. . . TWITTER FILES :: Dec 19. 2022
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Michael Shellenberger: https://twitter.com/ShellenbergerMD
https://michaelshellenberger.substack.com/
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TO SEE ADDITIONAL FILES: CLICK ON LINKS.
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Michael Shellenberger
The FBI’s influence campaign may have been helped by the fact that it was paying Twitter millions of dollars for its staff time.
“I am happy to report we have collected $3,415,323 since October 2019!” reports an associate of Jim Baker in early 2021.
• https://twitter.com/RubinReport/status/1604972341863202816
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. . . TWITTER FILES # 6
Michael Shellenberger
In Twitter Files #6, we saw the FBI relentlessly seek to exercise influence over Twitter, including over its content, its users, and its data.
• https://twitter.com/ShellenbergerMD/status/1604872112795045888
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. . . TWITTER FILES # 7
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. . . BIDEN SECRET EMAILS. 3.
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.
• https://twitter.com/ShellenbergerMD/status/1604872517927153669
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•. . . BIDEN SECRET EMAILS. 4.
The story begins in December 2019 when a Delaware computer store owner named John Paul (J.P.) Mac Isaac contacts the FBI about a laptop that Hunter Biden had left with him
On Dec 9, 2019, the FBI issues a subpoena for, and takes, Hunter Biden’s laptop.
• https://twitter.com/ShellenbergerMD/status/1604873916752703491
• https://nypost.com/2020/10/14/email-reveals-how-hunter-biden-introduced-ukrainian-biz-man-to-dad/
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•. . . BIDEN SECRET EMAILS. 5.
By Aug 2020, Mac Isaac still had not heard back from the FBI, even though he had discovered evidence of criminal activity. And so he emails Rudy Giuliani, who was under FBI surveillance at the time. In early Oct, Giuliani gives it to @nypost
• https://twitter.com/ShellenbergerMD/status/1604874457037688832
• https://nypost.com/2020/10/14/email-reveals-how-hunter-biden-introduced-ukrainian-biz-man-to-dad/
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•. . . BIDEN SECRET EMAILS. 6.
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.
• https://twitter.com/ShellenbergerMD/status/1604874800710660097
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. . . BIDEN SECRET EMAILS. 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.
https://twitter.com/ShellenbergerMD/status/1604875478749171712
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. . . BIDEN SECRET EMAILS. 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.
• https://twitter.com/ShellenbergerMD/status/1604875873684926466
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. . . BIDEN SECRET EMAILS. 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?
• https://twitter.com/ShellenbergerMD/status/1604876064450260994
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. . . BIDDEN SECRET EMAILS. 10.
On Dec 2, @mtaibbi
described the debate inside Twitter over its decision to censor a wholly accurate article.
• https://twitter.com/ShellenbergerMD/status/1604877235579912192
. . . Since then, we have discovered new info that points to an organized effort by the intel community to influence Twitter & other platforms
Matt Taibbi
Dec 2. 2022
1. Thread: THE TWITTER FILES
https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1598822959866683394
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. . . BIDEN SECRET EMAILS. 11.
Michael Shellenberger
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
• https://twitter.com/ShellenbergerMD/status/1604878404486017026
• https://twitter.com/peterschweizer
• http://peterschweizer.com/
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. . . BIDEN SECRET EMAILS. 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.
• https://twitter.com/ShellenbergerMD/status/1604879477732831235
. . . This is from a sworn declaration by Roth given in December 2020.
https://www.fec.gov/files/legal/murs/7827/7827_08.pdf
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. . . BIDEN SECRET EMAILS. 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.'”
https://twitter.com/ShellenbergerMD/status/1604880181906116608
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. . . BIDEN SECRET EMAILS. 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.
• https://twitter.com/ShellenbergerMD/status/1604881305178497024
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. . . BIDEN SECRET EMAILS. 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.”
• https://twitter.com/ShellenbergerMD/status/1604883686855299072
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. . . BIDEN SECRET EMAILS. 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…”
• https://twitter.com/ShellenbergerMD/status/1604885848398254080
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•. . . BIDEN SECRET EMAILS. 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).”
• https://twitter.com/ShellenbergerMD/status/1604887121700929541
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. . . BIDEN SECRET EMAILS. 18.
It’s not the first time that Twitter’s Roth has pushed back against the FBI. In January 2020, Roth resisted FBI efforts to get Twitter to share data outside of the normal search warrant process.
• https://twitter.com/ShellenbergerMD/status/1604888013422485505
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. . . BIDEN SECRET EMAILS. 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).”
• https://twitter.com/ShellenbergerMD/status/1604888429816209409
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. . . BIDEN SECRET EMAILS. 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).”
• https://twitter.com/ShellenbergerMD/status/1604889734378967041
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. . . BIDEN SECRET EMAILS. 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.
• https://twitter.com/ShellenbergerMD/status/1604890339235336192
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. . . BIDEN SECRET EMAILS. 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.
• https://twitter.com/ShellenbergerMD/status/1604890603468120064
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•. . . BIDEN SECRET EMAILS. 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.
• https://twitter.com/ShellenbergerMD/status/1604891014207901696
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. . . BIDEN SECRET EMAILS. 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.”
• https://twitter.com/ShellenbergerMD/status/1604892289800605697
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. . . BIDEN SECRET EMAILS. 25.
On 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.
• https://twitter.com/ShellenbergerMD/status/1604893341019013120
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. . . BIDEN SECRET EMAILS. 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
• https://twitter.com/ShellenbergerMD/status/1604894334561660928
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. . . BIDEN SECRET EMAILS. 27.
As general counsel of the FBI, Baker played a central role in making the case internally for an investigation of Donald Trump
• https://twitter.com/ShellenbergerMD/status/1604894831863422976
• https://www.wsj.com/articles/fbi-took-michael-sussmanns-allegation-of-trump-russia-ties-seriously-former-official-testifies-11652985514
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•. . . BIDEN SECRET EMAILS. 28.
Baker wasn’t the only senior FBI exec. involved in the Trump investigation to go to Twitter.
Dawn Burton, the former dep. chief of staff to FBI head James Comey, who initiated the investigation of Trump, joined Twitter in 2019 as director of strategy.
• https://twitter.com/ShellenbergerMD/status/1604894964961357824
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. . . BIDEN SECRET EMAILS. 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.
• https://twitter.com/ShellenbergerMD/status/1604895371360374784
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. . . BIDEN SECRET EMAILS. 30.
Efforts continued to influence Twitter’s Yoel Roth.
In Sept 2020, Roth participated in an Aspen Institute “tabletop exercise” on a potential “Hack-and-Dump” operation relating to Hunter Biden
The goal was to shape how the media covered it — and how social media carried it
• https://twitter.com/ShellenbergerMD/status/1604896328453980160
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. . . BIDEN SECRET EMAILS. 31.
The organizer was Vivian Schiller, the fmr CEO of NPR, fmr head of news at Twitter; fmr Gen. mgr of NY Times; fmr Chief Digital Officer of NBC News
• https://twitter.com/ShellenbergerMD/status/1604897153121366017
. . . Attendees included Meta/FB’s head of security policy and the top nat. sec. reporters for
@nytimes • https://twitter.com/nytimes
@wapo • https://twitter.com/wapo
and others
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