A former official at the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) who joined social media company Twitter has been terminated following the discovery of his attempt to block files set for release by Twitter CEO Elon Musk.
James Baker, deputy general counsel for Twitter and former FBI general counsel, was shown the door on Dec. 6. Musk himself confirmed the counsel’s firing in a tweet, writing: “In light of concerns about Baker’s possible role in suppression of information important to the public dialogue, he was exited from Twitter.”
Investigative journalist Matt Taibbi, who reported the initial “Twitter Files” release on Dec. 2, revealed that Baker was “vetting” the internal documents. He also divulged that the former FBI counsel was delaying the release of a second batch of files to him and fellow investigative journalist Bari Weiss.
“The news that Baker was reviewing the ‘Twitter Files’ surprised everyone involved, to say the least,” Taibbi wrote on Dec. 6. “Reporters resumed searchers through Twitter Files material – a lot of it – today,” he added. Taibbi reassured that the “next installment” of Musk’s revelations will appear in the near future.
The files released by Musk document Twitter’s censorship of evidence exposing the corruption of the Biden crime family, specifically President Joe Biden and his son Hunter. Central to this evidence is a story of the New York Post, which revealed the multi-million-dollar deals Hunter inked with Eastern European oligarchs and Chinese entrepreneurs with links to the Chinese Communist Party.
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) earlier recounted a sequence of events that led to Twitter hiring Baker.
“FBI [Assistant Special] Agent Timothy Thibault tried to shut down an avenue of the Hunter Biden investigation. Then, Twitter hires Baker, who helps give the company an excuse to suppress the story. Coordination?” (Related: Ben Armstrong: FBI colluded with Twitter to censor users over Hunter Biden laptop, 2020 elections.)
Baker linked to the now-debunked Steele dossier
Prior to joining Twitter in June 2020, Baker had been the alleged source of the story that revealed the existence of the now-debunked Steele dossier that maligned former President Donald Trump.
According to a December 2017 story by POLITICO, Baker “communicated with Mother Jones reporter David Corn in the weeks leading up to the November 2016 election.” The report added that Corn was the first to report the existence of the dossier on Oct. 31, and that the report was compiled by a former high-level Western spy.
The reporter for the leftist publication referenced “a senior U.S. government official not involved with the case, but familiar with the former spy.” That official vouched for Christopher Steele, the author of the eponymous dossier, describing the former MI6 agent as “a credible source with a proven record of providing reliable, sensitive, and important information to the U.S. government.”
Corn quickly denied that the FBI general counsel was his source for the story.
“I’m not going to discuss my sources,” he told POLITICO in a statement at the time. “But in order to prevent the dissemination of inaccurate information, I will say that James Baker was not my source for this story.”
According to Taibbi’s report on the Twitter Files, Baker may have directly coordinated with executives of the social media site to suppress the Post‘s compromising story on Hunter Biden. He mentioned that then-Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey was left out of the loop in the decision to censor the Post.
Taibbi further revealed that Vijaya Gadde – former Twitter head of legal, policy and trust – spearheaded the effort to censor the Post‘s stories. She had also been previously responsible for decisions to permanently ban conservatives from the platform and had opposed Musk’s takeover of the website.
Musk fired Gadde as soon as he assumed leadership of the Big Tech company. She was not the only executive to suffer that fate, as Musk also fired Dorsey’s successor Parag Agrawal.
FBICorruption.news has more stories about corrupt FBI officials.
Watch Fox News host Tucker Carlson weighs in on the Twitter Files below.
Source: Elon Musk fires former FBI counsel James Baker for blocking release of “Twitter Files”