U.S. Chamber of Commerce spent ‘significant’ amount to steer Obama town hall

For Wednesday’s Twitter town hall, the trade organization paid to have its profile featured on Twitter and emailed supporters urging them to ask questions.

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Despite the criticism, it was a historic event. Obama became the first president to live-tweet, and the town hall drew 169,395 #AskObama tweets. The most popular topics were jobs, the budget, taxes, and education.

Many of those tweets came from Republican lawmakers and supporters of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, who have been accused of “crashing” the event. Members of the GOP tweeted questions that challenged the president’s policies; Obama fielded one question from House Speaker John Boehner.

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