Rep. Devin Nunes’ (R-Calif.) on Wednesday claimed to be a free-speech champion, but he was quickly reminded he is not.
The GOP lawmaker last year sued Twitter and a series of parody accounts on the platform ― including the @DevinCow profile that pretends to be his cow ― alleging they defamed him.
So, Nunes on Wednesday was called out after urging his 1.1 million followers to ditch “the Twitter sewer” and follow him to the right-wing Parler platform, where users are “living in freedom!” he wrote.
The @DevinCow account was, perhaps predictably, among the first to mock Nunes’ tweet:
Nunes, an ardent defender of President Donald Trump, passed secret intelligence to the White House in 2017 about the probe into the Trump campaign’s ties to Russian election interference.
Many tweeters welcomed Nunes’ apparent departure from Twitter, which earlier in the day partially suspended the account of the president’s son, Donald Trump Jr., for promoting a misleading video about the coronavirus. The president retweeted the video.
Others noted Nunes’ hypocrisy of calling for “free speech,” given his legal action to silence the cow account. The lawsuit has reportedly hit a dead end.