New Twitter files bombshell reveals congressional influence on 'RUSSIAGATE LIES'
By victort1 // 2023-01-16
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A new installment of the “Twitter Files” series indicates that even as Democrats were claiming in public that pushback against the Russiagate probe was coming out of Russia, Twitter was telling them something different. (Article by Jack Davis republished from WesternJournal.com) Allegations that the 2016 campaign of former President Donald Trump was in some form colluding with Russia have long been discredited. However, from 2017 through the spring of 2019, when the Mueller Report pulverized the claims, these allegations were a long-running subplot in American politics that at times overshadowed the Trump administration. Called “The Russiagate Lies” this installment goes into exhaustive detail about Twitter’s effort to find a Russia connection to support Democratic claims that anything not condemning Trump was being put forward by Russian interests. Journalist Matt Taibbi summed up the issue by writing, “at a crucial moment in a years-long furor, Democrats denounced a report about flaws in the Trump-Russia investigation, saying it was boosted by Russian ‘bots’ and ‘trolls.'” “Twitter officials were aghast, finding no evidence of Russian influence,” he wrote, adding that “Twitter warned politicians and media [they] not only lacked evidence but had evidence the accounts weren’t Russian – and were roundly ignored.” The files show Twitter tried to warn Democrats including Rep. Adam Schiff of California and Sens. Dianne Feinstein of California and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut. But Schiff and Feinstein instead went public with the specter of “Russian influence operations.” Blumenthal wrote, ‘We find it reprehensible that Russian agents have so eagerly manipulated innocent Americans,’” Taibbi wrote. In the meantime, and long before the American public was certain whom to believe, Twitter drilled down to find that a common source was linked to many claims, and there was not a lot of detail about where its information came from, to the extent that a Twitter executive calls the rush to judgment “a comms play.” The files make it clear that Twitter did try to tell Democrats including Blumenthal that they were wrong. However, rather than go public that the claims being cited were wrong, Twitter kept silent. “Despite universal internal conviction that there were no Russians in the story, Twitter went on to follow a slavish pattern of not challenging Russia claims on the record,” Taibbi wrote, later adding, “As 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.” At the end of the tangled tale, Taibii summed up his opinion of the scandal that was hollow from the start. “The Russiagate scandal was built on the craven dishonesty of politicians and reporters, who for years ignored the absence of data to fictional scare headlines,” he wrote. Read more at: WesternJournal.com
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