The The FBI warned Twitter during “weekly” meetings ahead of the 2020 election Expect “hack-and-leak” operations by “state actors” involving Hunter Biden in October, according to a sworn statement by Yoel Roth, Twitter’s former head of site integrity.
The warnings were so clear that Twitter immediately censored them October 14, 2020 news about Hunter Biden’s laptop.based on its “disruptive content” policy, a move described Saturday by Twitter’s new owner Elon Musk as “election interference.”
The extraordinary revelation shows for the first time how the FBI was involved in keeping the story of a laptop in the bureau’s possession for nearly a year in advance.
“In these meetings, I was told that the intelligence community expects that individuals associated with political campaigns will be hacked and the materials obtained from those hacks will be shared on social media platforms, including Twitter,” Roth said in December. Declaration to the Federal Election Commission 21 of 2020.
“I have learned that there are rumors that Hunter Biden will be involved in these meetings as well as the demolition operation.”
The declaration Roth signed was part of Twitter’s defense against a complaint by the Tea Party Patriots Foundation that the Post’s censorship was a campaign contribution to then-presidential candidate Joe Biden.
Social gatherings of federations
The The FBI also warned Facebook to “be vigilant.” In August, CEO Mark Zuckerberg told podcast host Joe Rogan that “Russian propaganda” would “stack up” before the 2020 election, meaning it “fits the shell” of The Post’s story.
Facebook also censored The Post in October, pending “fact checks” that never took place, before Twitter suppressed the story.
It was an FBI agent who arranged weekly meetings with Big Tech Supervising Special Agent Elvis Changraduate thesis alleging that Russia interfered in the 2016 election to help former President Donald Trump.
Chan testified Tuesday in a lawsuit filed by Zoom against the Biden administration that he arranged meetings for seven US-based FBI agents in San Francisco ahead of the 2020 presidential election. Chan also organized weekly meetings with Facebook.
The lawsuit, filed by the Republican attorneys general of Missouri and Louisiana, alleges White House officials and federal agencies colluded with Big Tech to censor “dissident speakers, viewpoints and content on social media platforms.”
Under questioning by Missouri Attorney General John Sauer on Tuesday, Chan said the FBI had warned Twitter about the “hack and leak” operation, but he could not recall whether Hunter Biden was mentioned.
That is in stark contrast to Roth’s sworn declaration, the FBI said, specifically mentioning Hunter.
A source with access to a transcript of Chan’s testimony said the FBI used the meetings to lobby social media platforms to change their terms of service to quickly remove “violating material.”
It seems as if the FBI is already telling the story of what it knows about Hunter Biden. But how do they know The Post will publish this story in October 2020?
Well, the FBI spied on then-Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani’s online cloud under the guise of an investigation into foreign agent registration violations, an investigation that was dropped this year.
A secret surveillance warrant against Giuliani gave the FBI access to emails in August 2020. John Paul McIsaac, owner of a computer repair shop in Delaware In April 2019, Hunter Biden leaked information damaging to Joe Biden from a laptop he left at his store.
The FBI also had access to communications I had with Giuliani in October discussing when The Post would publish the story.
The FBI knew Mac Isaac was a legitimate whistleblower because he came to them in the fall of 2019 to raise national security concerns about laptop evidence of payments to the Biden family from Ukraine and China. On December 9, 2019, two agents came to his store with a subpoena and took a laptop and a copy of the hard drive.
We know this from FBI informants who appeared before Republican members of Congress Rogue FBI agents in the Washington field office buried the laptop and other information damaging to Joe Biden ahead of the 2020 election.
Now, thanks to Elon Musk, we know more about Twitter’s role in this particular intervention.
In a live Q&A session on Twitter Saturday afternoon, Musk said, “If Twitter does one team’s bidding before an election, silencing dissenting voices in an important election, that’s the definition of election meddling. . . . Frankly, Twitter was acting like an arm of the Democratic National Committee. It was nonsense.”
But despite promises to reveal all about The Post’s censorship, Musk’s Friday night release of what he called the “Twitter files” left out one key element — the FBI.
Journalist Matt Taibbi, who was deputized by Musk to release the information, tweeted that there is “no evidence I’ve seen of government involvement in the laptop incident.”
This contradicts Roth’s sworn statement that he warned the FBI about a “hack and leak” operation involving Hunter Biden, as well as Twitter’s attorneys’ response to the FEC in December 2020.
Law firm Covington & Burling told the FEC that Twitter “has been warned throughout 2020 by federal law enforcement agencies to be wary of anticipated ‘hacking and leak operations’ by state actors that could compromise electronic networks.” .. seeking to distribute leaked materials and communications of individuals associated with political campaigns.. .. Law enforcement reports have even indicated that such a hacking and leaking operation was rumored to involve Hunter Biden.
Then an interesting role plays Twitter Deputy General Counsel James Baker, he is a former FBI general counsel who was implicated in collusion with Russia against Trump.
Taibbi said Baker advised The Post that the story should be censored because “the material may have been hacked.” [and] caution is warranted. ”
Before he parachuted onto Twitter in June 2020, just five months before the election, Baker was a personal acquaintance of FBI agent Chan.
Rooting for Biden
Chan testified Tuesday that he knew Baker in 2016 when he worked with FBI “lovebirds” agent Peter Strzok and attorney Lisa Page on the Yahoo hack investigation.
He said he is in contact with Page, who was forced out of the bureau after the revelation of scathing anti-Trump text messages with Strzok.
Baker has also been linked to some 51 intelligence officers who signed the letter dated October 19, 2020Five days after the laptop explosion, The Post falsely claimed that Hunter’s laptop had “all the classic hallmarks of a Russian intelligence operation.”
Three days after the letter, candidate Biden used the letter to defend himself in the final debate against Trump: “There are 50 former National Intelligence Service agents, what did they say? [Trump is] blame me Russian factory. . . What he said is a pile of rubbish.’
Between leaving the FBI and joining Twitter in 2018, Baker worked at the Brookings Institution, signed the Dirty 51 letter, and wrote for the Lawfare blog, which is published by former CIA agent David Pryce. Lawfare Institute and blog publisher. Six other signatories to the letter were linked to the Lawfare blog.
It was a convenient network where everyone was rooting for Biden to beat Trump in 2020, and Twitter was a useful traveller.