On December 21, 2022, just days before many across the country and the world would celebrate Christmas with loved ones, the FBI saw fit to deliver a statement on the increasingly troublesome Twitter Files. I don’t think most of us would have been able to get through family get-togethers if they hadn't come out with such a statement in response to the steady flow of Twitter Files.
Thankfully, we can all stop worrying now. The FBI has shifted the blame of the damning information coming out of the Twitter Files as a “misinformation” campaign by “conspiracy theorists.” I, for one, am glad they cleared that up. All that pesky “misinformation” being published by noted “conspiracy theorists” such as @mtaibbi, @bariweiss, @ShellenbergerMD, @lhfang, and @davidzweig was starting to…oh wait…
None of those investigating any aspect of the Twitter Files are “conspiracy theorists.” The government would have you believe they are though. They are, all of them, renowned, investigative journalists with decades of experience, numerous awards and countless truths uncovered between them. When the government starts throwing terms like “misinformation” and “conspiracy theorist” around, that ought to be an alarm bell for us to immediately begin to question why the government’s response is to slander those who are trying to spread the truth through their reporting.
The government’s attempts to discredit the sources of information by arbitrarily calling them “conspiracy theorists” and “misinformation” propagators is also troubling. Instead of refuting the actual information that is being reported on, the government is content with resorting to name calling and deflection. Why? Instead of laying bare the facts about their years long embedded relationship with Twitter (and countless other big tech companies to be sure), they try to brush it off as “nothing more than examples of our traditional, longstanding and ongoing federal government and private sector engagements.” Why?
If you interfere with the government’s agenda, as many a whistleblower can attest to, that very government will devote massive amounts of resources to destroy you. They will do all they can to tarnish your reputation, demolish your finances, end your career and even question your own sanity. They don’t care about the truth. They care about control. They don’t care about the Constitutional Oath. They care about keeping you under their thumb. If your (allegedly) protected First Amendment activity goes against what they deem favorable, they don’t care. They will suppress it, or coerce others, Twitter for instance, to suppress it for them.
FBI whistleblower Steve Friend has said that those in his chain of command told him he had a duty to the FBI. This came after he told them his oath was to the Constitution. Steve has been publishing files of his own, which he has called “The OPR Files.” OPR is the FBI’s Office of Professional Responsibility. Four times a year OPR sends out their OPR Quarterly, which annotates numerous instances where FBI employees were punished for some type of violation. Some of them are pretty disturbing (like evidence tampering and receiving a 5 day unpaid vacation as the penalty) in their own right. One of the violations often listed is “lack of candor.”
The FBI calling those reporting on the Twitter Files “conspiracy theorists” and “misinformation” propagandists is clear lack of candor itself; for anyone who has been keeping up with the Twitter Files anyways. Do you think anyone will be held accountable inside the agency for that? <insert laughing emoji here>
![Twitter avatar for @CitizenFreePres](https://substackcdn.com/image/twitter_name/w_96/CitizenFreePres.jpg)
The FBI’s full statement to media outlets:
"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."
Does the information coming out of the Twitter Files strike anyone as anything more than an example of traditional FBI/business engagement? The FBI would have us believe that it is normal, traditional behavior for them to establish something like the Foreign Influence Task Force (FITF), comprised of 80 or so FBI employees that act as the go between for the FBI itself, as well as other entities such as the CIA and local law enforcement.
![Twitter avatar for @mtaibbi](https://substackcdn.com/image/twitter_name/w_96/mtaibbi.jpg)
Then, under the guise of it still being a “foreign influence” unit, the FBI would begin to focus on primarily domestic accounts/tweets. I guess if they were talking about COINTELPRO, you know, when the FBI tried to coerce Martin Luther King Jr. into committing suicide, then sure. Nothing more than “examples of traditional, longstanding and ongoing FBI abuse against Americans federal government and private sector engagements.”
![Twitter avatar for @mtaibbi](https://substackcdn.com/image/twitter_name/w_96/mtaibbi.jpg)
![Image](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_600,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fpbs.substack.com%2Fmedia%2FFkwaofvakAAiyjG.jpg)
“Jawboning,” or the government’s method by which they suppress speech through back channels, informal means, coercion or other unscrupulous measures, is not a brand new phenomenon. However, it is one that is clearly off the rails at this point and must be addressed by Congress. You may recall the plans the Biden administration had to establish a “disinformation board” through the Department of Homeland Security. That scheme, as we now know, was (and still is) well under way. The information coming out of Missouri v. Biden and now what we are seeing in the Twitter Files ought to be enough to convert the most skeptical among us.
As Genevieve Lakier points out, “relatively little attention has been paid to the constitutional question of whether, or rather when, government jawboning itself violates the First Amendment.” The answer to this question most likely lies in what case law a court will use as their primary lens in deciding. Will it be Bantam Books v. Sullivan (1963) or will it be Blum v. Yaretsky (1982)? Certainly other case law and statutes will play a role, however these two seem to be a good starting point for the most likely outcomes.
Proponents of a Blum backed outcome will say that Twitter decided for themselves to shadowban users, suspend accounts, delete tweets, claim stories about Hunter Biden’s laptop were Russian disinformation even though they received information from the FBI about it hours before deleting it, etc. Those with a Bantam Books bent will argue that government coercion led to First Amendment infringing actions since Twitter was acting on behalf of the government by taking the actions it took.
The mountain of collusive information being revealed through the Twitter Files aside, there are at least 3,415,323 reasons Twitter didn’t decide on their own to take the actions they took.
![Twitter avatar for @ShellenbergerMD](https://substackcdn.com/image/twitter_name/w_96/ShellenbergerMD.jpg)
![Image](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_600,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fpbs.substack.com%2Fmedia%2FFkXH0RBVQAETJYj.png)
I have followed “Q” and the Anons since December 2017. It has been fascinating and I have learned a lot. It definitely correlates with your writings, Garret. Praying that more people and agencies are exposed in 2023.