When internal Twitter chats confessed, there was no sign the report included anything illicitly collected, former senior intelligence officials who suggested the Hunter Biden laptop tale was part of a Russian campaign weeks before the 2020 election went silent.
When asked whether the new disclosures had changed their opinion, all four former CIA directors (John Brennan, Mike Hayden, and Jim Clapper) and former Defense Secretary (Leon Panetta) either declined to comment or did not respond to requests for comment.
Journalist Matt Taibbi received internal Twitter emails on Friday that detailed the company’s decision to censor the item by, among other things, deactivating the Post’s Twitter account and removing tweets that linked to or mentioned the story.
Despite the lack of proof or a government finding of stolen materials, the emails revealed that Twitter management made the judgments based on the chance that the narrative incorporated stolen files. Emails show that several Twitter workers questioned the usefulness of adopting that explanation.
“I find it hard to grasp the policy reason for categorizing something as dangerous,” said Trenton Kennedy, a former Twitter communications executive.
Is there a rule that prohibits that? Vice President of Global Communications Brandon Borman was another executive that was questioned.
An open letter signed by over fifty former intelligence officers was published on October 19, 2020, speculating that the Russian government was the likely source of the tale. Five days before, Twitter users had begun to assume that the business was hiding the news under a hacker’s explanation.
It was stated in the letter that “if we are right, this is Russia trying to influence how American voters in this election.”
It was hoped that Democratic presidential contender Joe Biden would be implicated by the allegation, but the letter helped throw doubt on the story.
Journalist Miranda Devine and the current political editor at Breitbart News, Emma-Jo Morris, claim that Hunter Biden’s laptop had evidence of sexually graphic and dubious business ties with foreign players. It’s possible that the senior Biden was included in conversations regarding a potential job opportunity.
Nick Shapiro, a former senior advisor to Brennan, told Politico that the real strength here is the number of former, working-level IC employees who want the American people to know that, once again, the Russians are meddling.
The letter was signed by more than thirty former intelligence officers, including two interim CIA directors (John McLaughlin and Michael Morell).