Journalist Matt Taibbi on Thursday revealed part 14 of the Twitter files, delving into the “Russiagate lies” and how he says a “fake history of Russian bots” helped Democrats fix Devin Nunes’ famous report of flaws in the to denounce the Trump-Russia probe.
Emails and memos show that senior Democrats peddled a narrative of Russian bots despite being told directly by Twitter that there was no connection to the Kremlin.
The lengthy Twitter thread began with Taibbi noting that “at a pivotal moment in a years-long furor, Democrats denounced a report of flaws in the Trump-Russia investigation, saying it was by Russian ‘bots’ and ‘trolls.’ been supported”.
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He then said that “Twitter officials were appalled and found no evidence of Russian influence,” sharing an email in which Twitter executives sent Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D -Calif. The social media platform “has not identified any significant activity related to Russia in relation to tweets posting original content there.” [#ReleaseTheMemo] Hashtag.”
Journalist Matt Taibbi revealed part 14 of the Twitter Files on Thursday. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, file)
Elon Musk has been vocal about being transparent about Twitter’s past and present actions in curating content on the platform, including censored content. The Twitter owner has hired independent journalists to slowly release evidence of these actions in a series called the “Twitter Files,” which continues to uncover once-secret communications.
“Twitter warned politicians and the media that they not only lacked evidence, but evidence that the accounts were not Russian — and were flatly ignored,” Taibbi wrote. “On Jan. 18, 2018, Republican Devin Nunes filed a confidential memo with the House Intelligence Committee detailing the FBI’s abuses in obtaining FISA surveillance authority against individuals associated with Trump, including the critical role that the infamous ‘Steele Dossier’ was playing.”
“Virtually all of Nunes’ claims would be corroborated in a December 2019 report by Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz,” Taibbi continued. “Yet in January and early February 2018, national media condemned the Nunes report in oddly identical language, calling it a ‘joke.'”
Taibbi pointed out that on Jan. 23, 2018, Feinstein and Schiff “released an open letter saying that the hashtag is ‘gaining the immediate attention and support of social media accounts related to Russian influence operations.'”
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“Connecticut Senator Richard Blumenthal followed suit and published a letter in which he said, ‘We reprehensible that Russian agents have been so eager to manipulate innocent Americans,'” Taibbi wrote.
“Feinstein, Schiff, Blumenthal, and members of the media all pointed to the same source: the Hamilton 68 dashboard created by former FBI counterintelligence officer Clint Watts under the auspices of the Alliance for Securing Democracy (ASD),” Taibbi noted; Watts is an MSNBC contributor. But Twitter officials found no authentic Russian connection to the #ReleaseTheMemo hashtag and informed Democrats as such.
“Inside Twitter, executives have panned Watts, Hamilton 68 and the Alliance for Securing Democracy. Two main complaints: Hamilton 68 seemed to be the only source for everyone and nobody checked out on Twitter,” Taibbi wrote.
He then noted that then-Twitter exec Emily Horne wrote, “I encourage you to be skeptical of the attitude of Hamilton 68, which as far as I can tell is the only source for these stories… it’s a communication game for.” ASD.”
Then-Trust and Safety boss Yoel Roth also warned that “the whole fuss is based on Hamilton,” and other Twitter execs echoed that notion.
Twitter employees tried in vain to prevent Blumenthal from publishing his letter.
“Leaders eventually became frustrated with what they saw as a circular process — confronted with allegations of Russian activity, even when denied, led to further allegations,” Taibbi wrote. “They made that explicit to Blumenthal’s camp, saying that ‘Twitter has expended a lot of resources on this request and Blumenthal’s reward should not be round after round of requests.’
“Despite common internal beliefs that there were no Russians in the story, Twitter followed a slavish pattern of not questioning Russian claims in the records,” Taibbi wrote. “As a result, reporters from AP to Politico to NBC to Rolling Stone continued to hammer out the ‘Russian bots’ issue in the face of complete lack of evidence.”
Taibbi then shared a series of headlines in which media outlets spread the narrative about the Russian bots.
Twitter also failed to discover a Kremlin source for other hashtags blaming mainstream and liberal media for sinister Russian activity.
“NBC, Politico, AP, Times, Business Insider, and other outlets that ran the ‘Russian bots’ story – even Rolling Stone – all declined to comment on the story,” Taibbi wrote.
But media organizations aren’t the only ones refusing to speak to Taibbi.
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“Feinstein, Schiff and Blumenthal employees also declined to comment,” Taibbi wrote.
Asked for comment, Nunes told Taibbi that the “Russia collusion hoax” was one of the “largest outbreaks of mass insanity in US history.”
“The Russiagate scandal was based on the cowardly dishonesty of politicians and reporters who for years ignored the lack of data to scare fictional headlines,” Taibbi wrote. “Twitter had no editorial influence on this story. The search was performed by a third party, so the documents could be narrowed down.”
This was the 14th installment of the Twitter Files, which went viral in the past month and was shared by prominent independent journalists including Taibbi, Bari Weiss, Michael Shallenberger, Lee Fang and David Zweig.
Previous Twitter files have covered a wide range of topics, including the company’s suppression of Hunter Biden’s laptop story during the 2020 presidential election; the internal pressures it faces to permanently ban former President Donald Trump; efforts by the White House and government officials to suppress content; and the existence of shadow bans on prominent conservatives.
Fox News’ Joseph A. Wulfsohn and David Rutz contributed to this report.
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Brian Flood is a media reporter for Fox News Digital. Story tips can be sent to [email protected] and on Twitter: @briansflood.