Utah Sen. Mike Lee was suspended from Twitter on Wednesday after the GOP lawmaker shared a Federalist article critical of President Joe Biden’s foreign policy.
The article, written by Federalist Senior Editor David Harsanyi, condemns the false binary presented by proponents of the administration’s approach to the war in Ukraine as either pro-Zelensky or pro-Putin.
“It’s not exactly a sign of a healthy democratic discourse that it’s virtually impossible to ask a critical question about the United States’ role in the Ukraine-Russia conflict without being smeared as a Putin apologist or an “isolationist,’” Harsanyi wrote in the opening line.
Lee shared the piece with the passage Wednesday afternoon on his personal Twitter page, “@BasedMikeLee.”
It’s unclear whether Lee’s post from the Federalist provoked the censorship. The senior Utah senator wrote in a follow-up tweet that the company has still not offered an explanation after the suspension was lifted.
Twitter’s new CEO, Elon Musk, took over the company last fall with a $44 billion-dollar deal spent on a pledge to restore corporate values of free speech on the platform. Episodes of political censorship have remained routine, however, four months after acquisition. In February, Montana Republican Sen. Steve Daines, who chairs the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), was suspended on the platform after sharing a harmless hunting photo.
“You may not include graphic violence or adult content in your profile photo or profile header image,” read a warning from the company. “We consider graphic violence
