Incoming Trump administration officials need to make sure the news they promote on social media is legitimate and truthful, an Illinois congressman said Tuesday.
Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., said on CNN Tuesday that tweets from retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, President-elect Trump’s incoming national security adviser, and his son Michael G. Flynn, are troublesome because they promoted debunked conspiracy theories. The younger Flynn, who is his father’s chief of staff, in particular has promoted the “Pizzagate” story.
That story purports the Clintons and top Democrats ran a child sex ring out of a Washington, D.C. pizzeria. A man was arrested after bringing multiple guns to that restaurant on Sunday and firing a shot.
“When you get a government position — whether it’s a U.S. congressman, whether it’s national security adviser or anything — you now have a different level of commitment to the truth that you have to hold onto because people are going to take your words and take them literally,” Kinzinger said.
The Republican lawmaker added that news consumers have to do a little bit more work to determine the credibility of the stories they read.
“That’s really incumbent on the end user, and the person using Facebook, to find out if that story that sounds pretty outrageous actually is,” Kinzinger said. “Nine times out of 10, if that story sounds crazy, it usually is.”
Kinzinger said Flynn’s appointment as national security adviser is one of the few selections President-elect Trump has made to his Cabinet that he’s troubled by. The congressman said Flynn’s sympathetic statements about Russia give him pause, though he is enthused by the former intelligence official’s tough talk on terror.
“There’s no doubt that he’s very good talking about the fact of terror and destroying ISIS and destroying that organization,” Kinzinger said. “But, the Russia thing concerns me a little bit.”
Later on Tuesday, Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., said he was worried about Flynn’s judgment.
“I have grave concerns about the judgment of Lt. General Michael Flynn,” Smith, ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee, said in a statement. “He has regularly engaged in the reckless public promotion of conspiracy theories that have no basis in fact, with disregard for the risks that giving credence to those theories could pose to the public.
“The National Security Adviser is responsible for filtering and assessing crucial information pertaining to the national defense. Someone who is so oblivious to the facts, or intentionally ignorant of them, should not be entrusted with policy decisions that affect the safety of the American people.”
