'Twitter Files' Drop Reveals FBI's Dirty Trick to Keep the Social Media Giant Under Their Thumb
Independent journalist Michael Shellenberger dropped the seventh tranche of the “Twitter Files” on Monday, and it was a doozy.
The latest data dump portrays the FBI in the worst light yet.
Agents took possession of Hunter Biden’s laptop in late December 2019, following a call from John Paul Mac Isaac, the proprietor of a small computer repair shop in Wilmington, Delaware, where Biden had dropped it off eight months before.
The laptop was real, and the FBI knew it.
Shellenberger’s latest report shows the FBI’s breathtaking campaign to “prime” Twitter’s then-Head of Site Integrity Yoel Roth and others at the company to believe the Hunter Biden laptop story was “a Russian ‘hack and leak’ operation.”
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
Communications with Roth began less than two weeks after the FBI picked up the laptop. In the tweet below, Shellenberger reports that “Roth resisted FBI efforts to get Twitter to share data outside of the normal search warrant process.”
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. pic.twitter.com/NAssnLMpds
— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) December 19, 2022
In another January 2020 email, a Twitter employee discusses the pressure placed on the company by members of the intelligence community “to share more info & change our API policies.”
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
We learn from the emails that the FBI had created an “outreach committee” to discuss information, such as the Hunter Biden laptop. As a result, the FBI was able to reimburse Twitter for their employees’ time. In early 2021, an associate of then-Twitter Deputy General Counsel Jim Baker emailed Baker to tell him that Twitter had earned “$3,415,323 since October 2019!” from the FBI.
The FBI paid Twitter $3.4 million in taxpayer dollars to do for the bureau what it could not do for itself: interfere in a presidential election. In direct violation of the First Amendment, the top law enforcement agency in the U.S. coerced a private social media company to censor the news the American people were allowed to hear.
46. 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. pic.twitter.com/SmNse97QxK
— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) December 19, 2022
Perhaps the most alarming aspect of the latest tranche was just how determined the FBI was to kill the Hunter Biden laptop story. They put on a full-court-press.
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.
— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) December 19, 2022
Because the FBI had been surveilling Rudy Giuliani, they knew exactly when The New York Post planned to run their story. On October 13, 2020, the night before the article was published, FBI Special Agent Elvis Chan, whose name looms large throughout the “Twitter Files,” sent 10 documents to Roth and two others whose names are redacted.
We aren’t told the contents of those documents, but two minutes later, Roth replies they’d been received and downloaded.
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
Shortly after the news broke the following day, Twitter and other social media companies censored and/or discredited the story.
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
Surprisingly, there were times Roth pushed back.
10. On Dec 2, @mtaibbi described the debate inside Twitter over its decision to censor a wholly accurate article.
Since then, we have discovered new info that points to an organized effort by the intel community to influence Twitter & other platforms https://t.co/1ZF3oottKR
— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) December 19, 2022
On another occasion, he asked if the FBI had any intelligence tying the laptop to Russian hackers.
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
Roth reported they’d seen “very little Russian activity” on their site.
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
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
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
In July 2020, Chan raised the idea of obtaining “temporary Top Secret security clearances for Twitter executives,” so they could share classified information. Then it dawns on him that Jim Baker already has a security clearance from his days at the FBI. He requests a one on one meeting with Baker.
It’s unclear if this meeting ever occurred, but Baker did his utmost to convince Roth and other Twitter executives that the laptop was a Russian “hack and leak” operation.
Another takeaway from Shellenberger’s report were just how many Twitter employees had previously worked for the FBI. In one tweet, he writes: “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.”
Chan also shared information with Roth about a Russian hacking organization called APT28. When the Biden laptop story broke, Roth told a colleague, “It set off every single one of my finely tuned APT28 hack-and-leap campaign alarm bells.”
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
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
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
Despite his obvious uncertainty, Roth nevertheless jumped aboard the train. The FBI’s pressure campaign had worked. Roth had been willing to collaborate with an agency of the federal government in their deliberate attempt to influence the results of a U.S. presidential election.
Shellenberger joined Fox News’ Tucker Carlson on Monday night to share his thoughts on the latest release. He told Carlson, “This looks like a kind of psychological operation that you would see the CIA conducting in foreign countries, not something that you would see intelligence agents in the United States perpetrating against both news organizations, but also social media platforms, namely Twitter and Facebook.”
That’s an accurate conclusion.
Christopher Wray — clear your calendar and preserve your documents.
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