Schiff: Trump reinstatement on Twitter a ‘terrible mistake’

US Congressman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) has denounced Elon Musk for reinstating former President Donald Trump’s suspended Twitter account, calling it a “terrible mistake.”

“As we showed in the January 6th hearings, the president used that platform to incite that attack on the Capitol, his comments about the vice president, his own vice president, put Mike Pence’s life in danger,” Schiff, a member of the House panel investigating the attack on the US Capitol, said on Sunday.

“He showed no remorse about that. He continues to lie about his actions on that day,” Schiff added. “He talks about pardoning the people who attacked police officers and attacked the Capitol that day.”

Schiff also said that this move to bring Trump back to Twitter contradicts what Musk envisioned for it. 

“And it contradicts what Elon Musk said that he was going to establish a counsel to evaluate this and further contradicts Musk and his claimed concern about bots on his own platform to subject the decision to a poll on the platform that could be easily abused that way,” Schiff said.

“It just underscores the erratic leadership of Twitter now under Musk, but also the security concerns, with security people fleeing Twitter and what that means for the protection of Americans’ private data,” he added.

Trump's once-blocked Twitter account reappeared on the platform minutes after company owner Musk announced he was lifting the 22-month suspension on the former president over alleged incitement of violence.

In a tweet on Saturday, Musk officially announced that Trump’s Twitter account had been reinstated.

Musk reinstated Trump’s account after conducting a poll the day before asking users if they wanted the former president back on the platform. Slightly over 15 million Twitter users voted in the poll with 51.8% voting in favor of reinstatement.

Even with his account being reinstated, Trump he sees “no reason” for returning to Twitter.

“I don’t see any reason for it, they have a lot of problems at Twitter, you see what’s going on. It may make it, it may not make it,” Trump said in his speech at the Republican Jewish Coalition’s annual leadership meeting.

The former president said he would stick with his new platform Truth Social, the app developed by his Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG) startup, which he said had better user engagement than Twitter and was doing "phenomenally well".

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This came just days after Trump announced that he will seek the Republican presidential nomination in 2024.

“In order to make America great and glorious again, I am tonight announcing my candidacy for president of the United States,” Trump told a crowd gathered at Mar-a-Lago, his waterfront estate in Florida on Tuesday night.

Trump praised Musk and said he had always liked him. But Trump also said Twitter suffered from bots, and fake accounts and that the problems it faced were "incredible".

Musk first said in May he planned to reverse the ban on Trump, and the timing of any return by Trump was closely watched by many of Twitter's advertisers.

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