Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) confronted a Biden nominee for allegedly lying under oath about her personal Twitter account.
On Tuesday, an exchange got heated during the Senate Homeland Security Committee when Hawley questioned President Joe Biden's nominee about running the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), Colleen Shogan.
Facing her second hearing, Hawley reminded Shogan of her "grossly partisan" and "offensive" tweets, which he asked her to provide to the committee since she set her Twitter account to private after her nomination.
During the first hearing before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, every Republican voted against confirming her in September.
"I asked you to provide the public posts that had previously been available on Twitter because the ones that we have were pretty disturbing," Hawley said. "You responded as follows, and I quote, 'My personal Twitter account is comprised of posts about my mystery novels, events at the White House Historical Association, Pittsburgh sports teams travels, and my dog,' end quote. Is this an accurate statement?"
Shogan confirmed the Senator's question before refusing to defend tweets expressing her political views on topics such as gun control, COVID-19, and former President Trump.
"My social media is in my personal capacity, Senator," she responded, refusing to answer any more of Hawley's questions.
"You are under oath before this committee, and I have to say, you have placed this issue squarely in record by repeatedly refusing to answer," Hawley said, adding, "I have to say, I have been here for four years in the Senate. I have never seen a witness stonewall like this before. Never, and I've seen a lot. This is extraordinary."
After it became clear that Shogan would not reply to Hawley, the Republican called the Biden nominee "unbelievable," in disbelief that she could be the next head of NARA despite repeatedly lying.
"I mean, this is unbelievable, and you want to be the archivist of the United States," Hawley continued. "You lied to us under oath; you lied to us in your [Questions for the Record], you just lied to me a second ago under oath, and now you're sitting here stonewalling, not answering questions about public posts that you've made."
Hawley then questioned an article Shogan wrote in 2017 where she claimed that Republican presidents had embraced an "anti-intellectualism as a conservative form of populism" to dodge being labeled an elitist.
"Do you stand by your comment that the religious right is part of the rise of anti-intellectualism in American politics?" Hawley asked.
"Senator, that article was written; it was about how Republican presidents use common sense terminology to effectively communicate with Americans," Shogan replied.
Hawley asked Shogan one last time if she would hand over her public Twitter posts to the committee, to which she replied once again, "my social media is in my personal capacity."
Hawley opposed Shogan's nomination, urging the committee to take immediate action and "force this witness to own up to the fact that she is misleading us right now before our eyes."
Joe Biden's nominee to be national Archivist took to Twitter to complain about mask mandates for kids being lifted. Then she lied about it under oath. And that's just the start 👇 pic.twitter.com/9ZK495GGKK
— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) February 28, 2023
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