Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff and his Senate co-religionists Dianne Feinstein and Richard Blumenthal ignored Twitter reports denying the involvement of Russian bots or the Kremlin on behalf of Donald Trump in the 2016 campaign and continued to spread their theory of Russia gate. In the 14th installment of Twitter Files, journalist Matt Taibbi posted the letters that the social network executives sent to congressmen and their staffs, in which they ask them to stop making false claims.
In the midst of the controversy over alleged interference by Russian bots and trolls in favor of Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign, several Democratic congressmen called on Twitter to conduct an investigation to confirm these suspicions. In a response letter, sent to Schiff and Feinstein, Twitter reports the results of its investigation: "Our initial investigation, based on available data, has not identified any significant activity connected to Russia" concerning the #ReleaseTheMemo hashtag.
3.Twitter officials were aghast, finding no evidence of Russian influence:
“We are feeding congressional trolls.”
“Not any…significant activity connected to Russia.”
“Putting the cart before the horse assuming this is propaganda/bots.” pic.twitter.com/r8O21QacME— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) January 12, 2023
"Feeding congressional trolls"
The executives were "aghast" and said that they were "feeding congressional trolls." In the emails, Twitter officials also criticized that Democrats were putting "the cart before the horse assuming this is propaganda/bots," and asks them to "understand the facts before jumping ahead to addressing how to remedy it."
Amidst the storm of accusations of Trump and the Kremlin from the political, media and activist left, then-Republican congressman Devin Nunes "submitted a classified memo to the House Intel Committee detailing the abuses by the FBI in obtaining FISA surveillance authority against Trump-connected figures, including the crucial role played by the infamous 'Steele Dossier.'" That was January 18, 2021.
5.On January 18th, 2018, Republican Devin Nunes submitted a classified memo to the House Intel Committee detailing abuses by the FBI in obtaining FISA surveillance authority against Trump-connected figures, including the crucial role played by the infamous “Steele Dossier”: pic.twitter.com/uhl7TXYsBC
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) January 12, 2023
"Russian agents" manipulated "innocent Americans" on Twitter
Despite the fact that the veracity of all the claims made in the report were verified in a report by DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz in December 2019, the national press criticized and mocked Nunes' post, even calling it a "joke." In addition, a few days later Schiff and Feinstein published an open letter insisting on the involvement of Russian bots. In the letter, both congressmen accused Nunes of "distorting" classified information, although they were careful not to deny the information.
This is when Democratic Senator Blumenthal chose to post a new message in which he joins the theories of his co-religionists and says that "We find it reprehensible that Russian agents have so eagerly manipulated innocent Americans." The origin of the theories of the three congressmen can be found, according to Taibbi, in "the Hamilton 68 dashboard - a website that followed Russian propaganda campaigns in real time - created byformer FBI counterintelligence official Clint Watts, under the auspices of the Alliance for Securing Democracy (ASD)."
12.The dashboard, which featured a crude picture of Vladimir Putin deviously blowing evil red Twitter birds into the atmosphere, was vague in how it reached its conclusions. pic.twitter.com/bSrfMfSVi6
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) January 12, 2023
Twitter says that they did not check the information with them
Twitter executives say that the senators gave absolute credibility was given to this source without even checking the information with them. The head of Trust and Safety himself, Yoel Roth said that "all the swirl is based on Hamilton." Carlos Monje, the vice president of Policy, went so far as to consider publishing a correction: "If the ASD is not going to check the facts with us, we should feel free to correct the information about their work." In the end, the social network adopted a "submissive" position.
Despite continued denials from the company, the democratic congressmen moved ahead with their Russia gate posts. Twitter officials took their complaints directly to Blumenthal's team, insisting that the investigations had been a significant drain on the company's resources.
25.They expressed this explicitly to Blumenthal’s camp, saying “Twitter spent a lot of resources” on this request and the reward from Blumenthal shouldn’t be round after round of requests.”
“We can’t do a user notice each time this happens.” pic.twitter.com/pcixoeYIyH
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) January 12, 2023
"One of the largest outbreaks of mass deception"
According to Taibbi, seeing the success achieved with the Russian bots hoax, Democrats and media close to them began to point out that the Kremlin was behind other hashtags such as #SchumerShutdown, #ParklandShooting, or even #GunControlNow.
The only one of the leaders of the thread who wanted to analyze the information revealed was Nunes. The former congressman claimed that "Schiff and the Democrats falsely claimed the Russians were behind the Release the Memo hashtag, all of my research work.... By spreading the Russia collusion hoax, they instigated one of the largest outbreaks of mass deception in U.S. history."
