How the FBI & intelligence community discredited factual information about Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings both after and *before* The New York Post revealed the contents of his laptop on October 14, 2020
In Twitter Files #6, we saw the FBI relentlessly seek to exercise influence over Twitter, including over its content, its users, and its data.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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?
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
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
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.
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.'"
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.
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."
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…”
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).”
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.
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).”
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).”
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.
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.
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.
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."
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.
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
27. As general counsel of the FBI, Baker played a central role in making the case internally for an investigation of Donald Trump
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.
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.
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
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
Attendees included Meta/FB's head of security policy and the top nat. sec. reporters for @nytimes@wapo and others
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].
33. Then, on Sept 15, 2020 the FBI’s Laura Dehmlow, who heads up the Foreign Influence Task Force, and Elvis Chan, request to give a classified briefing for Jim Baker, without any other Twitter staff, such as Yoel Roth, present.
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.”
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.
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.
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.
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”
39. At 3:38 pm that same day, October 14, Baker arranges a phone conversation with Matthew J. Perry in the Office of the General Counsel of the FBI
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.
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.
42. In 2020, the FBI gave a briefing to Senator Grassley and Johnson, claiming evidence of “Russian interference” into their investigation of Hunter Biden.
The briefing angered the Senators, who say it was done to discredit their investigation.
43. “The unnecessary FBI briefing provided the Democrats and liberal media the vehicle to spread their false narrative that our work advanced Russian disinformation.”
44. Notably, then-FBI General Counsel Jim Baker was investigated *twice,* in 2017 and 2019, for leaking information to the news media.
“You’re saying he’s under criminal investigation? That’s why you’re not letting him answer?” Meadows asked.
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.
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.
47. And the pressure from the FBI on social media platforms continues
In Aug 2022, Twitter execs prepared for a meeting with the FBI, whose goal was “to convince us to produce on more FBI EDRs"
EDRs are an “emergency disclosure request,” a warrantless search.
In response to the Twitter Files revelation of high-level FBI agents at Twitter, @Jim_Jordan said, “I have concerns about whether the government was running a misinformation operation on We the People.”
Brazil’s high court demanded that Twitter censor, under threat of penalty of nearly US$20,000/day, a state legislator who shared ACCURATE and PUBLIC information.
This is just one case among dozens or hundreds of ILLEGAL and UNCONSTITUTIONAL censorship demanded of politicians & journalists.
The Brazilian high court and electoral court began by demanding censorship of specific content and then segued into demanding that people — including elected leaders — be entirely BANNED from all social media.
This is madness and psychopathology institutionalized at the highest level of government.
The court demanded that a state lawmaker be BANNED for posting this publicly available event announcement.
And, at first, the charges against him were kept secret!
This is outrageous totalitarianism and must be condemned by all Western political leaders, no matter where you sit on the political spectrum.
Police officers in Brussels shut down a conservative political gathering while former UK politician @Nigel_Farage was on stage.
This is the kind of thuggish gangsterism that we rightly associate with Nazism and Communism.
Shame on the police and mayor of Brussels for this totalitarian tactic!
"The police document," reports The Telegraph, "suggested speeches by speakers including Nigel Farage and Suella Braverman could lead to public disorder or display racist and homophobic views."
Apparently, the police have, for now, allowed the conference to go on.
But they have blocked any new people from entering.
This goes far beyond "cancel culture."
This is the mayor of Brussels, the seat of the European Union's government, preventing conservatives from their Constitutionally protected right to free speech.
The leaders of the Western world have lost their minds.
Here is the dictator-thug responsible for this outrageous violation of freedom at the heart of Europe's supposedly liberal democracy.
Shame on you @emir_kir ! You are no better than the Nazis and Communists who repressed their political enemies!
The President of the European Commission is not supposed to interfere in national elections.
And yet that's what President @vonderleyen is doing by spreading what appears to be disinformation about her political enemies in Germany.
What's worse, it appears she has weaponized the intelligence agencies of the Czech Republic and Poland in order to do so.
Neither Von der Leyen nor anyone else has presented any evidence to support their conspiracy theory that Russia bribed German politicians. Every single accused person has hotly denied the accusations.
And in the Politico article below, Von der Leyen even says that her enemies are guilty "Whether they have taken bribes for it or not"!
That makes what @vonderleyen is doing a McCarthyite witch hunt.
It is illegal for politicians to weaponize their national intelligence agencies and interfere in national elections.
There needs to be an immediate investigation into Von der Leyen and the intelligence agencies of Czech Republic and Poland are doing.
Voice of Europe must also make a clear statement as to what is happening, where its money is from, and who it has paid.
I am horrified by Putin and his violent war in Ukraine. I am no fan of AfD.
But the weaponization of intelligence agencies to demonize political enemies, interfere in elections, and demand censorship by social media platforms is totalitarianism, and must be denounced.
Von der Leyen's election interference may also be related to a disinformation operation by the French military it announced in February. Back then, French military officials claimed that “websites” were promoting “an anti-French narrative.” Then, as now, they made without any arrests or prosecutions, which likely means they do not have any evidence of criminal activity.
And both NATO-funded and government-funded NGOs are working with government bodies to interfere in German elections. Their “influence operation” aims to keep Germany in line with American foreign policy objectives and undermine the European peace movement. The evidence suggests that European intelligence agencies and NATO are breaking domestic EU laws against foreign election interference.
O governo brasileiro quer censurar as teorias da conspiração e ainda assim aqui está, espalhando teorias da conspiração: " O governo brasileiro suspeita que os ataques de Elon Musk ao ministro Alexandre de Moraes e agora também diretamente ao presidente Lula estão sendo feitos em cooperativa com deputados bolsonaristas..." relata a CNN.
A CNN publicou este segmento embora admitisse que “Ainda não temos provas sobre isso, está sendo investigado”.
Boa sorte em encontrar evidências porque não há nenhuma!
Fui convidado há muitos meses para palestrar no Fórum pela Liberdade no Rio Grande do Sul. Antes de chegar, meus colegas jornalistas brasileiros, David Agape e Eli Viera, me pediram para ver se havia algum arquivo do Twitter no Brasil.
Olhei e descobri que havia. O que descobrimos nos chocou: Alexandre de Moraes e outros funcionários do governo ameaçaram processar criminalmente o advogado do Twitter no Brasil se ele não entregasse informações *privadas* e *pessoais*, incluindo números de telefone das pessoas e suas mensagens diretas pessoais!
Publiquei os Arquivos do Twitter logo após desembarcar em Porto Alegre.
*Ninguém* além de David, Eli e mais um colega meu sabia que eu iria publicar o Twitter Files Brasil.
Depois que ficou claro que muitos brasileiros estavam interessados em falar comigo sobre os Arquivos do Twitter, adiei em uma semana meu retorno aos EUA. Depois que decidi fazer isso, o Diputado Federal Marcel Van Hattem cancelou a sua viagem há muito planejada a Bruxelas.
Conheci Van Hattem em Londres no ano passado, numa conferência, e ele estava no Fórum pela Liberdade, em Porto Alegre. Aceitei com gratidão a oferta de Van Hattem de ser apresentado a diversas pessoas que ele conhecia no Brasil.
É isso. Essa é toda a “coordenação”. Se a CNN tivesse feito o seu trabalho, poderia ter aprendido tudo isto comigo antes de publicar a sua “desinformação”. Na verdade, a CNN me entrevistou há duas noites e contei aos dois repórteres como surgiu o Twitter Files – Brasil. Aparentemente, os repórteres da CNN não conversam entre si.
Aparentemente, a CNN também não fez o dever de casa com Elon Musk. Com Elon, o que você vê é o que você obtém. Ele respondeu publicamente ao Twitter Files Brasil. Não falamos sobre eles nem nos correspondemos sobre eles. Ele ouviu falar deles no mesmo momento em que o mundo ouviu falar deles.
Será realmente tão difícil acreditar que os políticos que foram censurados tenham respondido em X a mais provas das exigências de censura de Moraes? Que idiota.
Estou tentando ser gentil com isso, mas com o segmento abaixo, a CNN não está se comportando como uma mídia de notícias justa e equilibrada. Está se comportando como um teórico da conspiração irresponsável, carregando água para o governo Lula.
Pelo menos você não me verá exigindo que o governo censure a CNN.
@CNNBrasil @raquellandim @LulaOficial @marcelvanhattem .@CNNBrasil deveria retirar esta propaganda governamental e desinformação e pedir desculpas a todos os envolvidos, principalmente aos dois repórteres que me entrevistaram há duas noites e que sabem que este segmento é uma besteira.
Este é Michael Shellenberger, e estou reportando a vocês ao vivo do Brasil, onde uma série dramática de eventos está em andamento.
Às 18h52, horário do Sao Paulo a corporação X, anteriormente conhecida como Twitter, anunciou que um tribunal brasileiro a forçou a “bloquear certas contas populares no Brasil”.
Menos de uma hora depois, o proprietário do X, Elon Musk, anunciou que o X desafiaria a ordem do tribunal e suspenderia todas as restrições.
“Como resultado”, disse Musk, “provavelmente perderemos todas as receitas no Brasil e teremos que fechar nosso escritório lá. Mas os princípios são mais importantes do que o lucro.”
A qualquer momento, o Supremo Tribunal Federal poderá bloquear todo o acesso ao X/Twitter para o povo brasileiro.
Não é exagero dizer que o Brasil está à beira da ditadura nas mãos de um ministro totalitário do Supremo Tribunal Federal chamado Alexandre de Moraes.
O presidente Lula da Silva está participando desse impulso em direção ao totalitarismo. Desde que assumiu o cargo, Lula aumentou enormemente o financiamento governamental dos principais meios de comunicação, a maioria dos quais incentiva o aumento da censura.
O que Lula e de Moraes estão fazendo é uma violação escandalosa da Constituição do Brasil e da Declaração dos Direitos Humanos das Nações Unidas.
Neste momento, o Brasil ainda não é uma ditadura consolidada. Vocês ainda têm eleições e outros meios de enfrentar o autoritarismo que já não existem em tiranias mais avançadas.
Mas o Supremo Tribunal Federal e o Tribunal Superior Eleitoral interferem em eleições por meio de censura.
Há três dias eu publiquei os Arquivos do Twitter para o Brasil. Eles mostram que Moraes tem violado a Constituição brasileira. Moraes exigiu ilegalmente que o Twitter revelasse informações privadas sobre usuários do Twitter que usaram hashtags que ele considerou impróprias. Ele exigiu acesso aos dados internos do Twitter, violando a política da plataforma. Ele censurou, por iniciativa própria e sem nenhum respeito ao devido processo, postagens no Twitter de parlamentares do Congresso brasileiro. E Moraes tentou transformar as políticas de moderação de conteúdo do Twitter em uma arma contra os apoiadores do então presidente Jair Bolsonaro.
Digo isso como jornalista independente e apartidário. Não sou fã nem de Bolsonaro nem de Trump. As minhas opiniões políticas são muito moderadas. Mas eu reconheço a censura quando a vejo.
Os Arquivos do Twitter também revelaram que Google, Facebook, Uber, WhatsApp e Instagram traíram o povo do Brasil. Se forem comprovados tais indícios, os executivos dessas empresas comportaram-se como covardes: forneceram ao governo brasileiro dados cadastrais pessoais e números de telefone sem ordem judicial e, portanto, violando a lei.
Quando o Twitter se recusou a fornecer informações privadas dos usuários às autoridades brasileiras, incluindo mensagens diretas, o governo tentou processar o principal advogado brasileiro do Twitter.
Quando eu morei no Brasil em 1992, eu era muito de esquerda. Na época, as palavras de ordem de Lula e do PT eram “Sem medo de ser feliz”.
Nos últimos dias, conversei com dezenas de brasileiros, incluindo professores, jornalistas e advogados respeitados. Todos me disseram que estão chocados com o que está acontecendo. Eles me disseram que têm medo de falar o que pensam e que o governo Lula é cúmplice na criação desse clima de medo.
O Brasil é o seu país, não o meu. Existem limites para o que sou capaz de fazer. Sei bem até onde posso ir.
Mas prometo que eu vou apoiar vocês na sua luta pela liberdade. E posso dizer uma coisa que muitos brasileiros não podem mais: Alexandre de Moraes é um tirano. E a única maneira de lidar com os tiranos é enfrentando-os. Cabe aos seus senadores enfrentar o tirano. E cabe ao povo do Brasil pressionar seus senadores para que façam isso.
Por favor, junte-se aos nossos “Spaces” para discutir a repressão totalitária do governo brasileiro à liberdade de expressão!
Brazil is engaged in a sweeping crackdown on free speech led by a Supreme Court justice named Alexandre de Moraes.
De Moraes has thrown people in jail without trial for things they posted on social media. He has demanded the removal of users from social media platforms. And he has required the censorship of specific posts, without giving users any right of appeal or even the right to see the evidence presented against them.
Now, Twitter Files, released here for the first time, reveal that de Moraes and the Superior Electoral Court he controls engaged in a clear attempt to undermine democracy in Brazil. They:
— illegally demanded that Twitter reveal personal details about Twitter users who used hashtags he did not like;
— demanded access to Twitter’s internal data, in violation of Twitter policy;
— sought to censor, unilaterally, Twitter posts by sitting members of Brazil’s Congress;
— sought to weaponize Twitter’s content moderation policies against supporters of then-president @jairbolsonaro
The Files show: the origins of the Brazilian judiciary’s demand for sweeping censorship powers; the court’s use of censorship for anti-democratic election interference; and the birth of the Censorship Industrial Complex in Brazil.
TWITTER FILES - BRAZIL was written by @david_agape_ @EliVieiraJr & @shellenberger
We presented these findings to de Moraes, to the Supreme Court (STF), and to the High Electoral Court (TSE). None responded.
Let’s get into it...
“We are… pushing back against the requests...”
On February 14, 2020, Twitter’s legal counsel in Brazil, Rafael Batista, emailed his colleagues to describe a hearing in Congress on “Disinformation and 'fake news’”
Batista revealed that members of Brazil’s Congress had asked Twitter for the “content of messages exchanged by some users via DMs” as well as “login records - among other info.”
Batista said, “We are… pushing back against the requests,” which were illegal, “because they do not meet [Brazilian Internet law] Marco Civil legal requirements for disclosure of user's records.”
Batista noted that some conservative Twitter users had gone to the Supreme Court “after they learned from the media that the Congress was trying to get their IPs and DM content. In light of this, the Supreme Court granted an injunction suspending the requirement given its failure to fulfill legal requirements.”
CONTEXT: Brazil’s Supreme Court and Superior Electoral Court
Seven justices comprise Brazil’s Superior Electoral Court (TSE).
Three of those justices are also members of the Supreme Court (STF).
One of them, Alexandre de Moraes, presides over the TSE.
Here's background on the rise of Brazil's Censorship Industrial Complex by @david_agape_