The Biden administration has been up to some shady business lately, but their latest nominee for National Archivist is taking it to a whole new level.
At a Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing on Tuesday, Republican Missouri Senator Josh Hawley grilled Dr. Colleen Shogan, Biden’s nominee for National Archivist, over her overtly partisan tweets.
Even though Shogan had locked her Twitter account when she was nominated, Hawley had nonetheless obtained several of her posts and they’re awful.
It didn’t take long for Hawley to call out Shogan for her tweets. He first asked her about a post she made in February 2022 complaining about the fact that mask mandates had been lifted for children under the age of five. When Hawley asked if such an overtly political statement was characteristic of her Twitter feed, Shogan replied “My social media is in my personal capacity.”
Hawley then proceeded to point out other tweets of hers that made it clear she was very much in favor of the Biden administration’s policies.
He pointed to a post she retweeted calling for an assault weapons ban, a post in which she said that Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz “ought to stay in his lane and not worry about what’s going on in Pittsburgh,” and a post from December 2020 wishing that former President Trump would have his vetoes overridden and calling him a “weak policy president.”
He also pointed to another post on January 5, 2021, claiming Trump would pardon himself for trying to overturn the election.
But Shogan refused to own up to her posts, repeatedly stating that her Twitter account was in her personal capacity.
An exasperated Hawley finally gave up, saying, “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. … I mean, this is unbelievable, and you want to be the archivist of the United States. 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.”
It’s clear that the Biden administration is trying to push through nominees that don’t have a shred of integrity or honesty. We cannot allow them to get away with this. Shogan must be held accountable for her words and the GOP must take action to ensure that people like this don’t get put into influential positions.
