Twitter Files Chronicles: FBI Has ZERO Evidence To Launch Censorship Attack
If Michael Shellenberger's latest material from the Twitter Files is correct, the FBI did not merely target political conversation on social media platforms during a presidential race.
The records made public today show that the FBI interfered to block the publishing of an accurate news report before it was published - despite the lack of specific evidence that it was the result of an intelligence operation.
Let's take a look:
1. TWITTER FILES: PART 7
The FBI & the Hunter Biden Laptop
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
— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) December 19, 2022
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
The question for Congress is why the FBI is participating in these transactions in the first place. The FISA statutes state unequivocally that the FBI must have probable cause to obtain a warrant in order to intercept domestic communications, but nothing in those statutes permits the FBI to block them.
This intervention is an unlawful infringement on free speech, and its consequences are virtually Big Brother-esque, since it has the ability to limit people's expression by generating a chilling effect. The government should not be intervening in public discourse in this way; they might simply have advised that people disregard a particular story line if evidence proved it to be the result of a misinformation 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
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
It was then found that there was a test run prior to The New York Post publishing their article. Remember, the laptop repairman first tried to bring over the grease evidence to the FBI!
The FBI's activities in this case raise concerns about the scope of its jurisdiction. The Constitution and federal statutes are silent on the FBI's authority to restrict domestic communications. Furthermore, it is troubling that news companies were prepared to collaborate with the FBI in censoring public information. The FBI appears to have been able to utilize the Hunter Biden "test case" for its own purposes, and Twitter was employed as a conduit to carry out the story's censoring.
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
I don't care how you feel about Musk, you have to admit the man is draining the Twitter swamp!