Former FBI Lawyer Appears to Have Censored Hunter Biden Story Knowing It Was True
Former FBI general counsel Jim Baker is among the many FBI officials who migrated to Twitter in recent years, and he played a key role in the Hunter Biden laptop story.
This week’s Twitter Files dump contains perhaps the most alarming discovery yet.
First, it appears the FBI basically infiltrated the tech company. The Feds were not, it seems, content to merely tell Twitter what information and opinions should be censored. Twitter is literally swimming with former FBI brass and agents.
Mark Hemingway offers an overview at The Federalist:
According to the latest drop of “Twitter Files” from Michael Shellenberger, “As of 2020, there were so many former FBI employees — ‘Bu alumni’ — working at Twitter that they had created their own private Slack channel and a crib sheet to onboard new FBI arrivals.” It appears that Twitter still has 14 employees on the payroll who worked at the FBI and CIA.
The problem isn’t just confined to Twitter. My colleague and Federalist contributor Ben Weingarten recently wrote an article for the New York Post, “Inside revolving door between Democrat Deep State and Big Tech.”
In addition to covering what was happening at Twitter, Weingarten details a broader number of suspicious links between Silicon Valley and U.S. intelligence agencies. Given the near-constant string of deep-state scandals and social media censorship we’ve endured in recent years, a big question we should all be trying to answer right now is, “What exactly are all these spooks doing at tech companies?”
So far, the answer appears to be: “They’re almost certainly up to no good.”
Hemingway is right that the FBI has been up to know good.
Former FBI general counsel Jim Baker is among those who migrated to Twitter. His LinkedIn profile says he joined the company in June 2020 as “Deputy General Counsel and Vice President, Legal.”
Shellenberger makes it clear that evidence shows Baker didn’t just lead the effort to censor The New York Post’s (true) story on Hunter Biden. Baker led the censorship effort knowing the story was true and the laptop was authentic.
Whether Baker was doing this on behalf of Twitter, the FBI, or the Biden Campaign is unclear. (More on that later.)
What’s clear is that it’s very hard to believe—“inconceivable,” in Shellenberger words— that Baker did not know the laptop was authentic and wasn’t hacked, yet he persuaded Yoel Roth, the Global Head of Trust & Safety at Twitter, to censor it on such grounds.
“Plausible deniability” is a phrase government officials know well, so don’t expect Baker to fess up. Either way, Americans clearly deserve some answers.
To be clear, this is not about Hunter Biden and his personal problems. It’s not about Democrats or Republicans. It’s about a government agency that has been acting unethically, and in some cases illegally, without accountability for far too long.