The latest drop of the Twitter Files shows California Democrat Rep. Adam Schiff attempting to have journalist Paul Sperry "removed" from Twitter after a report by Sperry for RealClearInvestigations named the purported “whistleblower” behind President Donald Trump’s first impeachment.
Schiff, who served as a House manager in Trump's impeachment hearings, not only wanted Sperry suspended from Twitter, but called on the platform to have “any and all content” related to House Intelligence Committee staffers removed from the site, according to the latest document dump authorized by new Twitter CEO Elon Musk.
In the Jan. 22, 2020 article, Sperry reported that the whistleblower, then-CIA analyst Eric Ciaramella, was overheard talking in the White House with Sean Misko, a holdover staffer from the Obama administration.
A former official who reportedly heard the conversation told Sperry, “Just days after [Trump] was sworn in they were already trying to get rid of him.”
Misko would later join the staff of the House Intelligence Committee, which Schiff chaired, Sperry reported.
A Nov. 12, 2020 email shows that Schiff’s office asked Twitter to take five specific steps that an unidentified company employee said were “related to alleged harassment from QAnon conspiracists.”
They included, “Remove any and all content about Mr. Misko and other Committee staff from its service — to include quotes, retweets, and reactions to that content.”
In response, another unidentified Twitter employee wrote, “no, this isn’t feasible/we don’t do that.”
Schiff’s office also asked for suspension of “the many accounts, including @GregRubini and @paulsperry_, which have repeatedly promoted false QAnon conspiracies and harassed” someone whose name is blacked out.
The Twitter employee responded to that by writing, “we’ll review these accounts again but I believe [name blacked out] mentioned only one actually qualified for suspension.”
In an email Tuesday, Sperry told the New York Post, “I have never promoted any ‘QAnon conspiracies.’ Ever. Not on Twitter. Not anywhere.”
“Schiff was just angry I outed his impeachment whistleblower and tried to get me banned,” he said. “I challenge Schiff to produce evidence to back up his defamatory remarks to Twitter.”
Sperry added, “This is a scurrilous smear, but par for the course for the unscrupulous Chairman Schiff.”
Independent journalist Matt Taibbi, who posted Tuesday's drop of the Twitter Files, called it an example of the “astonishing variety of requests from officials asking for individuals they didn’t like to be banned.”
Tuesday's document dump also revealed that the State Department had flagged the Twitter account of the ZeroHedge website.
In the early days of the Covid pandemic, the State Department's Global Engagement Center (GEC) was flagging accounts which suggested the virus was a bioweapon, and those who blamed the Wuhan Institute of Virology for leaking the virus.
As Taibbi further notes, the State Department also flagged accounts that retweeted ZeroHedge due to "Sinophobia" and a "flurry of disinformation" that allegedly broke out after ZeroHedge's suspension on Twitter.
"But hey, they had a giant problem on their hands, since even those with double-digit IQs could connect the dots between the Obama administration banning Gain-of-Function research to manipulate bat coronaviruses in order to become more transmissible to humans, then Anthony Fauci offshoring it to Wuhan, China via EcoHealth Alliance, which was carried out by a guy who repeatedly bragged about... manipulating bat coronavirus, and then COVID-19 breaks out in the same exact town," ZeroHedge noted on Wednesday.
1.THREAD: The Twitter Files How Twitter Let the Intelligence Community In
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) January 3, 2023
Action . . . . Intelligence . . . . Publish
