Three former Twitter executives will appear before the House Oversight Committee for testimony on February 8, Fox News has learned.

The three former executives, who have yet to be named, will testify regarding the company’s decision to censor the New York Post’s article on Hunter Biden’s laptop in the weeks before the 2020 election.

The hearing will be the first major session for the Oversight Committee under chairman James Comer, R-Ky., who has engaged in multiple investigations of the Biden family. The committee is also seeking answers regarding the classified documents found inside President Biden’s Wilmington, Delaware home.

The hearing will come months after journalist Matt Taibbi published internal Twitter communications discussing the laptop story. The news came as part of the Twitter Files, a mass release of Twitter’s internal documents organized by the company’s new CEO, Elon Musk.

The documents revealed that multiple high-level Twitter executives eventually agreed to emergency moderation measures to stop the spread of the Hunter Biden story, even though many of them were worried they had little justification to employ such measures.

One revealing email depicted former Twitter head of trust and safety Yoel Roth apparently claiming that though ‘the facts remain unclear’ on whether the New York Post story could be stifled, he encouraged staff to muzzle it in light of the ‘lessons of 2016.’

Musk fired the Twitter executives responsible for censoring the laptop story soon after taking over the company in November. Vijaya Gadde, Twitter’s chief censor, was among those fired after documents showed she oversaw the effort to quash the Post’s story.

While Gadde is a likely candidate for the February 8 hearing, the Oversight Committee has yet to identify those who are expected to testify.

Fox News’ Gabriel Hayes contributed to this report.

This is a developing story. Check back soon for updates.  

Sens. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Mark Warner, D-Va., sat down for a rare bipartisan interview in which they criticized the Director of National Intelligence’s refusal to brief members of the Senate Intelligence Committee on the contents of the classified documents found in both President Biden’s and former President Donald Trump’s residences.

Rubio, the committee vice chair, and Warner, the committee chairman, appeared together on CBS News’s ‘Face the Nation’ after attending a closed-door briefing last week with Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines. The DNI reportedly said the separate special counsel investigations into both cases prevented her from granting them visibility into the documents.

Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed a special counsel to investigate Trump’s handling of classified documents following an FBI raid of his Mar-a-Lago home in August. Garland appointed a special counsel to investigate Biden’s handling of classified documents after materials were found in unsecured locations in this home in Wilmington, Delaware, and the Penn Biden Center in Washington, D.C. 

Rubio and Warner voiced frustration that Congress and the American public are being kept in the dark about the contents of the classified material in either case unless that special counsel says it is okay.

‘The Justice Department has had the Trump documents about six months, the Biden documents about three months – our job is not to figure out if somebody mishandled those, but our job is to make sure there’s not an intelligence compromise,’ Warner said. ‘And while the Director of National Intelligence had been willing to brief us earlier, now that you’ve got the special counsel, the notion that we’re going to be left in limbo, and we can’t do our job – that just cannot stand.’

‘I don’t know how congressional oversight on the documents, actually knowing what they are in any way impedes investigation,’ added Rubio. ‘These are probably materials we already have access to, we just don’t know which ones they are. And it’s not about being nosy, you know, here’s the bottom line: if, in fact, those documents were very sensitive, the materials were sensitive, and they pose a counterintelligence or national security threat to the United States, then the intelligence agencies are tasked with the job of coming up with ways to mitigate that.’

‘It’s an untenable situation that I think has to be resolved,’ Rubio said.

Warner said the argument that they cannot do their job ‘until the special prosecutor somehow says it’s okay doesn’t hold water.’

‘We have a right, as not only members of the Intelligence Committee, but as part of the leadership to view virtually every classified document,’ he said. ‘But we’ve got a problem, in terms of both classification levels, how senior elected officials when they leave government, how they handle documents. We’ve had too many examples of this.’

Some Republican committee members have threatened to withhold funding from intelligence agencies if they are not provided more visibility into the documents.

‘There are things we need to do as a committee every year to authorize a moving around of funds,’ Rubio said. ‘I think the Director of National Intelligence and other heads of intelligence agencies are aware of that. At some point, I’d prefer for them just to call us this morning or tomorrow or whenever and say, ‘Look, this is the arrangement that we think we can reach so that the overseers can get access to this.’ I’d prefer not to go down that road, but it’s one of the pieces of leverage we have as Congress.’

Warner signaled he would support threatening funding. 

‘We’re going to figure out a way to make sure that we get that access so that we can not only tell the American people, but we’ve got another 85 U.S. senators who are not on the Intelligence Committee who look to us to get those assurances,’ Warner said.

President Biden on Sunday was slammed on social media after using a frequent adage he uses while expressing his optimism about the future of the United States.

Biden, who has frequently used the phrase ‘my word as a Biden’ before and after making a promise to his audience and voters to lend it credibility, said he has ‘never been more optimistic’ about the United States, prompting Twitter users to mock the truthfulness of his comments and point out multiple crises during his administration.

The Republican National Committee’s deputy communications director Nathan Brand and rapid response director Tommy Pigott both took aim at Biden for his tweet, noting multiple scandals on Biden’s watch.

‘The border is open, real wages are down, energy costs are outrageously high, the Taliban controls Afghanistan, & the cartels are making billions smuggling fentanyl,’ Pigott tweeted. ‘There is reason to be ‘optimistic’ though – we have a [House GOP] majority who is working to hold Biden accountable.’

Other Twitter users said Biden’s ‘word’ was ‘meaningless,’ ‘a lie,’ and said Americans are ‘screwed.’

In 2020 and 2021, Biden repeatedly gave his ‘word as a Biden’ that Americans making under $400,000 per year would not pay another penny in higher taxes and that he was ‘going to make those at the top start to pay their share in taxes.’ 

However, FOX Business reported last summer that the vast majority of Americans would pay more in taxes as a result of the Inflation Reduction Act, which was signed by President Biden in August. A nonpartisan analysis from the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) at the time said in 2023, the year in which the legislation would increase tax revenue most, individuals making less than $10,000 per year would pay 3.1% more in taxes and those making between $20,000-30,000 per year would see a 1.1% tax increase.

‘The more this bill is analyzed by impartial experts, the more we can see Democrats are trying to sell the American people a bill of goods,’ Senate Finance Committee ranking member Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, said in a statement last year. ‘Nonpartisan analysts are confirming this bill raises taxes on the middle class and produces no meaningful deficit reduction when gimmicks are removed and the full cost is accounted for.’ 

Biden recently tweeted out a similar message on the two-year anniversary of his inauguration about his optimism, saying, ‘Two years in, and I’ve never been more optimistic about America’s future,’ which also prompted backlash from Twitter users.

Biden’s optimistic outlook about America’s future comes as his public approval rating remains near the lowest level of his presidency, with only 40% approving of his performance, according to a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll.

Fox News’ Thomas Catenacci and Lawrence Richard contributed reporting.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., sparked a flurry of speculation on social media over the weekend after she stopped short of backing Vice President Harris as President Biden’s 2024 running mate.

During an interview on Boston Public Radio, Warren was asked if Harris should be Biden’s running mate. 

‘I really want to defer to what makes Biden comfortable on his team,’ she responded. ‘I’ve known Kamala for a long time. I like Kamala. I knew her back when she was an attorney general, and I was still teaching and we worked on the housing crisis together, so we go way back.’

‘But they need — they have to be a team,’ she added, ‘and my sense is they are — I don’t mean that by suggesting I think there are any problems. I think they are.’

The Republican National Committee shared a clip of the comments on Twitter Saturday evening.

‘Interesting word choice from Warren and telling she won’t back Harris,’ tweeted Sen. Ted Cruz’s special adviser of communications, Steve Guest.

Multiple Republican operatives and conservative writers also shared the clip.

Warren was also asked during the interview Friday whether Biden should run again. 

‘Yes. He should run again,’ Warren said. ‘And he is running again.’

The president has not officially announced his 2024 re-election bid but is widely expected to announce next month.

Warren said during an interview with Politico that she was ‘very happy’ about Biden’s re-election and said he would likely not face a primary challenge.  

‘The circumstances are that Joe Biden is running,’ Warren said. ‘I’m very happy about that. I am not running for president, I’m running for Senate.’

Fox News’ Hanna Panreck contributed to this report.

Utah Gov. Spencer Cox on Saturday signed a bill banning gender-affirming surgery on minors who have not been diagnosed with gender dysphoria. 

The state’s Republican-dominated Legislature prioritized the ban and considered a first draft of the measure less than 10 days ago, two days after the Legislature opened this year’s session Jan. 17. Gov. Cox signed it a day after the Legislature sent it to his desk. 

The governor said it was important to pause ‘these permanent and life-altering treatments for new patients until more and better research can help determine the long-term consequences.’

‘While we understand our words will be of little comfort to those who disagree with us, we sincerely hope that we can treat our transgender families with more love and respect as we work to better understand the science and consequences behind these procedures,’ he said.

Among the critics is the ACLU of Utah, which on Friday urged Cox to veto the bill.

In a letter to Cox, the civil rights organization said it was deeply concerned about ‘the damaging and potentially catastrophic effects this law will have on people’s lives and medical care and the grave violations of people’s constitutional rights it will cause.

‘By cutting off medical treatment supported by every major medical association in the United States, the bill compromises the health and well-being of adolescents with gender dysphoria. It ties the hands of doctors and parents by restricting access to the only evidence-based treatment available for this serious medical condition and impedes their ability to fulfill their professional obligations,’ the letter said.

The bill’s sponsor, state Sen. Mike Kennedy, a Republican family doctor has said government overnight is necessary for vital health care policy related to gender and youth. 

‘Legislation that impacts our most vulnerable youth requires careful consideration and deliberation. While not a perfect bill, we are grateful for Sen. Kennedy’s more nuanced and thoughtful approach to this terribly divisive issue,’ Cox said in a statement. 

‘More and more experts, states and countries around the world are pausing these permanent and life-altering treatments for new patients until more and better research can help determine the long-term consequences.’

Utah’s bill comes as lawmakers in at least 18 states consider similar bills targeting health care for young transgender people.

Cox also signed another measure that would give students school-choice style scholarships to attend schools outside the public education system. The bill also increased teacher pay and benefits in an effort to ease the state’s teacher shortage.

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

The race for California’s coveted Senate seat has kicked off, and it’s shaping up to be an expensive, ugly battle between two of the top political fundraisers in the House chamber. 

Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., who announced his bid for the Senate seat on Thursday, joins Rep. Katie Porter, D-Calif., in a competitive race for the seat held by Sen. Diane Feinstein, 89, who is up for re-election in 2024. Feinstein has not yet announced re-election intentions.

Porter, a progressive rising star and former pupil of Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren, raised a whopping $25 million in political donations last cycle, making her the second-highest-raising House member behind House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. Porter’s fundraising total even beat out that of her boss, then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi — a renowned fundraiser in her own right. 

Schiff was the fourth-highest-raising member of the House members up for re-election last year, taking in just over $23 million from 2021 through November 2022. 

Despite attempts to position herself as a progressive ‘warrior,’ Porter and her political ambitions may be impeded by accusations of racist remarks and promoting a toxic work culture.

An ex-staffer for the California Democrat alleged that the congresswoman had made rude and racist comments to staff and said that she had ‘ridiculed people for reporting sexual harassment.’ The accusations came to light in December, but the news was mostly ignored by major news outlets.

Schiff, a figurehead of the impeachment investigations into former President Donald Trump, faces his own share of intra-party backlash. A progressive group attacked the congressman for his record on Trump only hours after Schiff announced his run for U.S. Senate.  

‘Adam Schiff plays the role of Trump antagonist on TV, but a recent book details how he stalled and undermined leaders trying to hold Trump accountable in Congress. And he never challenges corporations or the Democratic establishment,’ Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC), said Thursday in a statement. 

Not long after, an ethics watchdog group called on the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE) to investigate Schiff for using footage from the Senate floor in his campaign announcement video. The Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust (FACT) said the California progressive had ‘abused official resources for political purposes,’ according to its complaint filed Friday. 

California Congresswoman Barbara Lee, 76, has said she intends to run for Feinstein’s seat as well, but she has not made an official announcement. 

Some have also speculated that Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna, representing California’s Silicon Valley, may also throw his hat in the ring for Feinstein’s seat. 

California uses a so-called jungle primary system in which the top two candidates in the primary advance to the general election, regardless of their party, making a Democrat-on-Democrat showdown in the 2024 general election highly possible.

Fox News’ Houston Keene contributed to this report. 

After 15 hours of contentious debate, the Minnesota Senate passed legislation early Saturday morning that guarantees the right to abortion, a bill pro-life Republicans have called the ‘most extreme’ in the nation. 

The Protect Reproductive Options (PRO) Act passed the state Senate 34-33, after Republicans had unsuccessfully tried to amend the bill 35 times. The bill states that ‘every individual has a fundamental right to make autonomous decisions about the individual’s own reproductive health.’ 

Democrats had fast-tracked the legislation in response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision last summer to overturn Roe v. Wade – ending federal protections for abortion. While the right to abortion was previously guaranteed in a 1995 decision by the Minnesota Supreme Court, Doe v. Gomez, abortion rights activists and Democrats said the PRO act was necessary to codify abortion rights into state law, as well as rights to contraception, fertility treatment, and pregnancy. 

‘What Minnesotans are afraid of is to see, potentially, that what happened at the federal level with our U.S. Supreme Court could eventually, in some future time, happen here in Minnesota,’ said bill sponsor state Sen. Jennifer McEwen, a Democrat from Duluth. ‘The decisions of our courts, the upholding of our fundamental human rights, are only as strong as the judges who uphold them.’

Supporters of the bill say it will not change the status quo in Minnesota. 

‘The PRO Act solidifies Minnesotans’ human rights into state law and is an insurance policy that our rights won’t be taken away by politicians or judges,’ said Dr. Sarah Traxler, chief medical officer at Planned Parenthood North Central States. 

‘All I want, and doctors across Minnesota want, is to provide the best care we can to our patients. And by passing the PRO Act into state law, the Minnesota Legislature will allow us to do just that,’ she added in a statement. 

Opponents disagree, arguing the bill establishes a right to abortion up until the moment of birth. Republicans had attempted to amend the bill with ‘guard rails’ that would restrict abortions in the third-trimester, but the newly-elected Democratic majority blocked their amendments. 

‘Today we are not just codifying Roe v. Wade or Doe v. Gomez, as the author has indicated, we are enacting the most extreme bill in the country,’ said Republican Senate Minority Leader Mark Johnson, of East Grand Forks during debate. 

The PRO Act now heads to Democratic Gov. Tim Walz’s desk for his signature. He has said he supports the bill and will sign it into law. 

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

President Biden is facing pushback from fact-checkers over a recent speech he delivered in Virginia regarding the economic progress his administration has made during his tenure in the White House.

Speaking at the Steamfitters Local 602 in Springfield on Thursday, Biden made multiple claims about the current state of the economy that have fact-checkers — from both CNN and the House Ways and Means Committee — sounding the alarm.

Following his remarks, CNN reporter Daniel Dale, who works to fact-check political claims for the outlet, accused Biden of making ‘false and misleading claims.’

‘Some of Biden’s claims in the speech were false, misleading or lacking critical context, though others were correct,’ Dale wrote in a piece examining Biden’s remarks.

Topping the list of fact-checks from Dale was Biden’s claim that his administration has ‘funded 700,000 major construction projects – 700,000 all across America,’ which the White House has admitted is not the case.

‘Biden’s ‘700,000’ figure is wildly inaccurate; it adds an extra two zeros to the correct figure Biden used in a speech last week and the White House has also used before: 7,000 projects,’ Dale wrote, noting that the White House altered Biden’s transcript from the speech to reflect the accurate number.

Dale also took aim at Biden for his claim that ‘only 3.5 million people had been — even had their first vaccination’ when former President Donald Trump left office in January 2021.

The actual number people who had received their first shot against COVID-19 when Trump left office in January 2021 was about 19 million, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data. The 3.5 million figure refers to those who had received two rounds of the shot.

Biden also faced scrutiny from CNN over his claim that billionaires ‘pay virtually only 3% of their income now – 3%, they pay,’ a comment that was later walked back by the White House.

‘Biden’s ‘3%’ claim is incorrect. For the second time in less than a week, Biden inaccurately described a 2021 finding from economists in his administration that the wealthiest 400 billionaire families paid an average of 8.2% of their income in federal individual income taxes between 2010 and 2018,’ Dale wrote. ‘After CNN inquired about Biden’s ‘3%’ claim on Thursday, the White House published a corrected official transcript that uses ‘8%’ instead.’

Pointing to comments made by Biden about federal debt under Trump and that his administration ‘cut the deficit by $1.7 trillion, the largest reduction in debt in American history,’ Dale insisted that it’s ‘highly questionable’ how much of the credit Biden deserves.

‘Biden’s boast leaves out important context. It is true that the federal deficit fell by a total of $1.7 trillion under Biden in the 2021 and 2022 fiscal years, including a record $1.4 trillion drop in 2022 — but it is highly questionable how much credit Biden deserves for this reduction,’ Dale wrote. ‘Biden did not mention that the primary reason the deficit fell so substantially was that it had skyrocketed to a record high under Trump in 2020 because of bipartisan emergency pandemic relief spending, then fell as expected as the spending expired as planned. Independent analysts say Biden’s own actions, including his laws and executive orders, have had the overall effect of adding to current and projected future deficits, not reducing those deficits.’

In addition to CNN, Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee targeted Biden’s remarks from Thursday with a fact-check, claiming that the president ‘did not let the facts get in the way of his speech in Springfield.’

‘While Biden claimed the economy is growing strong, the latest report on economic growth reveals that the economy under his Administration’s policies has fallen short of expectations on seven out of the last eight economic growth reports,’ the committee wrote. ‘In fact, the entirety of 2022 was worse for economic growth than expected. And even more trouble lies ahead, according to the latest Leading Economic Index report.’

Listing five recent ‘misleading’ claims from the president that the committee found fault with, the Republicans wrote: ‘President Biden has been making inaccurate accusations about Republicans and fearmongering to scare seniors when Republicans have been clear we are not going to touch their retirement security. Biden has also been making Medicare and Social Security worse off — not protecting them. Medicare premiums have risen for seniors since 2020, while Biden’s ongoing inflation crisis has pushed Social Security further towards insolvency.’

Biden recently faced criticism from FactCheck.org over claims he had made regarding unemployment during his speech at the U.S. Conference of Mayors’ winter meeting last week.

During the speech, according to FactCheck.org, Biden ‘botched a statistic on the number of people receiving unemployment benefits, misidentifying them simply as the number of people ‘out of work.’’

‘His comment leaves the false impression that unemployment declined by more than 16 million people on his watch, when the decline was actually under 5 million,’ the nonprofit website concluded. ‘And a big reason for the large decline in unemployment benefits is the expiration of pandemic-related expansions of such benefits.’

‘Two years ago this week, 18 million people were out of work — two years ago this week,’ Biden said at the conference. ‘Now the — that number is under 1.6 million, near the lowest level in decades.’

‘The White House transcript notes that the line drew applause,’ FactCheck.org stated. ‘But it’s not accurate. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of people ‘out of work’ — or officially unemployed — in the U.S. in January 2021 was about 10.2 million, and the number in December 2022 was 5.7 million.’