#TwitterFiles – Matt Taibbi continues his revelations about alleged Russian interference in the 2016 US elections. In a thread published in January 2023, the journalist recounts one of the “RussiaGate lies”: how Democratic representatives of the US Congress and Mainstream media deliberately ignored Twitter’s warnings, “hammering” without hard evidence that “Russian bots” were behind hashtags aimed at discrediting US intelligence agencies.
January 2017. The Buzzfeed website leaks the Democrat-commissioned “Steele dossier”, which accuses Donald Trump of benefiting from a campaign of Russian interference before his election in 2016. The dossier shows close collaboration between Russians and the team of the Republican candidate in order to sabotage the campaign of his Democratic opponent, Hilary Clinton. Behind the case, Christopher Steele, a former British counterintelligence agent, one of whose sources, Igor Danchenko, was charged in November 2021 by the US Department of Justice with five counts, including false testimony in the RussiaGate.
Proof or not, Democrats accuse Russian bots
In January 2018, Republican Representative Devin Nunes submitted a memo to the United States Congressional Intelligence Committee. It details the abuses committed by the FBI, on the basis of the “Steele dossier”, to obtain a FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) warrant against Trump and his entourage. A note whose content is “fully confirmed by the report of the Inspector General of the Department of Justice, Michael Horowitz in December 2019”, precise Matt Taibbi.
The hashtag #ReleaseTheMemo (Unveil the note, Ed) is launched on January 19 on Twitter to request the publication of the note accusing the FBI.
In the aftermath, elected Democrats, Dianne Feinstein and Adam Schiff, publish an open letter, addressed to Jack Dorsey and Mark Zuckerberg, in which they say that the #ReleaseTheMemo campaign “would have obtained immediate attention and help on social networks. from accounts linked to Russian influences”. In their view, Devin Nunes’ note “misrepresented” classified information. Another Democratic senator, Richard Blumenthal, denounced in a second letter to Jack Dorsey the “reprehensible fact that Russian agents manipulated innocent Americans”.
Matt Taibbi explains that the source of these three elected Democrats and the media is the Hamilton 68 Dashboard, a data analysis platform created by Clint Watts, ex-FBI employee, under the aegis of the Alliance for Securing Democracy ( ASD), a young organization created after RussiaGate. This entity, which led to the conclusions that Russian bots were behind the hashtag #ReleaseTheMemo, remains vague on its means of investigation. And “no one checks their findings with Twitter”, note the journalist.
Emily Horne, one of Twitter’s chief communications officers, invites her teams to be skeptical. According to her, there is no indication that Russian bots are influencing the #ReleaseTheMemo campaign. She speaks of a “coup de com” from the ASD, which does not have access to internal Twitter data, and can hardly say anything about the origin of the accounts. “If the ASD does not fact check with us, we should feel free to rectify the conclusions of their work,” agrees another Twitter employee, Carlos Monje.
Roth Yoel, head of the moderation team, takes over and explains to his colleagues that he reviewed the accounts that wrote the first 50 tweets with the hashtag #ReleaseTheMemo: “None of them show signs of affiliation with Russia. We investigated and found that participation in this hashtag came mostly from Very Important Tweeters, including WikiLeaks and Republican Rep. Steve King.”
18.“We investigated, found that engagement as overwhelmingly organic, and driven by VITs” – Very Important Tweeters, including Wikileaks and congressman Steve King. pic.twitter.com/Q7Z9DrPWOR
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) January 12, 2023
The same team at Twitter is reaching out to Senator Dianne Feinstein’s staff. One of his collaborators admits that “it would be useful to know how Hamilton 68 arrived at its conclusions”. Twitter is also contacting a collaborator of Senator Richard Blumenthal to warn him that the social network’s internal investigations do not demonstrate the existence of any Russian bot. “It may be worth warning Blumenthal’s staff that it’s in his boss’ interest that he shouldn’t continue down this path, because it might make him look stupid,” said a member of the team. Twitter.
Matt Taibbi reports that Connecticut Senator Richard Blumenthal preferred to drag Twitter into an “endless circle” of queries about possible Russian influences, never agreeing to “real and nuanced solutions.” “He just wants to get credit for putting pressure on us,” Carlos Monje still believes.
“Greedy dishonesty of politicians and journalists”
But despite their belief that they did not have to deal with Russian bots, “Twitter continued to follow a slavish pattern and not challenge claims of Russian involvement,” the journalist explains in his thread. The warnings to Democratic politicians will not have dissuaded them from publishing their letters, nor the media like AP, Politico, NBC or Rolling Stone, from “hammering” the story of the Russian bots.
a result, reporters from the AP to Politico to NBC to Rolling Stone continued to hammer the “Russian bots” theme, despite a total lack of evidence. pic.twitter.com/4oPFHjJ4Rh
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) January 12, 2023
The Russians weren’t just blamed for the #ReleaseTheMemo campaign. The hashtags #SchumerShutdown, #ParklandShooting and #GunControlNow have also been accused of being subjected to Russian influences, when internally, Twitter knew that was not the case.
Finally, Matt Taibbi explains that he unsuccessfully asked the three Democratic politicians to comment on his revelations. Devin Nunes, author of the memo to Congress, drives the point home: “By propagating the lie of Russian collusion, they have created one of the greatest collective hallucinations in American history.” The Russiagate scandal was built on the greedy dishonesty of politicians and journalists”, finally laments Matt Taibbi.
Many elected Democrats demanded the continuation of the investigations, putting pressure on Twitter, forcing it to set up a “task force”. Investigations again proved fruitless, as revealed in part 11 of the Twitter Files.
Possible Russian interference in Trump’s election has also been formally investigated by Congress. In March 2019, the investigation concluded that there was no evidence of collaboration between Donald Trump’s team and Russia.