FBI defends its actions reported in ‘Twitter Files’, calls journalists ‘conspiracy theorists’

by Jacob Fuller

Vicky Arias, FISM News

 

The FBI responded on Wednesday to criticism it received as a result of information coming out of reports documented in the “Twitter Files.”

The series of reports revealed that Twitter cooperated with the FBI in censorship and covert operations on numerous occasions.

The FBI responded with a statement to Fox News, stating,

The correspondence between the FBI and Twitter show nothing more than examples of our traditional, longstanding and ongoing federal government and private sector engagements, which involve numerous companies over multiple sectors and industries. As evidenced in the correspondence, the FBI provides critical information to the private sector in an effort to allow them to protect themselves and their customers. The men and women of the FBI work every day to protect the American public. It is unfortunate that conspiracy theorists and others are feeding the American public misinformation with the sole purpose of attempting to discredit the agency.

The “Twitter Files” are comprised of eight volumes thus far and include exposing the FBI for censoring Americans on issues including COVID vaccines and the Hunter Biden laptop story. Additionally, the Department of Defense used the social media company to advance psychological operations regarding the affairs of the U.S. government in the Middle East.

Rather than refuting the claims made in the “Twitter Files,” the FBI purported that the journalists reporting the information are “conspiracy theorists.”

Journalist Michael Shellenberger, who wrote Twitter Files volume seven, responded to the FBI’s statement with criticism.

“[The] FBI calls Twitter Files ‘misinfo’ but doesn’t deny that it had Hunter Biden’s laptop since December 2019, told Twitter a hack-and-leak involving Hunter may occur in Oct 2020, [and] was spying on Giuliani when he gave a copy of [the] laptop hard drive to NY Post,” Shellenberger posted Thursday.

FBI COVERED UP STORY OF HUNTER BIDEN’S LAPTOP

Perhaps the most damaging report to the FBI came out of the “Twitter Files” volume seven. In it, journalist Michael Shellenberger wrote that Hunter Biden dropped his laptop off at a computer store in Delaware in 2019 and never returned to retrieve it. The store’s owner, after reviewing the contents of the laptop and realizing crimes had been committed and recorded on the device, contacted the FBI. The agency, in turn, seized the laptop from the store owner.

In August of 2020, after not hearing back from the FBI, the store owner, J.P. Mac Isaac, contacted Rudy Giuliani and sent him a copy of the contents he had found on the laptop. According to Shellenberger, “Giuliani was under FBI surveillance at the time and thus [the] FBI almost certainly knew what had happened.” Giuliani turned the information he received from Isaac over to the New York Post and the outlet ran a news story about it on October 14, 2020, just before the presidential election.

The contents of the laptop revealed “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,” according to Shellenberger’s investigation.

After the FBI retrieved the laptop from the store owner, the agency began an influence campaign with Twitter, claiming that a “hack-and-leak” scenario would likely occur in October of 2020.

Yoel Roth, former head of safety and trust at Twitter, in a sworn affidavit to the Federal Election Commission, stated that he had been in regular contact with the FBI and other federal agencies since 2018 “regarding election security.”

In the affidavit, Roth explained that “during these weekly meetings, the federal law enforcement agencies communicated that they expected ‘hack-and-leak operations’ … likely in October … [and] there were rumors that a hack-and-leak operation would involve Hunter Biden.”

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