On 2/28/2023, Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., grilled President Joe Biden’s nominee for archivist of the United States, accusing her of lying under oath and stonewalling his line of questioning after he confronted her on past statements that he characterized as partisan. Colleen Shogan faced her second hearing before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee after every Republican on the committee voted against confirming her in September.
Hawley declared his opposition to Shogan’s nomination after a back-and-forth in which he confronted Shogan with her past tweets that included taking a shot at Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and endorsing mask mandates for young children, and she told senators her personal Twitter account was not political.
“I have to say, I have been here for four years in the Senate. I have never seen a witness stonewall like this before,” he said. “Never, and I’ve seen a lot. This is extraordinary.” “I mean, this is unbelievable, and you want to be the archivist of the United States,” Hawley continued later. “You lied to us under oath, you lied to us in your [Questions for the Record], you just lied to me a second ago under oath, and now you’re sitting here stonewalling, not answering questions about public posts that you’ve made.”
“You lied to us under oath,” he said. “Now you’re sitting here stonewalling, not answering questions about the public posts that you made.”
The nominee tweeted in January 2021 that Cruz should “stay in your own lane” in response to another tweet criticizing Cruz for supporting an objection to Pennsylvania’s electoral tally in the 2020 election.
Hawley said he had asked Shogan to provide her public tweets to the committee, since she set her Twitter account to private after her nomination. “I asked you to provide the public posts that had previously been available on Twitter because the ones that we have were pretty disturbing,” Hawley said. “You responded as follows, and I quote, ‘My personal Twitter account is comprised of posts about my mystery novels, events at the White House Historical Association, Pittsburgh sports teams travels and my dog,’ end quote. Is this an accurate statement?”
“Yes, Senator,” Shogan responded.
Hawley then asked Shogan to defend multiple tweets in which she expressed political views and former President Donald Trump. Shogan gave the same answer to every question, stating, “My social media is in my personal capacity, Senator.” “You are under oath before this committee, and I have to say, you have placed this issue squarely in record by repeatedly refusing to answer,” Hawley said.
“Dr. Shogan, I’m going to ask you again: Will you give to this committee your public posts on Twitter?” Hawley asked.
“My social media is in my personal capacity,” Shogan replied again.
“Mr. Chairman, I have to tell you, this is the most extraordinary thing I have seen in my brief time in the Senate,” Hawley said, addressing Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich. “I have never seen a witness blatantly lie under oath like Dr. Shogan has just done to this committee, stonewalled this committee and just repeatedly refused to answer my questions about her own posts that are in public.”
“For these reasons, I will oppose your nomination and I strongly, strongly urge this committee to take action on this and force this witness to own up to the fact that she is misleading us right now before our eyes,” he added.
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Hawley: never seen a witness stonewall like this before, extraordinary, unbelievable, You lied to us under oath