{"id":1763031,"date":"2022-12-05T08:20:41","date_gmt":"2022-12-05T13:20:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1763031"},"modified":"2022-12-05T08:34:04","modified_gmt":"2022-12-05T13:34:04","slug":"miranda-devine-fbi-warned-twitter-during-weekly-meetings-of-hunter-biden-hack-and-leak-operation-before-censoring-the-post","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/miranda-devine-fbi-warned-twitter-during-weekly-meetings-of-hunter-biden-hack-and-leak-operation-before-censoring-the-post\/","title":{"rendered":"Miranda Devine: FBI Warned Twitter During Weekly Meetings of Hunter Biden Hack-And-Leak Operation Before Censoring the Post"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">34<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fmiranda-devine-fbi-warned-twitter-during-weekly-meetings-of-hunter-biden-hack-and-leak-operation-before-censoring-the-post%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1763031&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><aside class=\"single__inline-module alignleft\">\n<div class=\"inline-module inline-module--columnist inline-module--author\">\n<div class=\"inline-module--author__img\">\n\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"76\" height=\"69\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/miranda-devine222.png?w=76&#038;h=69&#038;crop=1\" class=\"attachment-nyp_columnist size-nyp_columnist\" alt=\"Miranda Devine\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/miranda-devine222.png?w=152 152w, https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/miranda-devine222.png?w=114 114w, https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/miranda-devine222.png?w=76 76w, https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/miranda-devine222.png?w=38 38w, https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/miranda-devine222.png 706w\" \/>\t\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2022\/12\/03\/whats-missing-from-the-twitter-files-the-truth-about-the-fbi\/\">FBI warned Twitter during \u201cweekly\u201d meetings before the 2020 election<\/a> to expect \u201chack-and-leak operations\u2019\u2019 by \u201cstate actors\u201d involving Hunter Biden, and \u201clikely\u201d in October, according to a sworn declaration by Twitter\u2019s former head of site integrity, Yoel Roth.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The warnings were so specific that Twitter immediately censored <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2020\/10\/14\/email-reveals-how-hunter-biden-introduced-ukrainian-biz-man-to-dad\/\">The Post\u2019s scoop about Hunter Biden\u2019s laptop on Oct. 14, 2020<\/a>, citing its \u201chacked materials\u201d policy, a move described on Saturday as \u201celection interference\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2022\/12\/02\/elon-musk-releases-twitters-files-on-censorship-of-post\/\">by Twitter\u2019s new owner, Elon Musk<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The extraordinary revelation for the first time lays bare how the FBI was involved in pre-bunking the story of the laptop, which had been in the bureau\u2019s possession for almost a year.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI was told in these meetings that the intelligence community expected that individuals associated with political campaigns would be subject to hacking attacks and that material obtained through those hacking attacks would likely be disseminated over social media platforms, including Twitter,\u201d said Roth in a Dec. 21, 2020 declaration to the Federal Election Commission.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI also learned in these meetings that there were rumors that a hack-and-leak operation would involve Hunter Biden.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Roth\u2019s signed declaration formed part of Twitter\u2019s defense against a complaint by the Tea Party Patriots Foundation that its censorship of The Post was an \u201cin\u00ad kind\u201d campaign contribution to then-presidential candidate Joe Biden\u2019s campaign.\u00a0<\/p>\n<h2>Feds\u2019 social gatherings\u00a0<\/h2>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2022\/08\/28\/fbi-put-the-hunter-biden-story-right-in-facebooks-lap\/\">FBI also warned Facebook to be on \u201chigh alert\u201d<\/a> for a \u201cdump\u201d of \u201cRussian propaganda\u201d before the 2020 election, in terms specific enough that it \u201cfit the pattern\u201d of The Post\u2019s story, CEO Mark Zuckerberg told podcast host Joe Rogan in August.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Facebook also censored The Post ahead of Twitter\u2019s throttling the story in October, pending \u201cfact checks\u201d that never appear to have been done.\u00a0<\/p>\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"alignright size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/12\/roth.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"400\" height=\"400\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/roth.jpg\" alt=\"Yoel Roth, Twitter\u2019s former head of site integrity, said in a Dec. 21, 2020 declaration to the Federal Election Commission that the company was told hacked materials would likely be disseminated over social media platforms.\" class=\"wp-image-24894330\" srcset=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/12\/roth.jpg?quality=75&#038;strip=all 400w, https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/12\/roth.jpg?quality=75&#038;strip=all&#038;w=200 200w\" \/><\/a><figcaption>Yoel Roth, Twitter\u2019s former head of site integrity, said in a Dec. 21, 2020 declaration to the Federal Election Commission that the company was told hacked materials would likely be disseminated over social media platforms.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p>The FBI agent who organized those weekly meetings with Big Tech was <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2022\/11\/01\/fbi-official-media-needs-to-be-held-accountable\/\">Supervisory Special Agent Elvis Chan<\/a>, whose postgraduate thesis claimed that Russia interfered with the 2016 election to help former President Donald Trump.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Chan testified by Zoom Tuesday in a lawsuit against the Biden administration that he organized the meetings in San Francisco for as many as seven DC-based FBI agents in the run-up to the 2020 presidential election. Chan also organized weekly meetings with Facebook.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The lawsuit brought by the Republican attorneys general of Missouri and Louisiana, alleges that White House officials and federal agencies acted with Big Tech to censor \u201cdisfavored speakers, viewpoints and content on social-media platforms.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Under questioning by Missouri Solicitor General John Sauer Tuesday, Chan said that the FBI warned Twitter to be on guard for a \u201chack and leak\u201d operation but could not recall whether Hunter Biden was mentioned.\u00a0<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/12\/hunter-biden.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"682\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/hunter-biden-4.jpg\" alt=\"According to sworn testimony from a Twitter employee, the FBI warned the company about a \" hack \/><\/a><figcaption>According to sworn testimony from a Twitter employee, the FBI warned the company about a \u201chack\u201d involving Hunter Biden before The Post published its report on Biden\u2019s laptop.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>This is a crucial inconsistency with Roth\u2019s sworn declaration saying the FBI specifically mentioned Hunter.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The FBI used the meetings to lobby the social media platforms to change their terms of service in order to be able to quickly take down \u201chacked material,\u201d says a source with access to a transcript of Chan\u2019s testimony.\u00a0<\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\" \/>\n<h2>Catch up on Twitter\u2019s censorship of the Post\u2019s Hunter Biden laptop story<\/h2>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\" \/>\n<p>It looks very much as if the FBI pre-bunked a story they knew was coming about Hunter Biden. But how would they know The Post was going to publish the story in October 2020?\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Well, the FBI was spying on Trump\u2019s then-lawyer Rudy Giuliani\u2019s online cloud, under the pretext of an investigation into alleged foreign-agent registration violations, a probe which conveniently was dropped this year.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The covert surveillance warrant on Giuliani gave the FBI access to emails in August 2020 from <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2022\/08\/11\/hunter-biden-laptop-repairman-says-fbi-threatened-him-to-stay-silent\/\">Delaware computer repair store owner John Paul Mac Isaac<\/a> disclosing information damaging to Joe Biden from the laptop Hunter Biden had abandoned at his store in April 2019.\u00a0<\/p>\n<aside class=\"single__inline-module alignleft\">\n\t<\/aside>\n<p>The FBI also had access to my messages with Giuliani in October discussing when The Post would publish the story.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The FBI knew that Mac Isaac was a legitimate whistleblower because he had come to them in the fall of 2019 to express national-security concerns about evidence on the laptop of payments to the Biden family from Ukraine and China. On Dec. 9, 2019, two agents arrived at his store with a subpoena and took the laptop and a hard-drive copy.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>We know from FBI whistleblowers who have come forward to Republican members of Congress that <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2022\/08\/24\/fbi-warned-agents-off-hunter-biden-laptop-due-to-election-whistleblowers\/\">rogue FBI employees within the Washington Field Office buried the laptop <\/a>and other information detrimental to Joe Biden before the 2020 election.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Now, thanks to Elon Musk, we know more about Twitter\u2019s role in this apparent interference.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>During a live Q&#038;A session on Twitter Saturday afternoon, Musk said: \u201cIf Twitter is doing one team\u2019s bidding before an election, shutting down dissenting voices on a pivotal election, that is the very definition of election interference.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009. Frankly Twitter was acting like an arm of the Democratic National Committee. It was absurd.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/12\/elon-musk-2.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"682\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/elon-musk-2-1.jpg\" alt=\"Twitter CEO Elon Musk said the company acted as an \" arm of the Democratic National Committee \/><\/a><figcaption>Twitter CEO Elon Musk said the company acted as an \u201carm of the Democratic National Committee\u201d when it censored The Post.<\/figcaption><figcaption><span class=\"credit\">Tesla\/Handout via REUTERS<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>But, despite promises to reveal all about the censorship of The Post, Musk\u2019s Friday night dump of what he calls the \u201cTwitter Files\u201d left out one crucial element: the FBI.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Journalist Matt Taibbi, deputized by Musk to release the information, tweeted that \u201cthere\u2019s no evidence \u2014 that I\u2019ve seen \u2014 of any government involvement in the laptop story.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<div class=\"single__inline-module inline-module inline-module--newsletter alignright\">\n<div class=\"inline-module__inner\">\n<h3 class=\"inline-module__title headline headline--combo-sm-md\">\n\t\t\tGet Miranda&#8217;s latest take\t\t<\/h3>\n<p class=\"inline-module__cta\">\n\t\t\tSign up for Devine Online, the newsletter from Miranda Devine\t\t<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>This contradicts Roth\u2019s sworn declaration that the FBI warned of a \u201chack and leak\u201d operation involving Hunter Biden, as well as Twitter\u2019s lawyers\u2019 response to the FEC in December 2020.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Law firm Covington &#038; Burling told the FEC that Twitter \u201chad been warned throughout 2020 by federal law enforcement agencies to be on the alert for expected \u2018hack-and-leak operations\u2019 undertaken by malign state actors, in which those state actors might hack electronic communications of individuals associated with political campaigns and seek to disseminate the leaked materials. .\u2009.\u2009. Reports from the law enforcement agencies even suggested there were rumors that such a hack-and-leak operation would be related to Hunter Biden.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Then there is the curious role of <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2022\/12\/03\/twitter-files-reveal-james-baker-in-hunter-biden-laptop-scandal\/\">Twitter deputy general counsel James Baker, <\/a>who is former general counsel at the FBI where he was involved in Russia-collusion plots against Trump.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>According to Taibbi, Baker advised that The Post\u2019s story should be censored because \u201cthe materials may have been hacked [and] caution is warranted. \u201c\u00a0<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/12\/james-baker.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"682\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/james-baker.jpg\" alt=\"Twitter deputy general counsel James Baker advised that the company censored The Post&#039;s Hunter Biden story due to allegedly hacked materials.\" class=\"wp-image-24894395\" srcset=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/12\/james-baker.jpg?quality=75&#038;strip=all&#038;w=1535 1536w, https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/12\/james-baker.jpg?quality=75&#038;strip=all 1024w, https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/12\/james-baker.jpg?quality=75&#038;strip=all&#038;w=512 512w\" \/><\/a><figcaption>Twitter deputy general counsel James Baker advised that the company censored The Post\u2019s Hunter Biden story due to allegedly hacked materials.<\/figcaption><figcaption><span class=\"credit\">Ron Sachs \/ CNP<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Before he was parachuted into Twitter, in June 2020, conveniently just five months before the election, Baker was a personal acquaintance of FBI agent Chan.\u00a0<\/p>\n<h2>Rooting for Biden\u00a0<\/h2>\n<p>Chan testified Tuesday that he knew Baker from when they worked together in 2016 with FBI \u201clovebirds\u201d agent Peter Strzok and lawyer Lisa Page on an investigation of a hack on Yahoo.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>He said he remains in touch with Page, who, with Strzok, was forced out of the bureau after their virulently anti-Trump text messages were revealed.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Baker also is connected to some of the <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2022\/10\/19\/its-been-two-years-since-51-intelligence-agents-interfered-with-an-election-they-still-wont-apologize\/\">51 intelligence officials who signed the Oct. 19, 2020 letter<\/a>, published five days after The Post\u2019s laptop bombshell, falsely alleging that Hunter\u2019s laptop had \u201call the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Three days after the letter, candidate Biden used the letter to get off the hook in his final debate against Trump: \u201cThere are 50 former national intelligence folks who said that what [Trump is] accusing me of is a Russian plant .\u2009.\u2009. what he\u2019s saying is a bunch of garbage.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Between leaving the FBI in 2018 and joining Twitter, Baker worked for the Brookings Institution, writing for the Lawfare Blog, which is published by David Priess, an ex-CIA agent who signed the \u201cDirty 51\u201d letter and is the chief operating officer of the Lawfare Institute and publisher of the blog. Six more signatories of the letter are linked to the Lawfare Blog.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s a cozy network where everyone was rooting for Biden to beat Trump in 2020 \u2014 and Twitter was a useful fellow traveler.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The FBI warned Twitter during \u201cweekly\u201d meetings before the 2020 election to expect \u201chack-and-leak operations\u2019\u2019 by \u201cstate actors\u201d involving Hunter Biden, and \u201clikely\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1363926,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[547],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1763031","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-bongino-report"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1763031","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1763031"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1763031\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1363926"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1763031"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1763031"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1763031"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}