Last Friday, investigative journalist Matt Taibbi released what was only the first round of the "Twitter Files," showing the great lengths that the employees of the social media platform went through to suppress The New York Post's coverage from October 2020 of Hunter Biden's shady business deals, and how it involved his father, now President Joe Biden. While round two was promised soon after, these tweets have yet to materialize. On Tuesday, however, Taibbi released another thread providing an update on what he refers to as "Twitter Files Supplemental."
On Friday, the first installment of the Twitter files was published here. We expected to publish more over the weekend. Many wondered why there was a delay.
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 6, 2022
The process for producing the “Twitter Files” involved delivery to two journalists (Bari Weiss and me) via a lawyer close to new management. However, after the initial batch, things became complicated.
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 6, 2022
“My jaw hit the floor,” says Weiss.
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 6, 2022
Baker is a controversial figure. He has been something of a Zelig of FBI controversies dating back to 2016, from the Steele Dossier to the Alfa-Server mess. He resigned in 2018 after an investigation into leaks to the press.
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 6, 2022
Reporters resumed searches through Twitter Files material – a lot of it – today. The next installment of “The Twitter Files” will appear @bariweiss. Stay tuned.
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 6, 2022
Reporters resumed searches through Twitter Files material – a lot of it – today. The next installment of “The Twitter Files” will appear @bariweiss. Stay tuned.
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 6, 2022
"Supplemental" is indeed a good way of categorizing the latest thread, as there now appears to be a new added layer of controversy. Despite how Elon Musk now owns Twitter, he was not made aware that James Baker, the general counsel for Twitter who was formerly with the FBI, had tried to get involved. Baker was fired by Musk, as Jeff Charles at our sister site of RedState reported earlier on Tuesday.
Bonchie, also at RedState, offers a thorough take about Baker and what Taibbi's latest thread exposes:
As Taibbi notes, the next installment of the “Twitter Files” is being led by controversial (as in she makes the right people upset) reporter Bari Weiss. Apparently, while she was working on her part of the effort, she discovered that someone on the backend was curating what was being released. When she inquired about who it was, she discovered it was none other than James Baker.
Baker is a name many people who read RedState will likely recall. He was at the center of the Steele Dossier and was part of the FBI regime that tried to bring down Donald Trump via the “Russian collusion” hoax. Naturally, he left that post to take a high-paying job as chief counsel for Twitter because government hacks who toe the line always have a path to the private sector.
It appears that Baker was trying to mitigate the damage of the “Twitter Files” with some kind of attempted cover-up. According to Musk, his explanation wasn’t satisfactory, and that led to his ouster. With Baker gone, the release of the files should now continue unabated. I have a feeling Weiss is going to produce something really good with her research.
Taibbi's final tweet in the thread on Tuesday evening notes that fellow journalist Bari Weiss will publish them and invites users to "Stay Tuned," though no further timeline is mentioned in the thread.
Weiss herself has previewed the tweet with a quoted retweet of Taibbi, pointing out that "It's been quite a weekend."
It's been quite a weekend: https://t.co/rS7pxKHhjt
— Bari Weiss (@bariweiss) December 6, 2022
"#TwitterFiles2" and "Bari Weiss" have been trending over Twitter on Tuesday as users wait in anticipation.
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