Heather Hunter writes for the Washington Examiner about government misuse of Twitter.

Independent journalist Matt Taibbi released another batch of “Twitter Files” Saturday night using a series of tweets to reveal the internal communications between Twitter executives and government officials looking to target constituents and a political rival, as well as label various users’ accounts as “Russian-controlled.”

In the latest Taibbi tweets, he reported on the two examples of what appears to be Sen. Angus King (I-ME) and, separately, State Department official Mark Lenzi, trying to influence Twitter in a series of emails.

A 2018 email allegedly from Twitter Public Policy manager Kevin Kane revealed that King’s “campaign director” requested Twitter to censor 354 “suspicious” Twitter accounts, including supporters of his campaign rival at the time, Republican Maine State Sen. Eric Brakey.

King’s campaign team allegedly identified several reasons that the accounts should be considered “suspicious,” citing things such as “Rand Paul visit excitement,” “Bot (averages 20 tweets a day),” “mentions immigration,” or being followed by his campaign rival and U.S. Senate Republican nominee Eric Brakey.

King’s office did not respond to a request for comment from the Washington Examiner.

“If Dick Nixon sniffed glue, this is what his enemies list would look like,” Taibbi wrote of King’s spreadsheet of “suspicious” Twitter users.

Former Capitol Hill Chief of Staff Jim Pfaff called the pressure by King on Twitter to target users and even his political rival a “clear ethics violation.”

“In the case of Angus King and others, this should be something going before Ethics Committees in the House or the Senate. They are literally using their power, influence and knowledge to shut down speech that they might find problematic,” said Pfaff on a “Twitter Spaces” discussion on Saturday night. “No member of Congress – unless they got someone who does research on this — would know that something was a bot.”