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Culture War Roundup for the week of November 28, 2022

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Via information from Twitter's Archives, Elon has released what he calls "THE TWITTER FILES" part one, via journalist Matt Taibbi.

And uh...

it's nothing?

So we learn the following events that I highlight because they seem important to me. If you believe I have omitted an important fact from the thread, feel free to point it out.

  1. There were ways for VIPs to report tweets to twitter staff in a way the average person couldn't. As an aside, all of the tweets in that image were nude images of Hunter Biden - not anything about the laptop story, or corruption exactly, just nudes of Hunter Biden, which are arguably prevented by any policy on revenge porn.

  2. Both the Biden Campaign and the Trump White House used these lines of communication. It is notable that only one of Biden and Trump was President in October 2020, and it was not Biden.

  3. It was biased to Dems because more dems work at Twitter. I'm kinda missing the causation here but sure.

  4. It seems like different teams at Twitter were not on the same page about their policy.

  5. Matt Taibbi sees no evidence of any government or intelligence agency having spoken to Twitter directly about the laptop story in any fashion.

  6. Twitter internally argued some more about whether this was good or bad

  7. Ro Khanna reached out to Twitter to tell them that they shouldn't be supressing speech.

  8. Twitter asked the opinions of 9 Republican and 3 Democratic House Staffers

  9. The house Dems thought there should be more moderation, said "The first amendment isn't absolute"

  10. Dorsey often intervened on high profile suspensions

Uh, this story contains the following actions from Democratic party officials who were either in office or affiliated with the government in some fashion at the time:

  1. Ro Khanna, house rep, said they should not censor the story

  2. Some Democratic staffers said that there should be more moderation in an informal bitching session

Nevertheless, Elon and others are treating this like it was some sort of horrid crime by the Biden administration, which was not in office, and when it had exactly the same capabilities as the Trump administration, actually in office had with Twitter?

And Taibbi confirmed that the federal government, FBI, CIA, etc., did at no time, for any purpose, contact Twitter directly regarding the laptop story, or tell them what to do about it?

I'm struggling to see how this is anything other than a complete repudiation of everything that was being said about the deep state colluding with Twitter to censor the news story. It seems that mid-high level staff at Twitter made a decision that about half of the company disagreed with, and they argued about it the whole time, and nobody in the Government ever told them to censor the laptop story?

The emails make it clear the management at Twitter reflexively did not want the Hunter story to spread, and they either deluded themselves or made up the "hacked materials" excuse as a pretext to suppressing the story. In the end, the suppression likely became way bigger of a story than the story itself, to the point that even Democratic lawmakers were contacting Twitter to tell them what a boneheaded move that was.

When this story first came out, I was skeptical about the laptop in part because Rudy Guiliani was the source but since then I don't have any doubts that this was really Hunter Biden's laptop and emails. I still don't know how this was supposed to be such a smoking gun. Hunter is obviously a fuck up, and I think it's obvious that he only got executive positions because of who his father is, but the attempts to stretch this up the chain haven't really delivered so far, even an another two years after.

I still don't know how this was supposed to be such a smoking gun.

Lee Smith's analysis may be informative:

These included communications regarding a deal with a Chinese energy company that earned Hunter $5 million, and his work with Burisma, the Ukrainian energy firm that paid him $83,333 per month to sit on its board. His father later boasted in public that he’d threatened to withhold a $1 billion loan guarantee to Ukraine unless the central government in Kyiv fired the prosecutor investigating Burisma.

...

Maxey says he also saw information on the laptop that has direct implications for U.S. national security. According to Maxey, this material includes documents relating to Pentagon cyber programs and others regarding former FBI Director Louis Freeh. According to a previously released email on Hunter’s laptop, Freeh worked with him to help a Romanian tycoon evade bribery charges. In April 2016, according to an earlier trove of emails, Freeh deposited $100,000 in a trust fund for two of Joe Biden’s grandchildren.

...

While [Joe] Biden said he never spoke with his son about his business abroad, a voicemail from another recently released laptop cache shows the president was being less than forthright. He knew about his son’s business with the Chinese energy firm and one of its top officials, Patrick Ho. After The New York Times published a softball article in December 2018 about Hunter’s work with Ho and other businessmen tied to the Chinese Communist Party, Biden left a message for his son saying, “I think you’re clear.”

Of course Hunter was clear: The FBI was watching over him. The bureau knew what he was doing because it had obtained a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant in 2017 on Ho, who Hunter called the “spy chief of China.”

...

Reports like the ones the Treasury Department is now withholding formed the basis of a September 2020 Senate Republican investigation by Sens. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Chuck Grassley of Iowa that documented Hunter Biden’s business with foreign officials and companies. It included his relationship with Burisma in Ukraine; the Chinese energy company, which also gave money to the president’s brother Jim and his wife, Sara; and Elena Baturina, the widow of a former mayor of Moscow, from whom Hunter received $3.5 million.

The Washington Post also reports that Hunter organised various trade deals with 10% of his fee earmarked for "the big guy", said to be referring to Joe Biden.

I don't know how damning this information is, but it seems at least as damning as Trump's various scandals (Trump University etc.). If Joe Biden was bribed by a Romanian tycoon in order to make criminal charges against him go away, I think he could conceivably be brought up on charges of corruption and perverting the course of justice.

Thanks for that link. I was intrigued by the passage "Freeh worked with [Hunter] to help a Romanian tycoon evade bribery charges". It links to a NY post story with more details. Describing Louis Freeh as "former FBI Director" seems a bit misleading in this context, because at the time that he talked to Hunter he was a partner in a law firm, not a government official. It's (unfortunately) common for government officials to cash in on the contacts they made to pivot into a lucrative private practice, and in my ideal world that wouldn't happen. But I read the email between Freeh and Hunter as just a referral in the form of "hey I have a client that could use legal representation with criminal charges he's facing", and I don't see anything wrong with that. The fact that Freeh gave $100k to Biden's grandkids shows just how much these people can rake in the cash, but referral fees are neither illegal nor necessarily unethical (I once referred a client to another attorney that was probably worth $1000 and the attorney sent me a $20 amazon gift card which was kind of funny).

It's obvious Freeh made a "donation" in 2017 hoping he could convince Joe Biden to get him more client referrals. That's definitely slimey, but I don't see where you claim that Joe Biden was "bribed" by a Romanian tycoon to make charges go away. The follow-up NYpost story says there was no evidence Joe Biden ever followed up with Freeh (probably because Joe Biden was planning to be president rather than a consultant or whatever).

The Washington Post also reports that Hunter organised various trade deals with 10% of his fee earmarked for "the big guy", said to be referring to Joe Biden.

I'm confused, did you read your own link?

James Gilliar, a business associate summarizing the allocation of the equity in Oneida Holdings LLC., in the email, wrote how four partners would get 20 percent each, except for Jim Biden, who would get 10 percent. He added a question: “10 held by H for the big guy?” One of the recipients of the mail, Anthony Bobulinski, has said that the “big guy” referred to Joe Biden and that “H” referred to Hunter. Bobulinski was a guest of Trump at one of the 2020 presidential debates.

But Gilliar told the Wall Street Journal in 2020: “I would like to clear up any speculation that former Vice President Biden was involved with the 2017 discussions about our potential business structure. I am unaware of any involvement at anytime of the former vice president. The activity in question never delivered any project revenue.”

Three days after the email was sent, a draft agreement setting up Oneida was circulated. It shows each partner would receive 20 percent, including Jim Biden. No mention is made of Joe Biden. The company agreement signed on May 22, 2017, had the same allocation. Oneida was to hold 50 percent of another corporate entity called SinoHawk. Neither Gilliar nor James Biden responded to requests for comment.

The Wall Street Journal said that it had reviewed corporate records and found no role for Joe Biden. The Washington Post, in an extensive report on the CEFC dealings, also did not find evidence that Joe Biden personally benefited from or knew details about the transactions with CEFC. The Biden campaign at the time denied he had any role.

So one guy involved in the deal claims that there was 10% of the CEFC venture set aside for Joe Biden, but another guy involved in the deal denies that, a draft agreement doesn't mention Joe Biden, the final agreement doesn't mention Joe Biden, and both WSJ and WaPo examined CEFC and saw no involvement or benefit to Joe Biden. The weight of the evidence here seems very one-sided to me.

I don't see where you claim that Joe Biden was "bribed" by a Romanian tycoon to make charges go away.

The fact that the tycoon in question made a $100k donation to Biden's family after the fact looks suspiciously like a bribe to me, even if it's technically on the level. Point taken that Smith was being a little misleading in his characterisation.

I'm aware that Joe Biden wasn't mentioned in the final agreement. I remember reading an article at some point in the last year or two which claimed that Joe Biden's 10% would come from Hunter's share "under the table", but I haven't been able to track the article in question down.

The fact that the tycoon in question made a $100k donation to Biden's family after the fact looks suspiciously like a bribe to me, even if it's technically on the level.

Maybe I'm missing something, but where is this mentioned? The $100k "donation" came from Freeh. I didn't see anything about the Romanian tycoon giving money.

Now I feel embarrassed, you're dead right, I misread that passage.

Nothing to be embarrassed about, it happens :)