BLUF
In a nutshell:
To summarize #TwitterFiles
— FBI knew Hunter’s laptop was real & incriminated Joe Biden
— FBI began seeding gossip of a Russian hack
— FBI used that rumor to orchestrate a vast censorship operation
— After operation concluded & Biden’s elected, agents congratulate each other
During the Trump presidency and the Russia collusion investigation, we heard people in liberal media say “this is worse than Watergate” quite a few times.
In fact, what the FBI and DOJ did with Twitter was worse than Watergate.
“we present evidence pointing to an organized effort by representatives of the intelligence community (IC), aimed at senior executives at news and social media companies, to discredit leaked information about Hunter Biden before and after it was published”
The TwitterFiles Part 7 details how the FBI and the DOJ worked with Twitter to discredit Hunter Biden’s shady business dealings. Mary already covered how the government paid Twitter for censorship, but there’s much more.
Brian Flood of FOX News provides an overview:
Twitter Files Part 7: FBI, DOJ ‘discredited’ information about Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings
Independent writer Michael Shellenberger released part 7 of the “Twitter Files” on Monday, delving into how the FBI and intelligence community “discredited factual information about Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings.”The lengthy Twitter thread reveals what Shellenberger calls an “influence campaign” by the FBI that eventually “worked” when Twitter censored Hunter Biden’s scandalous laptop.
Elon Musk had been vocal about being transparent when it comes to Twitter’s past and present actions curating content on the platform, including censored content. The Twitter owner has enlisted independent journalists to slowly release evidence of these actions in a series dubbed the “Twitter Files” that continue to expose once-secret communications.
“In Twitter Files #7, we present evidence pointing to an organized effort by representatives of the intelligence community (IC), aimed at senior executives at news and social media companies, to discredit leaked information about Hunter Biden before and after it was published,” he continued.
Here are some of the key tweets:
Shortly before 7 pm ET on October 13, Hunter Biden’s lawyer, George Mesires, emails JP Mac Isaac.
Hunter and Mesires had just learned from the New York Post that its story about the laptop would be published the next day. pic.twitter.com/59RV5h8ZsM
— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) December 19, 2022
It’s amazing how quickly things began moving.
7. At 9:22 pm ET (6:22 PT), FBI Special Agent Elvis Chan sends 10 documents to Twitter’s then-Head of Site Integrity, Yoel Roth, through Teleporter, a one-way communications channel from the FBI to Twitter. pic.twitter.com/7j59zfBuJQ
— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) December 19, 2022
And it’s important to point out that the New York Post story was accurate.
8. The next day, October 14, 2020, The New York Post runs its explosive story revealing the business dealings of President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter. Every single fact in it was accurate. pic.twitter.com/TC2AnLNJAw
— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) December 19, 2022
9. And yet, within hours, Twitter and other social media companies censor the NY Post article, preventing it from spreading and, more importantly, undermining its credibility in the minds of many Americans.
Why is that? What, exactly, happened?
— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) December 19, 2022
In the video below, Peter Schweizer, who is an authority on Hunter’s business dealings, breaks down the chain of money and payments to Hunter for essentially nothing, which only raises more questions.
11. First, it’s important to understand that Hunter Biden earned *tens of millions* of dollars in contracts with foreign businesses, including ones linked to China’s government, for which Hunter offered no real work.
Here’s an overview by investigative journalist @peterschweizer pic.twitter.com/8EGQSpDl06— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) December 19, 2022
The FBI planted the seeds of the idea of a Russia ‘hack and leak’ operation in 2020, before the laptop story dropped.
12. And yet, during all of 2020, the FBI and other law enforcement agencies repeatedly primed Yoel Roth to dismiss reports of Hunter Biden’s laptop as a Russian “hack and leak” operation.
This is from a sworn declaration by Roth given in December 2020.https://t.co/IvTjyYw9iR pic.twitter.com/5iq2ATB3bW
— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) December 19, 2022
Twitter wasn’t the only target. Similar things happened at Facebook.
13. They did the same to Facebook, according to CEO Mark Zuckerberg. “The FBI basically came to us [and] was like, ‘Hey… you should be on high alert. We thought that there was a lot of Russian propaganda in 2016 election. There’s about to be some kind of dump similar to that.'” pic.twitter.com/yPGP8nYgCq
— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) December 19, 2022
14. Were the FBI warnings of a Russian hack-and-leak operation relating to Hunter Biden based on *any* new intel?
No, they weren’t
“Through our investigations, we did not see any similar competing intrusions to what had happened in 2016,” admitted FBI agent Elvis Chan in Nov. pic.twitter.com/tFPMqbydbA
— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) December 19, 2022
15. Indeed, Twitter executives *repeatedly* reported very little Russian activity.
E.g., on Sept 24, 2020, Twitter told FBI it had removed 345 “largely inactive” accounts “linked to previous coordinated Russian hacking attempts.” They “had little reach & low follower accounts.” pic.twitter.com/hy7hPahChS
— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) December 19, 2022
They knew there was nothing to this.
16. In fact, Twitter debunked false claims by journalists of foreign influence on its platform
“We haven’t seen any evidence to support that claim” by @oneunderscore__ @NBC News of foreign-controlled bots.
“Our review thus far shows a small-scale domestic troll effort…” pic.twitter.com/fWYNv7mMea
— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) December 19, 2022
17. After FBI asks about a WaPo story on alleged foreign influence in a pro-Trump tweet, Twitter’s Roth says, “The article makes a lot of insinuations… but we saw no evidence that that was the case here (and in fact, a lot of strong evidence pointing in the other direction).” pic.twitter.com/jJjnczZnA5
— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) December 19, 2022
19. Pressure had been growing:
“We have seen a sustained (If uncoordinated) effort by the IC [intelligence community] to push us to share more info & change our API policies. They are probing & pushing everywhere they can (including by whispering to congressional staff).” pic.twitter.com/HWeaYdvNqo
— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) December 19, 2022
The FBI kept pushing Twitter to find foreign influence that didn’t exist.
20. Time and again, FBI asks Twitter for evidence of foreign influence & Twitter responds that they aren’t finding anything worth reporting.
“[W]e haven’t yet identified activity that we’d typically refer to you (or even flag as interesting in the foreign influence context).” pic.twitter.com/ghGNz4ZzXB
— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) December 19, 2022
21. Despite Twitter’s pushback, the FBI repeatedly requests information from Twitter that Twitter has already made clear it will not share outside of normal legal channels. pic.twitter.com/WyI03iZ0WF
— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) December 19, 2022
22. Then, in July 2020, the FBI’s Elvis Chan arranges for temporary Top Secret security clearances for Twitter executives so that the FBI can share information about threats to the upcoming elections. pic.twitter.com/YXCR2Guxz5
— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) December 19, 2022
23. On August 11, 2020, the FBI’s Chan shares information with Twitter’s Roth relating to the Russian hacking organization, APT28, through the FBI’s secure, one-way communications channel, Teleporter. pic.twitter.com/HHLpCqcOoy
— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) December 19, 2022
In this video, Yoel Roth explains how when the NY Post story dropped, it corresponded with everything he had been warned about.
24. Recently, Yoel Roth told @karaswisher that he had been primed to think about the Russian hacking group APT28 before news of the Hunter Biden laptop came out.
When it did, Roth said, “It set off every single one of my finely tuned APT28 hack-and-leap campaign alarm bells.” pic.twitter.com/RKoR4NtH1s
— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) December 19, 2022
This detail is just unbelievable. Enter Jim Baker.
25. In Aug, 2020, FBI’s Chan asks Twitter: does anyone there have top secret clearance?
When someone mentions Jim Baker, Chan responds, “I don’t know how I forgot him” — an odd claim, given Chan’s job is to monitor Twitter, not to mention that they worked together at the FBI. pic.twitter.com/VlyLcxhQVl
— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) December 19, 2022
26. Who is Jim Baker? He’s former general counsel of the FBI (2014-18) & one of the most powerful men in the U.S. intel community.
Baker has moved in and out of government for 30 years, serving stints at CNN, Bridgewater (a $140 billion asset management firm) and Brookings pic.twitter.com/FggRI2zITX
— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) December 19, 2022
27. As general counsel of the FBI, Baker played a central role in making the case internally for an investigation of Donald Trump https://t.co/TMIMTpUjDw
— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) December 19, 2022
By this point, it’s hard to know where Twitter ends and the FBI begins.
29. As of 2020, there were so many former FBI employees — “Bu alumni” — working at Twitter that they had created their own private Slack channel and a crib sheet to onboard new FBI arrivals. pic.twitter.com/prVhPGohOC
— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) December 19, 2022
32. By mid-Sept, 2020, Chan & Roth had set up an encrypted messaging network so employees from FBI & Twitter could communicate.
They also agree to create a “virtual war room” for “all the [Internet] industry plus FBI and ODNI” [Office of the Director of National Intelligence]. pic.twitter.com/Dhy8LotZHU
— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) December 19, 2022
Again, the narrative about the NY Post story was all primed to happen.
34. On Oct 14, shortly after @NYPost publishes its Hunter Biden laptop story, Roth says, “it isn’t clearly violative of our Hacked Materials Policy, nor is it clearly in violation of anything else,” but adds, “this feels a lot like a somewhat subtle leak operation.” pic.twitter.com/xMnEWzgxdU
— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) December 19, 2022
35. In response to Roth, Baker repeatedly insists that the Hunter Biden materials were either faked, hacked, or both, and a violation of Twitter policy. Baker does so over email, and in a Google doc, on October 14 and 15. pic.twitter.com/MpQTUj6Esl
— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) December 19, 2022
36. And yet it’s inconceivable Baker believed the Hunter Biden emails were either fake or hacked. The @nypost had included a picture of the receipt signed by Hunter Biden, and an FBI subpoena showed that the agency had taken possession of the laptop in December 2019. pic.twitter.com/hwr2zBouly
— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) December 19, 2022
More from Peter Schweizer.
37. As for the FBI, it likely would have taken a few *hours* for it to confirm that the laptop had belonged to Hunter Biden. Indeed, it only took a few days for journalist @peterschweizer to prove it. pic.twitter.com/eD8uk9lefn
— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) December 19, 2022
38. By 10 am, Twitter execs had bought into a wild hack-and-dump story
“The suggestion from experts – which rings true – is there was a hack that happened separately, and they loaded the hacked materials on the laptop that magically appeared at a repair shop in Delaware” pic.twitter.com/n2Xj9mP1Hs
— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) December 19, 2022
Of course, the liberal media played along.
40. The influence operation persuaded Twitter execs that the Hunter Biden laptop did *not* come from a whistleblower.
One linked to a Hill article, based on a WaPo article, from Oct 15, which falsely suggested that Giuliani’s leak of the laptop had something to do with Russia. pic.twitter.com/VdrQhf2YMB
— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) December 19, 2022
41. There is evidence that FBI agents have warned elected officials of foreign influence with the primary goal of leaking the information to the news media. This is a political dirty trick used to create the perception of impropriety.
— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) December 19, 2022
43. “The unnecessary FBI briefing provided the Democrats and liberal media the vehicle to spread their false narrative that our work advanced Russian disinformation.” pic.twitter.com/TuUCLNL3Qk
— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) December 19, 2022
45. In the end, the FBI’s influence campaign aimed at executives at news media, Twitter, & other social media companies worked: they censored & discredited the Hunter Biden laptop story.
By Dec. 2020, Baker and his colleagues even sent a note of thanks to the FBI for its work. pic.twitter.com/ZEASt2aXXm
— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) December 19, 2022
Anyone who reads the Twitter Files, regardless of their political orientation, should share those concerns.
/END
— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) December 19, 2022
In a nutshell:
To summarize #TwitterFiles
— FBI knew Hunter’s laptop was real & incriminated Joe Biden
— FBI began seeding gossip of a Russian hack
— FBI used that rumor to orchestrate a vast censorship operation
— After operation concluded & Biden’s elected, agents congratulate each other— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) December 19, 2022
During the Trump presidency and the Russia collusion investigation, we heard people in liberal media say “this is worse than Watergate” quite a few times.
In fact, what the FBI and DOJ did with Twitter was worse than Watergate.