10 million per-year “for introductions alone.”
Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee attempted to help circumvent the Twitter block on the Biden report by reprinting the Post’s story on the committee’s government website. Twitter allowed users to tweet the committee’s link but inserted a warning that pops up when users try to click on the link, warning that the content may be “unsafe” or contain “violent or misleading content that could lead to real-world harm.”
Twitter later said that the House Judiciary Committee website link was censored “in error” and the decision has been reversed and the link unblocked.
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey acknowledged Wednesday that, “our communication around our actions on the @nypost article was not great. And blocking URL sharing via tweet or DM with zero context as to why we’re blocking: unacceptable.”