Elon Musk has fired the former FBI general counsel who, in the same position for Twitter, helped suppress the Hunter Biden laptop story.
Matt Taibbi, who disclosed the Twitter Files last week, says Baker was “vetting” those files, which delayed Taibbi’s filing a second report on Twitter’s wide-ranging pro-Biden censorship operation.
Even more curiously, Baker played a key role in the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign’s Trump-Russia Collusion Hoax. He was a conduit for the false charge that Trump had a nefarious connection to the Kremlin. That falsehood, conceived by the Clinton Mafia, was the focus of Democratic and leftist media attacks on Trump for four years.
In other words, hate-Trump Twitter hired as its chief attorney a former FBI man involved in the biggest political scandal since Watergate.
Vetting Files
Taibbi delivered the latest on the Twitter Files in another long thread.
“On Friday, the first installment of the Twitter files was published here. We expected to publish more over the weekend,” he began. “Many wondered why there was a delay.”
We needn’t wonder anymore.
We can now tell you part of the reason why. On Tuesday, Twitter Deputy General Counsel (and former FBI General Counsel) Jim Baker was fired. Among the reasons? Vetting the first batch of “Twitter Files” — without knowledge of new management.
The process for producing the “Twitter Files” involved delivery to two journalists (Bari Weiss and me) via a lawyer close to new management. However, after the initial batch, things became complicated.
Over the weekend, while we both dealt with obstacles to new searches, it was @BariWeiss who discovered that the person in charge of releasing the files was someone named Jim. When she called to ask “Jim’s” last name, the answer came back: “Jim Baker.”
“Baker is a controversial figure,” the thread continued:
He has been something of a Zelig of FBI controversies dating back to 2016, from the Steele Dossier to the Alfa-Server mess. He resigned in 2018 after an investigation into leaks to the press.
The news that Baker was reviewing the “Twitter files” surprised everyone involved, to say the least. New Twitter chief Elon Musk acted quickly to “exit” Baker Tuesday.
Thus did Musk fire Baker.
“In light of concerns about Baker’s possible role in suppression of information important to the public dialogue, he was exited from Twitter today,” Musk tweeted.
As Taibbi disclosed last week, Baker played a key role in suppressing the laptop story.
That suppression, as the Twitter Files released last week show, required pressing the false claim that the laptop and its contents violated Twitter’s “hacked materials” policy that prohibits publishing stolen information on the site.
Baker backed those who wanted to claim the laptop and its damaging information were hacked, despite the obvious truth that they weren’t.
“I support the conclusion that we need more facts to assess whether the materials were hacked,” Baker wrote:
At this stage, however, it is reasonable for us to assume that they may have been and that caution is warranted. There are some facts that indicate that the materials may have been hacked, while there are others indicating the computer was either abandoned and/or the owner consented to allow the repair shop to access it for at least some purposes. We simply need more information.
Who Is James Baker?
Given Twitter’s unalloyed hatred of Trump, the platform’s hiring Baker from the FBI is not surprising. That’s because Baker was involved in the Russia Collusion Hoax, as the perjury case against Hillary Clinton legman Michael Sussmann revealed.
Special Counsel John Durham charged Sussmann with perjury for lying to the FBI, through Baker, about his connection to the Clinton campaign. A jury acquitted the slippery Sussmann — who told Baker that Trump was connected to Russia — despite what surfaced during testimony.
Baker was Sussmann’s go-to contact at the bureau.
“Jim — it’s Michael Sussmann,” Sussmann texted Baker on September 18, 2016:
I have something time-sensitive (and sensitive) I need to discuss. Do you have availibilty [sic] for a short meeting tomorrow? I’m coming on my own — not on behalf of a client or company — want to help the Bureau. Thanks.
Baker agreed to a meeting.
Sussmann’s claim that he wasn’t working for the Clinton campaign, despite extensive billing records that proved the opposite, invited Durham’s perjury charge.
But Twitter wasn’t the only hate-Trump outfit interested in hiring Baker. As law professor and columnist Jonathan Turley observed, “he was also hired by Brookings Institution, which also has a curious [Kevin] Bacon-like role in the origins and development of the false Russian collusion allegations.”
“None of these means that Baker was the driving force of the scandals,” Turley wrote:
To the contrary, Baker earned his bones in Washington as a facilitator, a reliable ally when it came to the business of the Beltway. It is hardly a surprise that Baker found a home at Twitter where “caution” was always “warranted” in dealing with potentially damaging stories for Democratic interests.
True enough. But the revelations about Baker do show, again, that he played a key role in suppressing the Hunter Biden laptop story, and that he blocked full disclosure of the files that Elon Musk wanted revealed.
