We’ve been reporting on the Twitter Files as they’ve unfurled since early December. Independent journalist (and former Rolling Stone editor) Matt Taibbi was the first to begin sharing the files and has since shepherded several installments of them out into the Twitterverse.
Taibbi released the latest chapter Friday morning, as Sister Toldjah covered here. That release detailed the repeated efforts of Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and his office to press Twitter to take censorious action against accounts they found troublesome.
Though it’s now several years in the rearview mirror, Russiagate was a seminal moment in the nation’s history involving collusion which did untold harm — not collusion between Donald Trump and Russia, mind you; collusion between numerous government actors and Big Tech. Another California Congressman was a central figure in the investigation into Russiagate — Republican Devin Nunes.
On Thursday afternoon, Taibbi released the 14th Twitter Files installment, detailing “the Russiagate lies” and the false narrative that Russian bots were behind #ReleaseTheMemo. The hashtag, which went viral, pertained to a classified memo submitted by Nunes to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) detailing FBI FISA abuses aimed at surveilling several figures in Trump’s circle.
In the 40-tweet thread, Taibbi laid out the back-and-forth between Twitter execs and Congressional Democrats, with the Dems insisting that Russian bots were behind the push to publicize the Nunes report and exhorting Twitter to tamp down on it, while Twitter insisted there wasn’t evidence of Russian involvement but rather, affirmative evidence the engagement was “overwhelmingly organic.”
Some of the key tweets:
The media were taking their cues from Democratic lawmakers who insisted this was all further evidence of the very Russian influence they claimed was at the heart of Trump’s election. Russia, Russia, Russia, indeed!
Taibbi further explains:
“Feinstein, Schiff, Blumenthal, and media members all pointed to the same source: the Hamilton 68 dashboard created by former FBI counterintelligence official Clint Watts, under the auspices of the Alliance for Securing Democracy (ASD).”
The problem? The dashboard was vague as to how it reached its conclusions, and Twitter execs were dubious, given that “Hamilton 68” appeared to be the sole source of the assertions and no one had bothered to actually check with Twitter as to whether there was evidence to support them. In one e-mail, Global Policy Communications Chief Emily Horne characterized the stories as “a comms play for ASD.” In another, Trust and Safety chief Yoel Roth stated: “I just reviewed the accounts that posted the first 50 tweets with #releasethememo and… none of them show any signs of affiliation to Russia.”
As Taibbi notes, “Execs eventually grew frustrated over what they saw as a circular process – presented with claims of Russian activity, even when denied, led to more claims.”
Ultimately, per the e-mails shared by Taibbi, Twitter execs summed the situation up as “feeding congressional trolls” and likened it to the children’s book, “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie.”
Unfortunately, rather than call out the chicanery, Twitter played along — at least publically. Taibbi observes, “Despite universal internal conviction that there were no Russians in the story, Twitter went on to follow a slavish pattern of not challenging Russia claims on the record.”
As a result, Taibbi explains most legacy media outlets went along with and amplified the Democrats’ narrative.
In other words, round and round we go and, by the time the truth comes out, the damage is well-past done.
Taibbi reached out to the Democratic lawmakers and media outlets that played a prominent role in the “Russian bots” story, including his own former employer, Rolling Stone, but all declined to comment. The sole comment came from Devin Nunes:
“Schiff and the Democrats falsely claimed Russians were behind the Release the Memo hashtag, all my investigative work… By spreading the Russia collusion hoax, they instigated one of the greatest outbreaks of mass delusion in U.S. history.”
Maddening.