Vigilant News

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Hunter Biden

The First Batch of “Twitter Files” and the Ensuing Brouhaha

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Elon Musk, Twitter’s controversial new owner, gave journalist Matt Taibbi and others unfettered access to Twitter’s internal documents. Taibbi released a series of internal documents on Friday suggesting that the Biden campaign and Democratic National Committee were able to manipulate speech on the platform through tools that Twitter made available.

That manipulation included but was not limited to, the censorship of the Hunter Biden laptop story after it was first reported by the New York Post. The emails included in the tweets appear to cite requests from “the Biden team” and “DNC” including confirmations that Twitter “handled” their requests to delete posts.

Taibbi has claimed that the censorship machine impacted both “celebrities and unknowns alike” and that while both Republicans and Democrats both had access to it, the censorship was skewed by a leftist bias among the Twitter workforce. 

Here are the tweets:

 

One tweet showed that Democratic operatives could submit requests to the platform to remove tweets and that these requests were honored. “By 2020, requests from connected actors to delete tweets were routine,” Taibbi wrote. “One executive would write to another:  ‘More to review from the Biden team.’ The reply would come back: ‘Handled.'”

A second post showed screenshots with takedown requests from the Democratic National Committee.

The thread went on to address the Hunter Biden laptop story, with Taibbi saying he saw “”no evidence… of any government involvement in the laptop story.” He further asserted that the company’s decision to throttle the story was made at the highest levels, but was done without the knowledge of then-CEO Jack Dorsey.

Among those who questioned these measures was a lone Democrat.

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) was the only Democrat lawmaker who expressed concerns with Twitter over the social media company’s censorship of Hunter Biden’s laptop just before the 2020 presidential election, according to internal discussions released by new Twitter CEO Elon Musk.

In an email to Vijaya Gadde, Twitter’s former head of Trust & Safety, Khanna told her Twitter’s decision to censor the Hunter Biden laptop story was “Generating huge backlash on [Capitol] hill.”

Gadde “quickly” replied to Khanna, explaining the Twitter rules and discussing former White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany’s suspension from Twitter for sharing the Biden laptop story on their platform.

“We put out a clarifying thread of Tweets earlier this evening to explain our policy around the posting of private information and linking directly to hacked materials,” Gadde said.

Still, Khanna seemed more concerned with constitutional violations than violations of the Twitter rules.

“Hope you’re well Vijaya! But this seems a violation of the 1st Amendment principles,” Khanna responded before highlighting New York Times v. Sullivan, a landmark Supreme Court decision on the first amendment that has implications for members of the press.

Khanna continued:

If there is a hack of classified information or other information that could expose a serious war crime and the NYT was to publish it, I think the NYT should have that right. A journalist should not be held accountable for the illegal actions of the source unless they actively aided the hack. So to restrict the distribution of that material, especially regarding a Presidential candidate, seems not in the keeping of the principles of NYT v Sullivan.

Khanna expressed his concerns to Gadde even though he is a self-described “total Biden partisan,” convinced the Biden family “didn’t do anything wrong.”

Khanna also said Twitter’s decision to censor the story brought more attention to Biden’s laptop than the “relatively innocuous emails” found on the laptop’s hard drive. He cautioned that Twitter’s censorship “is now leading to serious efforts to curtail section 230.”

One of many questions that remain is whether or not this was a natural occurrence, or something more nefarious. Are we going to find the intelligence communities’ fingerprints all over this situation? Have we already? Certainly, the FBI was involved, to the surprise of absolutely no one.

FBI Involvement?

It’s come out that  James Baker, a former top attorney for the FBI, went to work for Twitter and was one of the people who approved suppressing the Hunter Biden laptop story on the platform.

As per the Emails:

“I support the conclusion that we need more facts to assess whether the materials were hacked. At this stage, however, it is reasonable for us to assume that they may have been and that caution is warranted,” he said to other Twitter employees in an email discussing how to handle the matter.

“There are some facts that indicate the materials may have been hacked, while there are others indicating that the computer was either abandoned and-or the owner consented to allow the repair shop to access it for at least some purposes,” he said. “We simply need more information.”

Media Reaction

The blue checks of the world were chiming in as Taibbi released his tweets.

Predictably, establishment simps came out of the woodwork to tell you how you should think/feel about him now that he’s done what any journalist worth their salt would have done: reporting one of the biggest exclusive scoops of the year.

Naturally, The New York Times, Washington Post, CBS News, and ABC News ignored the story over the weekend.

Radio host Clay Travis tweeted, “there is not one single article about @elonmusk or the @twitter email release last night on @nytimes app this morning.”

“The @washingtonpost , which literally has ‘Democracy dies in darkness’ at the top of its paper: not one single article about @elonmusk or @twitter ’s email release last night,” Travis continued. “How is this possible @JeffBezos ? Do you own a newspaper or a propaganda rag?”

In response, Musk tweeted, “That is because The New York Times has become, for all intents and purposes, an unregistered lobbying firm for far left politicians.”

Viva Frei also chimed in:

 

GOP Summons

The Incoming House GOP chairman Rep. James Comer (R-Ky) plans to summon Twitter execs over the suppression of the Hunter Biden censorship during the critical 2020 election cycle.

‘I can promise you this: Every employee at Twitter who was involved in suppressing the Hunter Biden laptop story will have an opportunity to come before Congress and explain their actions to the American people,” Comer told Fox News.

“This story’s just beginning … because we’re going to have every single person at Twitter that was involved in this in front of the House Oversight Committee as soon as possible.”

 

Brazil Election Interference?

On the same day that Taibbi released the ‘Twitter Files’, Elon Musk admitted that Twitter may have interfered in the recent Brazilian election as well.

Left-wing candidate Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva beat incumbent Jair Bolsonaro by a narrow margin of just 1.8% in late October to become Brazil’s next President.

Many have alleged that Twitter banned accounts that supported Bolsonaro and boosted accounts and stories that were favorable to left-wing candidates in Brazil.

After the ‘Twitter Files’ were released that showed that the US government colluded with Twitter to interfere in the 2020 election, Twitter users asked Musk to look into what other elections Twitter may have interfered with.

Musk said that he was currently looking into claims that Twitter interfered in the Brazilian election.

In the past, Twitter removed an earlier post from Jair Bolsonaro praising Hydroxychloroquine as an optional treatment for COVID-19.

As reported earlier, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has celebrated the sale of Twitter to Tesla CEO Elon Musk. About an hour after the confirmation of the change of command of the social network, Bolsonaro retweeted a message from Musk in which he defends freedom of speech on Twitter.

Jim Jordan Foreshadows “Big Moments” For GOP Influence and Biden Family Investigations

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Ohio Republican Rep. Jim Jordan claims that there’s been a seismic shift regarding the ongoing federal investigation of President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden.

In an interview, the Ohio Republican suggested “something is up” with the probe because of a new interest in the story by many of the same media outlets that initially dismissed reports of corruption evidence stemming from materials and emails obtained from a laptop he reportedly abandoned at a computer repair store in Delaware in 2019.

“You mentioned those two stories from the Washington Post 10 days ago. I understand they were four minutes apart. One was at 11:00. One was at 11:04. So two eight-page-long stories four minutes apart from the news organization that said 18 months ago there was no story here, this was Russian disinformation,” Jordan said.

“Remember, it started off as, ‘Oh, it wasn’t his laptop.’ Then it was, ‘Well, it was his laptop, but it was Russian disinformation.’ Now it’s, ‘No, it wasn’t Russian disinformation, but Joe had nothing to do with it.’ And now, finally, it is, ‘Well, Joe had something to do with it, but he really didn’t do anything wrong.’ In fact, that’s what his chief of staff, Ron Klain, told us last Sunday on the Sunday shows,” he added.

“It sure looks like Joe Biden was involved,” Jordan continued.  “So, my, how this story has changed. And now, we find out these text messages and emails that link the entire family, not just Hunter and Joe and — but also uncle, the — Joe’s brother, James Biden, is involved in this as well.”

A report from Politico notes how Republicans are in a strong position to regain control of the U.S. House of Representatives, which will give Jordan extreme power.

Politico reported:

The eight-term Ohio Republican is on the brink of leadership-blessed power in a Republican majority, set to wield the Judiciary Committee’s powerful mallet should the GOP flip the House in November, as is likely. Jordan’s ascension will mark a new pinnacle not only for himself but for the pro-Trump Freedom Caucus — empowering its last original co-founder still in Congress to handle impeachments, immigration, and more.

That perch will give him new chances to wage bare-knuckle political combat against Democrats, with the Biden White House already preparing aggressive pushback to nascent House Republican investigations. But it will also give Jordan an opening to embrace his old-school Freedom Caucus self by choosing issues where his cachet with conservative and younger members paired with an off-the-Hill influence can help him move the party in his more Trumpian direction.

And that influence is real: Interviews with nearly a dozen lawmakers underscore that while other House GOP leaders may run afoul of the party’s base, Jordan continues to wield unparalleled sway within it. His cred within the Trump world and conservative media gives him tools to — when and if he wants — undercut the leadership colleagues who’ve elevated him as he backed them from the minority.

In an interview with Politico, Jordan spoke about “four big moments” in 2023 that he thinks a GOP-controlled House will focus on — the debt ceiling, surveillance reform, funding the government, and the farm bill.

“The old line is, the guy who takes you to the Super Bowl gets to coach the game,” Jordan said. “So I think if we win, I think [Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy] is going to be the speaker. Then it’s important we do what we said we were gonna do, and do what the American people elected us to do.”

The Politico report added: “That approach has left Democrats all but ready to throw salt over their shoulder when Jordan draws near, viewing him as the quintessential Donald Trump acolyte. Speaker Nancy Pelosi blocked him from the Jan. 6 committee, and Democrats have contrasted his treatment of Trump probes with his actions during the Benghazi probe to allege that he spreads misinformation.”

“Democrats see Jordan’s remarks at CPAC earlier this year — where he said that GOP investigations would help frame up the 2024 race and that Republicans need to make sure that [Trump] wins another term — as indicative of how he would run the committee,” the report added.

Whistleblowers Claim FBI is Sitting on “Voluminous Evidence” of Biden Family Criminal Conduct in China and Ukraine

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Whistleblowers from within the Federal Bureau of Investigation have disclosed that the Bureau possesses “voluminous evidence” of criminal conduct by members of the Biden family in regard to their overseas business dealings in Ukraine and China.

We reported not long ago that FBI whistleblowers had claimed the Bureau was downplaying negative press in regards to Hunter Biden, going so far as to wrongly label this information as disinformation. 

Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) provided the recent revelations in a Thursday letter obtained by the Washington Examiner. The letter was sent to Attorney General Merrick Garland, FBI Director Christopher Wray, and Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss — who is presently running a criminal investigation into Hunter Biden.

These new allegations, which involve not only Hunter Biden but the president’s brother James Biden, specifically highlight the duo’s dealings with the Chinese government-linked energy conglomerate CEFC China Energy. They also relate to the younger Biden’s work for Ukrainian gas giant Burisma Holdings. Grassley said his staff “reviewed the unclassified records” supporting the whistleblower claims.

“Based on recent protected disclosures to my office, the FBI has within its possession significant, impactful, and voluminous evidence with respect to potential criminal conduct by Hunter Biden and James Biden,” Grassley said in the letter.

In regards to the dealings in China, Grassley cited former Hunter Biden business partner and confidant Tony Bobulinski: 

“The information provided by Mr. Bobulinski formed a sufficient basis to open a full field investigation on pay-to-play grounds; however, it is unclear whether the FBI did so and whether the information is part of the ongoing criminal investigation by U.S. Attorney Weiss,”

In August a whistleblower told Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) that FBI leadership told bureau employees not to look at Hunter Biden’s laptop from hell. This same whistleblower also claims the FBI purposely slow-walked the Hunter Biden investigation.

The FBI took possession of Hunter Biden’s laptop nearly 3 years ago and the Justice Department still has not charged Hunter with any crimes despite countless emails revealing an intricate web involving the Biden Crime family’s ties to Ukraine, Russia, and the Chinese Communist Party.

Regardless of where one’s political loyalties lay, it is hard to not see the glaring double standard when Hunter Biden walks free despite all he’s been implicated in, while the DOJ recommends 6 months in jail for Steven K. Bannon for defying the partisan J6 Committee.

Resolution to Investigate Hunter Biden Temporarily Killed by House Democrats

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A resolution that would have ordered President Joe Biden’s administration to turn over documents about Hunter Biden’s business deals died on Tuesday after House Democrats on the Oversight Committee voted against it.

Rep. James Comer (R-KY), the top republican on the Oversight Committee, championed the “resolution of inquiry” that would have ordered the Biden Administration to provide a wide range of documents regarding the Biden family’s overseas business deals, particularly those involving the 1st Son Hunter Biden.

The vote turned out with 19 republicans in favor and 23 democrats voting to kill the resolution after only two hours of debate. During the debate, Comer accused the Biden family of peddling “access to the highest levels of government to enrich themselves,”

Comer elaborates:

“If the Democrats vote against this resolution, then they are continuing in their coordinated effort to shield a potentially compromised President from necessary congressional oversight… We must shed light on the Biden family’s international business schemes to determine if there is a national security threat.”

Comer previously sent a letter to the U.S. Treasury requesting more information about Hunter and his business associates’ finances. Rep. Carolyn Maloney, the chairwoman of the House Oversight Committee, called the resolution a “nakedly partisan effort” and accused Republicans of being “obsessed” with Hunter Biden.

The question now is whether or not this will be the final nail in the coffin, or only just delay the inevitable.

The Oversight Committee’s proposed resolution of inquiry regarding the Biden family’s business dealings comes after reports that House Republicans are gearing up to investigate Hunter Biden if they regain majority control of the House after November’s midterms.

“The House Oversight Committee has expansive oversight authority under House rules,” a GOP Oversight Committee aide told the Washington Post. “Next Congress, Oversight Committee Republicans will continue their investigation into the Biden family’s suspicious business dealings using the power of the gavel to get answers for the American people.”

Is John Durham’s Next Target the FBI? John Solomon Makes Prediction as 14 Whistleblowers Come Forward

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John Solomon, the founder of Just the News, recently spoke about John Durham’s probe into the Trump-Russia investigation and has made a prediction as to what he believes Durham’s next target might be.

Solomon believes that the Durham Probe is dealing with at least “two buckets”. In one “bucket,” there are indictments against officials connected to Hillary Clinton and their plan to feed the FBI false information about Trump-Russia conspiracies. The other “bucket” focuses on the FBI and agents who are alleged to have knowingly misled the FISA court to obtain warrants to spy on members of Trump’s 2016 campaign.

“A month after the CIA sends a warning to the FBI, this is something John Ratcliffe declassified, saying Hillary Clinton is trying to play a dirty trick on Donald Trump to tie him to Russia to get out of her e-mail thing. All through the fall, they keep a spreadsheet of what’s right and wrong with the Steele dossier. It’s all wrong. Can’t corroborate, they can’t collaborate the information. The FBI never should have started the investigation and I think that’s where John Durham’s investigation is focused right now,”.

This comes on the heels of GOP Rep. Jim Jordan telling Fox News that 14 whistleblowers from the FBI have come forward with concerns about the Department of Justice’s possible political bias following the raid on Mar-a-Lago last week.

“Fourteen FBI agents have come to our office as whistleblowers, and they are good people. There are lots of good people in the FBI. It’s the top that is the problem,” the Ohio Republican told the outlet. “Some of these good agents are coming to us, telling us … what’s going on… the political nature now of the Justice Department,”

Republican party leaders have condemned the raid as partisan, promising investigations should the GOP seize the majority in either chamber of Congress. House Minority leader Kevin McCarthy intimated that he’s “seen enough”. 

Despite McCarthy’s posturing, his post was flooded with doubtful comments.

Just before the raid, the FBI was faced with two separate whistleblowers attesting to political bias within both the Bureau and the Department of Justice. 

RELATED: Whistleblowers Claim FBI, DOJ are Downplaying Negative Hunter Biden Information

The last decade has had a decidedly negative impact on the FBI’s reputation. Since 2015 the FBI has propagated the Russia Collusion smear knowingly in an effort to hurt both candidate and president Donald Trump, they have been found to have manufactured the Whitmer kidnapping case, misclassified domestic extremism cases in favor of democrats, targeted parents who’ve spoken up at school board meetings, placed undercover agents in the crowds on January 6th,  assisted Biden’s presidential campaign by burying Hunter Biden’s illegal dealings with foreign countries and conveniently losing track of the laptop in the process.

It’s only speculation at this point, but if John Soloman’s prediction is correct, we could see a huge clash between the FBI and John Durham in the near future.