https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2022/12/notes-on-the-twitter-files-7.php
Michael Shellenberger has just posted another multipart thread on the Twitter Files here — part 7 of the Twitter Files project. This may be the most important of the threads published so far.
• As Techno Fog puts it: “[T]his release provides more details on the relationship between Twitter and the FBI, the suppression and removal of the Hunter Biden story from Twitter the FBI’s desire for Twitter to confirm a “foreign interference” narrative that didn’t exist, and how the FBI sought user location information for tweets that weren’t remotely criminal.”
• Shellenberger includes a backgrounder by Peter Schweizer on what the suppression of the New York Post’s Biden laptop/Biden corruption stories in advance of the 2020 presidential election.
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 set out to suppress the Post’s Biden reporting on the basis of approximately nothing.
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
• More here.
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
• Former FBI General Counsel and then current Twitter deputy general counsel James Baker was the key to the FBI’s suppression operation.
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. pic.twitter.com/1uhJ39OYSS
— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) December 19, 2022
• Let’s not skip over this.
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
• One more backgrounder by 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
• Shellenberger establishes beyond a reasonable doubt that the FBI was the perpetrator of a misinformation/disinformation campaign on behalf of Joe Biden.
• In this campaign the FBI secured the cooperation of the social media platforms such as Twitter.
• What about the mainstream media? So far as I can tell, they didn’t even have to be conned.
• I will add only that Shellenberger’s documentation of the FBI’s work in this matter is outrageous and invaluable. There is no substitute for checking it out in its entirety.
• I have gone back to number the parts of this series covering the Twitter Files (not including separate posts to capture related miscellany).
