Ratcliffe Says Only One Reason Why Official From Top Spy Office Met With Twitter | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's Note: This post appears here courtesy of the The Daily Wire. The author of this post is Daniel Chaitin.

    No one in the U.S. intelligence community had authorization to claim the Hunter Biden laptop story was part of a Russian disinformation plot, a top official from the Trump administration said on Sunday.

    In an interview in which he discussed "The Twitter Files," former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe insisted there was only one reason why a member of his office would be in contact with Twitter in the run-up to the 2020 presidential election as described in the messages.

    Such a meeting would need approval from former President Donald Trump's National Security Council and would be part of a "coordinated process" to provide election security briefings to "groups" of private companies or state election officials, Ratcliffe told host Maria Bartiromo on Fox News's "Sunday Morning Futures."

    "None of those meetings, Maria, would have had anything to do with content moderation, much less anything to do with specifically" any warnings about the Hunter Biden laptop being part of a Russian disinformation effort, he said. "There never would have been any authority or reason for anyone within the intelligence community to be saying anything otherwise."

    Ratcliffe is a former Republican congressman from Texas who Trump picked to take over the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) in 2020. In that role, Ratcliffe oversaw the agencies of the intelligence community. This includes the FBI and Homeland Security Department, agencies that, along with DNI, met with Twitter about "election security," according to a post revealed by journalist Matt Taibbi.

    Reporting about the laptop started in October 2020, during the final weeks of the presidential election cycle when Hunter's father, Joe Biden, was running for the White House. Much of the laptop's contents, which included details about Hunter's business dealings, drug use, and sex life, have since been analyzed and shown to be authentic. But at the time of the laptop's emergence, social media companies, including Twitter, took steps to temporarily suppress the spread of the story, leading to claims of improper election influence by former President Donald Trump and his allies.

    Ratcliffe said his assertion back in October 2020 that the laptop was not part of a Russian disinformation campaign, as suggested in a letter signed by 51 former intelligence officials, was "the official position of the intelligence community" and "has never been changed, even to this day."

    Republicans in Congress are gearing up for a Hunter Biden investigation with control of the House next year. Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), who is positioned to become House speaker, said Republicans would subpoena the dozens of intelligence veterans who signed onto the letter warning the laptop story "has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation."

    Decrying what he labeled a "domestic disinformation campaign," Ratcliffe said one line of inquiry that needs to be pursued relates to former top FBI lawyer James Baker, who as Twitter's deputy general counsel, appeared to support the social media site's move to suppress the New York Post's reporting on Hunter Biden's laptop. This disclosure in The Twitter Files led Twitter CEO Elon Musk to fire Baker.

    "One of the things that needs to be determined is what was [Baker's] relationship with Twitter before he got to Twitter, and was he sharing information as the FBI general counsel to the benefit of one political party, to the detriment of another, that then continued when he got to Twitter?" Ratcliffe said.

poll#128

Where do you stand on the wanton censorship by Big Tech Platforms, while retaining their Section 230 carveout indemnifying them for Slander /Defamation lawsuits and Copyright infringements?

  Big Tech Platforms have the right to Censor all speech providing they voluntarily relinquish their Section 230 Carveout.

  Big Tech Platforms DO NOT have the right to Censor any speech, while retaining multiple indemnifications by virtue of the Section 230 Carveout.

  I know nothing of this 230 talk, but "I do love me some social media".

476 total vote(s)     What's your Opinion?

poll#169

Considering how abjectly corrupt and civilly abusive the Left has become regarding the corrosive effect of their elected leaders; their entrenched and ruling bureaucracy; employing their failed Education Industry as Indoctrinators; their collusive private sector operators, such as the terminally discredited Legacy Media and Big Tech censorship of Free Speech: What will be the best course forward for hardworking Middle Americans, including the Patriot Class?

  Withdraw from society, go underground and plan for a resurgence when it is feasible to do so.

  Work within the confines of better policy by the People's government, once good sense and sanity is restored in the electorate at large, to achieve such.

  Are you a crazy, nut-job Insurrectionist? Everything is perfect within our plan to achieve our intended goals for the Socialist Left.

  Secession to form a true Constitutional Republic.

437 total vote(s)     What's your Opinion?