So here’s the “bombshell” as I understand it. Please tell me what I’m missing and what we’ve actually learned with the Twitter email releases which is new. I’m not seeing much.

So in 2020 the FBI caught wind of a potential Russian social media misinformation campaign and wanted to avoid a repeat of 2016 so warned several major platforms to keep them from being played the way they had been the first time around. The FBI provided no specifics and certainly made no mention of Hunter Biden.

A few days later the right wing tabloid, known for posting crap they don’t bother to verify when it suits their agenda, broke the Hunter Biden laptop story – revealing basically that H. Biden is a B.S. artist who convinced a Ukrainian corporation that by paying him a large salary they would be buying influence with then VP Biden. For this, they got a five minute conversation in an airport. The NY Post falsely reported that VP Biden had lobbied to get the Ukrainian prosecutor fired because of an investigation involving his son and his company (the prosecutor had actually ended the investigation, which had pertained to the company prior to H. Biden’s involvement, and when VP Biden and some European leaders got the corrupt prosecutor fired, there was actually a chance that the new prosecutor would reopen the investigation – which he sort of did and came to the same conclusions as the first prosecutor).

Executives at Twitter assumed that the tabloid’s story was based on the warned about misinformation or a Russian hack job and based upon its policy regarding hacked materials, suppressed posts about it. The suppression lasted for a few days before caving to pressure to forego censorship without more information – including pressure from the very liberal Congressman Ro Khanna (so far the only pubic official doxed by the story, and he did exactly the opposite of what Democrats are accused of doing – arguing the First Amendment “principles”, though the Amendment doesn’t apply to a private entity as a matter of law).

Ro Khanna may possibly become the Bernie’s heir as leader of the Democratic left, and I agree with his statement: “A journalist should not be held accountable for the illegal actions of the source unless they actively aided the hack. So to restrict the distribution of that material, especially regarding a Presidential candidate, seems not in the keeping of the principles of NYT v Sullivan.”

His protest against the Twitter policy is really the only meaningful revelation I’m finding in the story. I liked him before. I like him even more now.

The most notable suppression was of Kayleigh McEnany’s account when it was suspended for a day under the policy. This actually drew more attention to the laptop story as I remember. The whole policy lasted about three days, from October 14 to 17.

Despite Musk’s promise of providing evidence that Twitter acted “under orders from the Government” (which was being run by Trump at the time – I guess he forgot that), no evidence has been produced so far, and Matt Taibbi says there isn’t any. Musk is whining about the shoulder-shrugging of the media treating it like a “nothingburger” (Musk’s term) and even the NY Post is referring to the dump as “a dud.” Meanwhile, Twitter employees across the board are really angry that Musk and Taibbi felt it necessary to reveal names (who will now be threatened by crazies) as well as private email addresses.

However, Trump thinks this is all evidence that the election was stolen and is calling for the election to be overturned pending a new one, and “termination” of all rules, regulations, etc., “even those found in the Constitution.” And Republicans are silent about that even as they’re feeling let down by Musk.

Am I missing anything?

For the record, Twitter ought to have consulted the FBI as to whether the Post story about the laptop was part of the misinformation campaign they were anticipating, and should not have drawn conclusions about the story even knowing the unreliability of the source. It was an overreaction. But did it have any impact on the election? Only to the extent that the NY Post’s lying innuendo about the Ukrainian prosecutor and Biden’s involvement in his firing might have misled voters the same way Comey’s last minute statement did. We all knew abou the laptop then, and we know about it today. And we’ll be hearing about it ad nauseum for the next two years.

Meanwhile, give Ro Khanna his due!