FBI shielding records of conversations with Twitter over election ‘misinformation’

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EXCLUSIVE The FBI is blocking the release of records of officials privately “advising” Twitter employees on how to thwart purported election “misinformation” on the social media platform, documents show.

Officials at the FBI repeatedly flagged alleged examples of election “misinformation” in early 2020 and late 2022 to Twitter under its then-CEO Jack Dorsey, with the platform in some cases removing accounts shortly after government outreach, according to emails published by journalist Matt Taibbi in December 2022 as part of the “Twitter Files.”

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However, the bureau has closed a sweeping records request from the Right-leaning watchdog Protect the Public’s Trust that aims to uncover more information about this apparent partnership, claiming an “unwarranted invasion of personal privacy” could exist.

“The FBI’s response to these requests is nothing short of bizarre,” Michael Chamberlain, director of Protect the Public’s Trust, told the Washington Examiner. “They twisted the substance of the requests and then asserted the right to deny acknowledging if records even exist based upon their mangled interpretation, and even though they have already admitted that the records exist.”

The bureau’s “aversion to transparency” in this situation and in others only heightens “suspicion about what the agency’s officials may have been involved in,” added Chamberlain, whose group is filing appeals on Tuesday with the FBI in an attempt to obtain the records.

Twitter’s former head of trust and safety, Yoel Roth, emailed over 150 times from January 2020 to November 2022 with officials at the FBI, according to Taibbi, who published emails providing examples of the bureau calling for accounts spreading purported “misinformation” to face repercussions. Two FBI branches, the Foreign Influence Task Force, which was founded in 2017 to fight “disinformation,” and the National Election Command Post, were in close contact with the social media company, according to Taibbi.

In one instance, the NECP sent an email in November 2022 to the FBI’s San Francisco office with a list of 25 accounts that were allegedly promulgating “misinformation” and asked for the office to engage in “coordination” with Twitter to see if they violated the “terms of service,” emails show. That same day, assistant special agent in charge Elvis Chan at the FBI’s San Francisco office wrote to the social media platform and requested to be informed if Twitter “decide to take any actions against these accounts based on our tipper to you,” according to emails.

Two days later, on Nov. 8, 2022, then-global Twitter threat intelligence lead Patrick Conlon, a former Defense Department analyst, emailed Chan and Roth with information about how it suspended some of the accounts or removed certain tweets for “civic misinformation policy violations,” emails show.

This exchange, and others like it, led Protect the Public’s Trust to launch a sweeping Freedom of Information Act request investigation in March.

The watchdog is seeking communications from Jan. 1, 2020, to Nov. 30. 2022, between Twitter employees with Conlon, ex-Twitter general counsel Stacia Cardille, and other employees with the NECP. Cardille notably emailed then-Twitter deputy general counsel and former FBI lawyer Jim Baker in September 2020 to outline how she was participating in recurring meetings with the FBI, Justice Department, Department of Homeland Security, Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and “industry peers on election threats,” Taibbi reported.

On March 27, the FBI told Protect the Public’s Trust that the bureau “will neither confirm nor deny the existence” of the records, claiming various exemptions, including those related to “law enforcement records or information” that “could reasonably be expected to interfere with enforcement proceedings,” documents show.

“The mere acknowledgment of the existence of FBI records on third-party individuals could reasonably be expected to constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy,” the FBI, which dubbed the request “closed,” told the watchdog group in sets of documents.

Now, the watchdog is going on the offensive, accusing the FBI of seeking “to avoid transparency” while filing appeals on Tuesday that cite “tremendous public interest in knowing how the FBI interacted with Twitter, particularly with respect to suppressing speech by American citizens.

“There is no substantial privacy interest in the entirety of the requested records,” Protect the Public’s Trust wrote in one appeal regarding a rejected request for communications records between Roth and employees at the Foreign Influence Task Force.

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The records requested by the watchdog could provide a more comprehensive window into the FBI’s communications with Twitter before Elon Musk became CEO, as Republican lawmakers continue to raise concerns over the purported “politicization” of federal agencies. Taibbi testified on March 9 before the GOP-led House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government in connection to various “Twitter Files” findings.

The FBI did not return a request for comment.

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