The global war the US is waging has a very important domestic front—it’s an intel front and in some respects this is a supremely important front because it tamps down domestic (mostly conservative) opposition to the global part of the war. On the other hand, of course, the domestic front, which targets Americans, is part of the political drive to complete the transformation of America from constitutional republic to fascistic Woke national security state. That drive has run into some speed bumps that are worth noting—how it works out in the long run will be another story.
Newsbusters has a good analysis of a WaPo article that appears to have been planted by the FBI. The WaPo title tells the story—the FBI, seeing the coming Congressional investigations and already reeling from Russia Hoax blowback and the new Twitter Files and Hunter cover-up revelations, is now trying to walk back its Mar-a-Lago raid on Trump. Or, at least shift most of the blame to DoJ: "Skepticism before a search: Inside the Trump Mar-a-Lago documents investigation. Newsbusters’ article is worth your time:
Politicized FBI Uses Washington Post to Claim Their Reluctance to Raid Mar-a-Lago
The FBI appears to be signaling via its trusted telegrapher The Washington Post that it is blaming others for its unprecedented raid on Donald Trump's home at Mar-a-Lago in August. It sure sounds like damage control by the FBI especially since its image has sunk to a new low in the wake of its attempt to control the news to protect the Biden campaign, as revealed in the Twitter Files.
The effort by the FBI to pin blame on the very deserving Merrick Garland DoJ could make for interesting theater in Congressional hearings. To what extent any revelations get leveraged into serious repercussions and reform is open to doubt.
The latest Twitter File revelations are getting quite a bit of attention, as well. It’s interesting to see how Elon Musk is handling this. He’s releasing these files slowly, eliciting responses from the Intel agencies, then releasing more files to show that those agencies are continuing to lie. The latest release is a case in point, because they were pretty explicitly intended as a response to the FBI’s KMA dismissal of criticism of the Bureau as “conspiracy theories”.
What I’ve done below is I’ve used Andrea Widburg’s reformatting of Matt Taibbi’s Twitter thread into a connected narrative. But I want to highlight the significance of the current revelations first. Here are the important takeaways, which are documented in the actual document dumps:
The FBI, with its Foreign Intelligence Task Force (FITF), served as a clearinghouse for Other Government Agencies (OGA) to submit censorship requests/demands to Twitter. Please note that the existence of such a Task Force takes the whole censorship effort out of the realm of anything that could be described as “rogue” activity at a low level. This was an official FBI policy being implemented as a Task Force—responsibility runs right up to the top. Don’t let the focus on Elvis Chan in SF fool you in that regard.
While multiple OGAs were involved, coordinating through the FBI, make no mistake about this—the primary OGA by far was the CIA, which was working to suppress “foreign policy” news, to prevent Americans in America from becoming aware of US foreign policy aims. My understanding of the significance of this CIA activity is that, during the years of the Trump Administration, the Interagency was continuing to prepare for the coming proxy war against Russia in Ukraine. Events pointing toward that policy is the type of news that the CIA wanted to suppress. This was being done despite Twitter execs expressing extreme skepticism about any actual foreign involvement that could be identified.
Note that all of this essentially builds off Hillary’s Russia Hoax—the FBI’s FITF was basically predicated on the debunked idea that Russia was deeply involved in election “meddling”, and that was followed with the Faux Impeachment of Trump following the Ukraine Hoax. The bi-partisan Deep State Interagency and Political Establishment was consumed with the fear that Trump’s actions would scotch or, at the least, hinder the full development of the war against Russia that was being planned. This is the prism through which to view the four years of Trump’s presidency.
Again, please note that all of this was taking place during a Republican administration with the aim of crippling a Republican president. Also, please note that Bluto Barr who, not too long ago, was giving interviews in which he savaged Trump, has disappeared from the limelight. There is no possible way that Barr was unaware of what the FBI was doing—the number one rule of all bureaucratic behavior is CYA: Cover Your Ass. CYA is implemented by ensuring that whatever you do is either fully legal and defensible or is authorized by someone higher in the bureaucratic food chain that you are. Chris Wray at the FBI was plenty smart enough to make sure that Barr was complicit. Another thought—what did Mitch McConnell know? Other senators?
In other words, this was the Uniparty, led by a Republican administration and Republican controlled Intel agencies, targeting a Republican president and Americans of a conservative non-Neocon bent. With that in mind, here is a somewhat edited version of the Taibbi thread. The link will lead you to the full Taibbi thread with images.
TWITTER AND "OTHER GOVERNMENT AGENCIES"
After weeks of “Twitter Files” reports detailing close coordination between the FBI and Twitter in moderating social media content, the Bureau issued a statement Wednesday.
See? Musk was waiting for the FBI to issue their dismissive KMA statement before dropping this bombshell on them.
It didn’t refute allegations. Instead, it decried “conspiracy theorists” publishing “misinformation,” whose “sole aim” is to “discredit the agency.”
They must think us unambitious, if our “sole aim” is to discredit the FBI. After all, a whole range of government agencies discredit themselves in the #TwitterFiles. Why stop with one?
The files show the FBI acting as doorman to a vast program of social media surveillance and censorship, encompassing agencies across the federal government – from the State Department to the Pentagon to the CIA.
The operation is far bigger than the reported 80 members of the Foreign Influence Task Force (FITF), which also facilitates requests from a wide array of smaller actors - from local cops to media to state governments.
Twitter had so much contact with so many agencies that executives lost track. Is today the DOD, and tomorrow the FBI? Is it the weekly call, or the monthly meeting? It was dizzying.
A chief end result was that thousands of official “reports” flowed to Twitter from all over, through the FITF and the FBI’s San Francisco field office.
On June 29th, 2020, San Francisco FBI agent Elvis Chan wrote to pair of Twitter execs asking if he could invite an “OGA” to an upcoming conference:
OGA, or “Other Government Organization,” can be a euphemism for CIA, according to multiple former intelligence officials and contractors. Chuckles one: “They think it's mysterious, but it's just conspicuous."
“Other Government Agency (the place where I worked for 27 years),” says retired CIA officer Ray McGovern.
In the event, it becomes explicity that OGA here refers to CIA.
Cardille then passes on conference details to recently-hired ex-FBI lawyer Jim Baker.
“I invited the FBI and the CIA virtually will attend too,” Cardille says to Baker, adding pointedly: “No need for you to attend.”
The Twitter Files are NOT simply revelations about the FBI and Twitter. They’re about coordination of the entire national security state and the entire tech sector against American citizens.
The government was in constant contact not just with Twitter but with virtually every major tech firm.
These included Facebook, Microsoft, Verizon, Reddit, even Pinterest, and many others. Industry players also held regular meetings without government.
One of the most common forums was a regular meeting of the multi-agency Foreign Influence Task Force (FITF), attended by spates of executives, FBI personnel, and – nearly always – one or two attendees marked “OGA.”
The FITF meeting agendas virtually always included, at or near the beginning, an “OGA briefing,” usually about foreign matters (hold that thought).
The notion of “foreign influence” was a fig leaf of legality for the FBI. But little more than a fig leaf. Again, please note that the target of all this frenetic activity was what could be termed the MAGA movement. The targeting was being done by the agencies of a Republican administration.
Despite its official remit being “Foreign Influence,” the FITF and the SF FBI office became conduit for mountains of domestic moderation requests, from state governments, even local police:
Many requests arrived via Teleporter, a one-way platform in which many communications were timed to vanish:
Especially as the election approached in 2020, the FITF/FBI overwhelmed Twitter with requests, sending lists of hundreds of problem accounts:
Email after email came from the San Francisco office heading into the election, often adorned with an Excel attachment:
There were so many government requests, Twitter employees had to improvise a system for prioritizing/triaging them:
Next is a real giveaway—the FBI was unsatisfied with Twitter’s policing using its own terms of service, so the FBI helpfully interpreted Twitter’s rules for Twitter.
The FBI was clearly tailoring searches to Twitter’s policies. FBI complaints were almost always depicted somewhere as a “possible terms of service violation," even in the subject line:
Twitter executives noticed the FBI appeared to be assigning personnel to look for Twitter violations.
“They have some folks in the Baltimore field office and at HQ that are just doing keyword searches for violations. This is probably the 10th request I have dealt with in the last 5 days,” remarked Cardille.
Even ex-FBI lawyer Jim Baker agreed: “Odd that they are searching for violations of our policies.”
The New York FBI office even sent requests for the “user IDs and handles” of a long list of accounts named in a Daily Beast article. Senior executives say they are “supportive” and “completely comfortable” doing so.
It seemed to strike no one as strange that a “Foreign Influence” task force was forwarding thousands of mostly domestic reports, along with the DHS, about the fringiest material:
“Foreign meddling” had been the ostensible justification for expanded moderation since platforms like Twitter were dragged to the Hill by the Senate in 2017:
Yet behind the scenes, Twitter executives struggled against government claims of foreign interference supposedly occurring on their platform and others:
The #TwitterFiles show execs under constant pressure to validate theories of foreign influence – and unable to find evidence for key assertions.
“Found no links to Russia,” says one analyst, but suggests he could “brainstorm” to “find a stronger connection.”
“Extremely tenuous circumstantial chance of being related,” says another.
“No real matches using the info,” says former Trust and Safety chief Yoel Roth in another case, noting some links were “clearly Russian,” but another was a “house rental in South Carolina?”
…
In a key email, news that the State Department was making a wobbly public assertion of Russian influence led an exec – the same one with the “OGA” past - to make a damning admission:
“Due to a lack of technical evidence on our end, I've generally left it be, waiting for more evidence,” he says. “Our window on that is closing, given that government partners are becoming more aggressive on attribution.”
…
“Other Government Agencies” ended up sharing intelligence through the FBI and FITF not just with Twitter, but with Yahoo!, Twitch, Clouldfare, LinkedIn, even Wikimedia:
…
Many people wonder if Internet platforms receive direction from intelligence agencies about moderation of foreign policy news stories. It appears Twitter did, in some cases by way of the FITF/FBI.
These reports are far more factually controversial than domestic counterparts.
Note in these next paragraphs that the Intel agencies are targeting accounts that criticize the Ukrainian governments Neo-Nazi ties, as well as accounts documenting Biden family corrupt dealings with Ukraine. All factual.
One intel report lists accounts tied to “Ukraine ‘neo-Nazi’ Propaganda.’” This includes assertions that Joe Biden helped orchestrate a coup in 2014 and “put his son on the board of Burisma.”
…
One report says a site “documenting purported rights abuses committed by Ukrainians” is directed by Russian agents:
…
Often intel reports are just long lists of newspapers, tweets or YouTube videos guilty of “anti-Ukraine narratives”:
Sometimes - not always -Twitter and YouTube blocked the accounts. But now we know for sure what Roth meant by “the Bureau [the FBI] (and by extension the IC).”
Roth understood that the FBI was acting as the clearinghouse for the rest of the Intel Community (IC).
The CIA has yet to comment on the nature of its relationship to tech companies like Twitter. …
More to follow? Will the Republican House act? Who knows?
Now, on the foreign war front, a disturbing story at the Daily Mail (UK). Just imagine how angry this must be making the Russians. Interestingly, this follows on the admission that there was no Russian connection to the Nordstream 2 sabotage:
The CIA is working with an unnamed 'NATO ally', according to Jack Murphy
Murphy was a former senior trainer and adviser to an Iraqi SWAT team
He said the CIA and President Biden are personally authorising missions
The CIA is combining with the spy service of a NATO ally in Europe to conduct covert sabotage operations inside Russia, according to new claims.
The clandestine campaign is behind many unexplained explosions and fires that have hit strategic or prominent facilities in recent months, says US expert Jack Murphy, an eight-year Army Special Operations veteran.
Separately other European intelligence services have allegedly been 'running operatives into Russia to create chaos without CIA help', as has Ukraine.
Do you trust your government to keep you informed—or to let others keep you informed?
War Update: Mostly Domestic Front
Mark, I'm going to pass along a couple of links. The first concerns the provision of Patriots to Ukraine, a subject we have discussed. I submit this without comment. It is the fist mention I have seen of the number of Patriots we might send.
https://breakingdefense.com/2022/12/us-to-send-a-patriot-battery-to-ukraine-part-of-1-85b-weapons-package-as-zelenskyy-visits/
The second is something concerning Russia's ammunition supply.
https://www.defensenews.com/interviews/2022/12/28/lithuanias-defense-minister-is-leery-russia-will-run-out-of-ammo/
The Lithuanians seem skeptical of the Pentagon's claims, and no one will blame them for that.
https://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/3787443-when-the-fbi-attacks-its-critics-as-conspiracy-theorists-its-time-to-reform-the-bureau/