Independent journalist Michael Shellenberger released part 7 of the “Twitter files” on Monday, revealing a close relationship between the FBI and the intentional suppression and discrediting of a story the FBI likely knew was factual.
According to the documents released by Shellenberger, the FBI was in constant communication with Twitter both before and after the New York Post released its story on the Hunter Biden laptop.
Meta* CEO Mark Zuckerberg would also reveal during an interview with podcast host Joe Rogan that the FBI warned him about the Biden laptop story.
Prior to its release, the Post contacted Hunter Biden’s lawyer, asking for comment on the files found on his laptop and informing him the story would be published the next day. Hours later, FBI agent Elvis Chan emailed the then head of security at Twitter, Yoel Roth, and at least one other person that a 10-page document would be sent to them through a special one-way communication channel setup between Twitter and the FBI called “Teleporter.”
A few hours before that email, Biden's attorney George Mesires called and emailed the Delaware computer repair shop where Biden abandoned his laptop. Since the Post did not tell Mesires where it got the laptop, that further confirmed the veracity of the documents.
Communications released by Shellenberger revealed Chan and the FBI continually prepped Twitter to prepare for a Russian disinformation hack-and-dump campaign. In September 2020, Roth attended an Aspen Institute “tabletop exercise” on a potential “hack-and-dump” operation related to Hunter Biden and his dealings with Ukrainian energy company Burisma.
The exercise was attended by representatives of other social media websites as well as reporters for the New York Times, Washington Post and NBC News, among other outlets. The meeting was held before the story became public - but notably after the computer repair shop owner handed over the laptop to the FBI and after he sent a copy to Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, who later gave it to the Post.
Roth also testified in December 2020 that the FBI had prepared him to dismiss a potential story involving Biden’s laptop as a Russian “hack-and-dump” disinformation campaign.
However, Chan admitted in a sworn deposition last month, that the FBI’s investigations did not see any evidence of a “hack-and-dump” operation as it did in the Democratic National Committee 2016 email leak. Previous reporting also revealed the FBI had been in possession of the laptop since 2019.
“Through our investigations, we did not see any similar competing intrusions to what had happened in 2016,” Chan said.
Emails between Twitter and the FBI also cast doubt on the oft-repeated assertion that Russian actors were attempting to influence the 2020 election. One email to the FBI notes that the social media site removed 345 accounts suspected to be linked to Russia, but noted that all of them were limited in reach and followers and most of them were inactive at the time.
The FBI continually asked Twitter for evidence of foreign meddling, but Twitter consistently told them they don’t have much information to report. “At this state, my team’s findings have largely been that US-based trolling groups are behind some of the on-platform violative activity and misleading information we’ve seen,” one email from Roth reads. “We haven’t yet identified activity that we’d typically refer to you (or even flag as interesting in the foreign influence context.)”
An internal email also reveals the FBI paid Twitter millions of dollars in restitution for time its employees spent responding to FBI requests. The email between two unnamed Twitter employees was sent in February 2021 and says the FBI paid Twitter $3,415,323 since October 2019. The email implied the payment was a windfall for Twitter and was titled “Run the business - we made money!”
There were times Twitter pushed back against the FBI. In January 2020, Roth and Twitter executives denied an FBI attempt to have them change their policies to allow a third-party vendor to access their data feed without a warrant.
However, the pressure on social media platforms continues to this day. In August 2022, a meeting was set up between the FBI and Twitter executives so the FBI could persuade them to approve more “emergency disclosure requests,” which would allow the FBI to access data on Twitter users without a warrant.
The internal emails show Twitter executives were preparing to challenge the FBI’s assertions.
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre declined to comment on the FBI’s connection to Twitter on Monday. “Again, I'm just going to refer you to the FBI. I'm not going to comment from here about that,” she told White House reporters.
Meanwhile, House Republican leader and likely next Speaker of the House, Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) called it proof private businesses had become “a political arm” of the FBI during an interview on FOX Business. He called for an investigation similar to the Church Committee that investigated intelligence agency abuses in 1975, arguing the issue goes beyond Twitter.
“What about Facebook? What about Google? What about the 51 intel individuals … that put their name on a letter saying that Hunter Biden’s laptop was false, that it was Russia. Who asked them to sign this letter? Do these people still have clearances? We are going to subpoena them as well. Why are they able to do this? Working together, using private businesses to go after individuals right before an election, denying the American public the truth. We’ve got to get to the very bottom. I think just subpoenas are [the start], but you are almost going to have to have a Church style investigation to reform the FBI. … this is going to be a much bigger situation than people realize.”
*Meta has been banned in Russia for extremist activities.