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Hunter Biden Gets a Step Closer to Vindicating Twitter’s Takedown Decision

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Yesterday, as things moved closer to an expulsion vote for George Santos, activist “Anarchy Princess” taunted Santos staffer, Vish Burra, about whether he hacked Hunter Biden’s phone.

AP: Like the same way that you got into Hunter Biden’s stuff?

VB: [laughter]

AP: Yeah, didn’t you hack Hunter Biden’s shit, his phone or something?

VB: [turns to camera] Yeah, and I’d do it again.

Burra, who in 2020 was the producer of Steve Bannon’s podcast, has previously described “extracting” the contents of the “laptop” and took credit for hooking Bannon up with Emma-Jo Morris, who published the initial NY Post story.

Hunter Biden described Burra’s past claims in his lawsuit against Rudy Giuliani and Robert Costello for unlawfully accessing and manipulating his data.

As further evidence of Defendants’ illegal hacking of Plaintiff’s data, it recently has come to light that Defendant Giuliani apparently worked directly with Steve Bannon and Vish Burra to access, manipulate, and copy Plaintiff’s “laptop,” which Burra has dubbed the “Manhattan Project” because he and others “were essentially creating a nuclear political weapon,” referring to Burra’s work with Defendant Giuliani and others (Steve Bannon and Bernie Kerik) to manipulate the “laptop.”

But Burra has not, as far as I know, confessed to “hack[ing] Hunter Biden’s shit.”

Yesterday — whether in jest or not — he did.

Later that same day, Matt Taibbi and Michael Shellenberger had their semi-annual appearance before Jim Jordan’s Weaponizing Government committee.

At the hearing, Dan Goldman had this exchange with Shellenberger about the “Hunter Biden” “laptop:”

DG: You’ve talked about the Hunter Biden laptop, and how the FBI knew it existed. You are aware, of course, that the laptop, so to speak, was actually — that was published in the New York Post was actually a hard drive that the NY Post admitted — here! — was not authenticated as real. It was not the laptop the FBI had. You’re aware of that, right?

MS: It was the same contents.

DG: How do you know?

MS: Because it’s the same —

DG: You would have to authenticate it to know it was the same contents. You have no idea.

MS: [inaudible] conspiracy. Are you suggesting the NY Post participated in a conspiracy to construct the contents of the Hunter Biden laptop?

DG: No, sir, the problem is that hard drives can be manipulated by Rudy Giuliani or Russia.

MS: What’s the evidence that that happened?

DG: Well, there is actual evidence of it, but the point —

MS: There’s no evidence of it. You’re engaged in a conspiracy theory.

Miranda Devine (who keeps dog-whistling about Hunter Biden’s “expensive” lawyers) and the House GOP all seem to think this was a very clever exchange, as that’s the clip they all sent out to froth up the rubes.

Goldman is right: You’d need to authenticate the contents of the “laptop.” As I have shown, even the FBI had not checked whether anything was altered on the laptop they received while in John Paul Mac Isaac’s custody, ten months after receiving it. Their computer guy was still suggesting ways to do that on October 22, 2020, over a week after the NY Post story was published. At the time, Lesley Wolf — the villain of the Republican story — was in no rush to do so.

Understand, though: the critical question here is not whether the hard drive was authenticated. The question is whether it was hacked. Here’s how Vijaya Gadde described the decision to take down the original NY Post link in October 2020.

For example, on October 14th, 2020, the New York Post tweeted articles about Hunter Biden’s laptop with embedded images that look like they may have been obtained through hacking. In 2018, we had developed a policy intended to, to prevent Twitter from becoming a dumping ground for hacked materials. We applied this policy to the New York Post tweets and blocked links to the articles embedding those source materials. At no point did Twitter otherwise prevent tweeting, reporting, discussing or describing the contents of Mr. Biden’s laptop.

If the data in NY Post’s hands was hacked, then according to Twitter’s terms of service, links to it should have been taken down.

If the data in NY Post’s hands was hacked, then the takedown that Republicans claim was a violation of their speech was, in fact, adherence to Twitter’s terms of service as they existed at the time.

And Hunter Biden’s lawsuit alleges that Rudy Giuliani and Robert Costello unlawfully accessed — hacked — his data.

And yesterday, Burra — the guy who set up the tie between Bannon and the NY Post in the first place — laughingly agreed that he did hack Hunter Biden’s shit.

Now, Michael Shellenberger says there’s no evidence the data on the hard drive was altered by Burra and others. Miranda Devine says you have to take the word of the Bidens to believe that happened.

They said that the same day Burra laughingly said he would hack Hunter Biden again.

More importantly, you don’t have to go to the Bidens for evidence that the hard drive was altered. You can go to Garrett Ziegler, whom Hunter Biden has also accused of hacking his shit.

In the set of emails publicly released by Ziegler at BidenLaptopEmails dot com, there is an email from Hunter Biden’s Rosemont Seneca email account (hosted by Gmail), that was sent on September 1, 2020 ET (September 2 GMT).

It’s a resent version of an email sent in 2016 (DDOS says that a footer was also altered).

If everything John Paul Mac Isaac says is true, if everything Rudy Giuliani says is true, this “laptop” was in the custody of Rudy Giuliani (or Robert Costello, on Rudy’s behalf) on the date it was sent. Whoever resent this email — and it was sent over a year after Hunter left Burisma — it was added to the “laptop” while it was in Rudy’s custody.

I’ll leave it to the lawyers and the tech people to explain how an email set from an account hosted by Gmail was added to the hard drive from which Garrett Ziegler obtained his copy. I’ll leave it to the lawyers to argue about whether it would necessarily require unauthorized access to Hunter Biden’s Gmail or iCloud account for that email to be on the hard drive.

But it’s something that could not have been on the laptop when someone — allegedly Hunter Biden — dropped off a laptop at John Paul Mac Isaac’s shop on April 12, 2019. By all understandings of the dissemination of various hard drives — which Thomas Fine has illustrated this way — it would have been on what NY Post worked from on its October 14, 2020 story.

There’s no evidence, Michael Shellenberger said. You’re supposed to take the words of the Bidens, Miranda Devine said.

And on the same day they made those claims, Vish Burra said, of hacking Hunter Biden’s stuff, “Yeah, and I’d do it again.”

Gary Shapley’s Notes Recorded Something He Claimed Not to Know before House Ways and Means

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In his House Ways and Means Committee testimony, when Gary Shapley was first asked about the discussion of leaks in the October 7, 2022 meeting at which — he claims he understood (though his notes make it quite clear he didn’t understand what he was hearing) — David Weiss said he was not the final decision-maker for charging Hunter Biden, Shapley professed not to know what outlet published the leaked information.

Q In No. 1 on this email you prepared, says: “Discussion about the agent leak — requested the sphere stay as small as possible…DOJ IG will be notified. FBI — HQ is notified.”

What was the specific leak?

A So there was a leak, I’m not sure what outlet, on October 6th of 2022 — it appeared to come from the agent’s level, who was critical of the prosecutors for not charging the case.

Q Okay. Talking about the Hunter Biden case?

A Yes, not charging the Hunter Biden case.

So, obviously that was part of the discussion at the beginning. And there have been multiple leaks in this case going back, and this one was handled a lot differently because I guess it was purportedly from the agent’s level.

So this drastic — you know, they used that as an excuse to kind of — to do what they were doing. [my emphasis]

It was an interesting claim — not to know what outlet published the leaked information — then.

It’s a more interesting claim now that his attorneys have released hand-written notes that are, in key respects, inconsistent with the notes he emailed to his colleague later that day (which I’ll lay out in more depth shortly). Those notes make it quite clear the leak was to the WaPo.

He didn’t include that detail — that the WaPo had identified the source as Agents — in his email to his supervisor later that day.

His handwritten notes don’t describe that there will be a criminal referral of the leak, either.

It’s unclear what the last line of his notes on the leak said (“WBers,” suggesting whistleblowers?).

But the important discrepancy is that Shapley told House Ways and Means he didn’t know something he clearly had recorded in hand-written notes he chose not to share with the Committee.

And that’s not the only oddity about Shapley’s testimony about the leak.

I have already noted that while the email he wrote suggests Darrell Waldon would make a referral to TIGTA, in his Oversight testimony, Shapley claimed he had done so. That’s weird, but it’s certainly possible both referred the leak or that Shapley rushed to do it before Waldon did.

And — also at that Oversight hearing — Shapley spun wildly about whether the leak was from Agents or not, with his attorneys saying something to him both times it came up.

Goldman: So it’s pretty clear, you would agree, that this was a leak to the Washington Post by law enforcement agents since it describes what Federal agents believe, right?

Shapley: So it wasn’t actually clear to me that it was because usually they’ll say that it’s a law enforcement source that provided it, and if you see at the bottom it says they corroborated independently and they did not mention law enforcement. [Shapley’s attorney leans over to whisper to him]

Goldman: You don’t think it’s a Federal agent, agents, who leaked this when the headline says, Federal agents see chargeable tax gun purchase case against Hunter Biden? [my emphasis]

Shapley remained squirrely about whether this was a leak from an agent or not later in the same hearing.

Goldman: Gentlemen, I want to return to the Washington Post October 6 article and I’d ask unanimous consent to enter it into the record. In your testimony, Mr. Shapley, before the Ways and Means Committee, you stated, quote, there was a leak, it appeared to come from the agents level, who was critical of the prosecutors for not charging the case. What you testified earlier was a little different. Which one do you stand by today?

[pause]

Shapley: I’m sorry, could you repeat that?

Goldman, quoting: “There was a leak, it appeared to come from the agents level, who was critical of the prosecutors for not charging the case.”

Shapley: Yeah, I said it appeared, because I said it came from the agents’ level, but the source was a source familiar with the topic and it didn’t say it was a law enforcement source.

Goldman: Okay, that seems to be a distinction without a difference. And then, you understand that, obviously leaks of grand jury information is a felony, right?

Shapley: Leaking investigative information including 6103 would be a felony, yes.

Goldman: Well that’s true as well. So would you agree that there would be some skepticism from prosecutors about which of the agents may be the source of a leak?

Comer: Gentleman’s time is expired but feel free to answer the question.

Shapley: Since there have been multiple leaks in this investigation, and the one on December 8 or December 9, 2020, it appears to come from someone, as Lesley Wolf stated —

Goldman: I was just asking about October 6, 2022.

Shapley: So I

Goldman: It would cause anyone suspicion, right?

Shapley: If it says it comes from an agent level. [His attorney leans over, whispers something.]

Goldman: That’s what you said.

Comer: Gentleman’s time has expired. [my emphasis]

Shapley is really really determined to prove that his impression — that David Weiss said he didn’t have final charging authority — was accurate, but read in conjunction it’s actually clear he simply didn’t know what the fuck he was hearing and made up the most damning explanation.

But along the way, his testimony about the leak itself has acquired more and more inconsistencies.

Most importantly, before House Ways and Means he played dumb about something that he recorded in his own notes: the outlet for the leak.

The Funny Leak Denials of the So-Called IRS Whistleblowers

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In the hearing platforming the complaints of two IRS agents who are angry their case against Hunter Biden wasn’t charged as a felony, Joseph Ziegler — who had previously made a big deal of hiding his identity — was given an opportunity to deny being a source for public reporting on the Hunter Biden investigation.

In the exchange, Ziegler only denied being the source for Garrett Ziegler’s site — he was not asked, and he never denied, being a source for other media outlets.

Tim Burchett: It’s also come to my attention that today, after this hearing was already under way, apparently oppo research is circulating from, quote, Hunter Biden’s legal team, unquote, suggestions that you had leaked SARs and other investigative information to someone that had released that information online. Is there a statement that you’d like to make about whether you’ve leaked any investigative information to someone to reveal on the Internet? And I’m sure Hunter Biden’s legal team, who’s obviously watching right now, and these dirt bags are trying to smear you through the press. And it’s disgusting. And I’d appreciate hearing a direct answer from you, Brother.

Ziegler: So there’s two parts to this. There was that release of that bank report, my name was listed in there. So my name was out in the public as one of the IRS agents working this case. And that was maybe two or three years ago. So that came out. And then on top of that, me and my husband were in a report that’s out on social media, on Twitter, by a person with the same last name that I have who I’ve never met, I’ve never turned over information to, we just happen to have the same last name. Okay? I was, for my sexuality, my sexual orientation, my husband was put out there, like information related to me, so it was in an effort to discredit me that I’m this person working for the liberal side and I must, must be a plant. And it was awful the things that they were saying about me. But I can tell you that I’ve never turned over any information regarding this case to anyone related to that Marco Polo report or, someone with the same last name that I have.

It was not, at all, a denial that he was the source for other leaks to the press. It was a very limited denial, limited only to Garrett Ziegler, not generally.

He has made at least one other denial of leaking, which I’ll return to.

For now, I’m interested in the way that his claim, given under cloak of anonymity, that he and his spouse were harassed because his name showed up in the SARs and other legal process at Garrett Ziegler’s site is one reason he gave in his Ways and Means testimony for harping on his sexual orientation — about which of course, no Democrat would give a shit.

I’m an American, and my allegiances are to my country and my government. I’m also a gay man. I have a husband, two dogs, a home, and a life full of family and friends. But above all else, I’m a human being. My sexuality doesn’t define me as a person. It’s just who I love.

I’d like to say one more thing regarding this topic of sexuality, especially since it’s the start of Pride Month. But people have said that I’m gay and people have said, because I’m gay and that I am working as the case agent on this investigation, that I must be a far-left liberal, perfectly placed to fit some agenda. This was stuff that was on social media regarding me.

I can tell you that I am none of those things. I’m a career government employee, and I have always strived to not let politics enter my frame of mind when working cases.

I’ve tried to stay so nonpolitical that in the last Presidential election I voted but had decided to not vote for the Presidential candidate because I didn’t want to be asked that question in a court proceeding in the future and I didn’t want to show any potential bias. [my emphasis]

His sexual orientation is relevant to his testimony to the extent that right wingers harassed him after his name was made public by Garrett Ziegler.

In his opening statement this week, he used his sexual orientation again:

I had recently heard an elected official say that I must be more credible because I am a gay Democrat married to a man.

He can’t be accused of lying because he’s a gay man, he parroted others — who again, must be right wingers — as saying. He couldn’t have an association with efforts to leak the contents of a laptop that started getting packaged up the very same month he himself opened an investigation into a relatively small international tax cheat based off payments to Russian sex workers, his very first investigation in the group, because he would be harassed by associates of someone like Garrett Ziegler for who he is. In both cases, he used his sexual orientation as some measure of credibility, one that would never be convincing for actual Democrats, because Democrats just don’t give a shit (and know well that prominent gay men like Ric Grenell are truly epic right wing trolls). But Ziegler wielded his harassment by presumed frothers as if it ensures he’d never associate with people whose readers would harass a gay man.

Meanwhile, at Wednesday’s hearing, Gary Shapley was asked about leaks several times. In one exchange, Ro Khanna attempted, with limited success, to ask him a series of questions. In Shapley’s first answer, he claimed that he was the one who reported the October 6 to “our Inspector General,” so presumably Treasury’s Inspector General, TIGTA.

Ro Khanna: Let me just ask you on the media. You’ve given testimony under oath that you have never spoken to the Washington Post — any reporter on this matter, correct?

Gary Shapley: That’s correct.

Khanna: Do you know — have you spoken to any media outlet on this matter?

Shapley: Uh, I have spoken, after the House Ways and Means Committee,

Khanna: Before that, have you spoken to any media — journalists on this matter?

Shapley: Absolutely not.

Khanna: Do you know if any colleague of yours at the IRS has spoken to any journalist on this matter?

Shapley: Absolutely not.

Khanna: Do you know of any investigation into the leaks on this matter?

Shapley: Uh, … so the October 6 leak, I was the person who referred it to our Inspector General.

It’s an interesting claim because his own exhibit shows the FBI agent, Darrell Waldon, responding to Shapley’s email, which Shapley sent after 6PM on Friday October 7, before 8AM on the Tuesday after a Federal holiday, saying that he, Waldon, would take care of that referral.

It may be that Shapley did make a referral, either via email over the weekend or after receiving an email saying someone else was taking care of it. It may also be that Shapley made his own referral even after Waldon did, which sure might raise questions at TIGTA. But Shapley’s own document raises questions about this claim.

As Khanna attempted to question Shapley further, Shapley kept talking over him, reciting an obviously rehearsed response.  James Comer even tried to force Khanna to relinquish his time so Shapley could answer the question Shapley wanted to answer before Comer realized that’s not how it works.

Khanna: Do you know if any of your colleagues are under investigation —

Shapley: There was a leak on December 9, 2020, around the day of action. And I know the IRS Inspector General and DOJ IG are looking into…

Khanna: Do you know if any of your colleagues are under investigation? Sorry, if I could just finish. Do you know if any of your colleagues are under investigation for that leak?

Shapley: I know of no colleague under investigation for that leak [glances towards the Chair].

Khanna: And just for the record, it is your testimony under oath that you have never spoken to any media person before the House testimony about this matter?

Shapley: It’s not only my testimony under oath today, I’ve provided an affidavit to the House Ways and Means Committee saying the same. I’ve said it to our Inspector General’s office as well. [Crosstalk]

Khanna: I appreciate that. I just want to make a final point on this. One, I think that —

Shapley: Mr. Chairmain, you mind if I — [Shapley’s lawyers consulting behind him]

Comer: Can the Gentleman answer the question you asked, Mr. Khanna?

Khanna: I just don’t want my time to be–

Jamie Raskin: If you’re granting him the time, Mr. Chairman.

Khanna: I just want a minute to wrap up if you’ll give me time.

Comer: Okay, you have a minute.

Shapley was asked about leaks twice more, both times by Dan Goldman. In the first instance, Goldman asked how the October 6 leak came up in the October 7 meeting.

Goldman: You’re familiar with an October 6 Washington Post story entitled Federal agents see chargeable tax gun purchase case against Hunter Biden, is that right?

Shapley: Yes I’m familiar yes.

Goldman: And this was, this meeting occurred October 7, the day after this, right?

Shapley: That’s correct.

Goldman: Was this article discussed at that meeting?

Shapley: It was.

Goldman: And what was the nature of the discussion?

Shapley: Uh, it’s in that document, that email, that basically says we’ve got to keep the sphere small–

Goldman: So it’s pretty clear, you would agree, that this was a leak to the Washington Post by law enforcement agents since it describes what Federal agents believe, right?

Shapley: So it wasn’t actually clear to me that it was because usually they’ll say that it’s a law enforcement source that provided it, and if you see at the bottom it says they corroborated independently and they did not mention law enforcement. [Shapley’s attorney leans over to whisper to him]

Goldman: You don’t think it’s a Federal agent, agents, who leaked this when the headline says, Federal agents see chargeable tax gun purchase case against Hunter Biden?

Comer: Gentleman’s time is expired but feel free to answer the question.

Shapley was being questioned. But Ziegler piped in and offers up a December 9, 2020 leak.

Ziegler: So there, prior to that if you go back to December of 2020, there was another leak to the Washington Post that got, we had to get Department of Justice OIG involved, TIGTA involved so there was other leaks that happened prior to this to the Washington Post that I think, are important for us to understand as well.

Shapley: It has similar information as the October 6 leak.

It’s interesting that Ziegler piped in here, because answering a question about October 6 by raising the December 9, 2020 leak is what he did in his House Ways and Means testimony, too. Ziegler described that he told TIGTA that he believed a December 9, 2020 leak came from DOJ or (!!) the defense. He also described that “we would constantly be talking about” this subject.

Prior to this, there were other leaks. After our day of action in December of 2020, we got word that a couple of the news sources were going to release an article on the investigation. This was a couple days prior to us going public — going overt.

So that leak happened, and nothing changed after that one. And everything indicated, even in communication in meetings from what I recall — we thought that the leak was potentially from someone in [the] Department of Justice. So we would constantly be talking about, yeah, it’s not an IRS person. It’s not anyone on the team. It’s always — it appeared like it was someone from Department of Justice. So that’s what kind of shocked me with this moving forward.

I was interviewed by an investigator — I think they were with TIGTA. I told them, I didn’t leak anything. I thought that the leak might have come from either defense counsel, or from DOJ like the other ones came.

But back to Wednesday’s hearing. Goldman asked Shapley again about leaks in a later round.

Goldman: Gentlemen, I want to return to the Washington Post October 6 article and I’d ask unanimous consent to enter it into the record. In your testimony, Mr. Shapley, before the Ways and Means Committee, you stated, quote, there was a leak, it appeared to come from the agents level, who was critical of the prosecutors for not charging the case. What you testified earlier was a little different. Which one do you stand by today?

[pause]

Shapley: I’m sorry, could you repeat that?

Goldman, quoting: “There was a leak, it appeared to come from the agents level, who was critical of the prosecutors for not charging the case.”

Shapley: Yeah, I said it appeared, because I said it came from the agents’ level, but the source was a source familiar with the topic and it didn’t say it was a law enforcement source.

Goldman: Okay, that seems to be a distinction without a difference. And then, you understand that, obviously leaks of grand jury information is a felony, right?

Shapley: Leaking investigative information including 6103 would be a felony, yes.

Goldman: Well that’s true as well. So would you agree that there would be some skepticism from prosecutors about which of the agents may be the source of a leak?

Comer: Gentleman’s time is expired but feel free to answer the question.

Shapley: Since there have been multiple leaks in this investigation, and the one on December 8 or December 9, 2020, it appears to come from someone, as Lesley Wolf stated —

Goldman: I was just asking about October 6, 2022.

Shapley: So I

Goldman: It would cause anyone suspicion, right?

Shapley: If it says it comes from an agent level. [His attorney leans over, whispers something.]

Goldman: That’s what you said.

Comer: Gentleman’s time has expired.

Now, Goldman didn’t actually quote Shapley exactly. Here’s the full quote from Shapley’s Ways and Means testimony.

Q In No. 1 on this email you prepared, says: “Discussion about the agent leak — requested the sphere stay as small as possible…DOJ IG will be notified. FBI — HQ is notified.”

What was the specific leak?

A So there was a leak, I’m not sure what outlet, on October 6th of 2022 — it appeared to come from the agent’s level, who was critical of the prosecutors for not charging the case.

Q Okay. Talking about the Hunter Biden case?

A Yes, not charging the Hunter Biden case.

So, obviously that was part of the discussion at the beginning. And there have been multiple leaks in this case going back, and this one was handled a lot differently because I guess it was purportedly from the agent’s level.

So this drastic — you know, they used that as an excuse to kind of — to do what they were doing to us after this meeting on the 7th, they kind of used that leak as an excuse to exclude us.

In context, the view from others was that this was an agent level leak. Given his later use of the word, “purportedly,” I’m not sure it was Shapley’s espoused view.

I’m more interested in other aspects of this exchange.

In May, when Shapley answered a friendly question from the Majority Counsel, he feigned uncertainty what outlet this was from. In July, in public, Shapely kept answering questions about the October 2022 leak by responding about the December 2020 leak — and Ziegler explained they were doing so because “there was another leak to the Washington Post,” which by his telling they talked about all the time.

More interesting, though, is Shapley’s claim that, “this [leak] was handled a lot differently because I guess it was purportedly from the agent’s level.”

Both he and Ziegler described that this leak was the excuse to start excluding the IRS agents from the case.

But Shapley’s claim that the October 2022 leak was treated differently is likely false.

As I noted in this post, there was another leak, to the NYT in March 2022 (right after the IRS agents submitted their prosecution memo and asked DC to partner on it). That same month, for what Shapley presents as discovery purposes, everyone was asked for their email. But even though he had attempted to interview Hunter Biden himself in December 2020, he didn’t comply with that request.

It is common practice for DOJ to ask for the case agents’ communications in discovery, as they might have to testify in court. However, it’s much more unusual to ask for management communications, because it is simply not discoverable.

In March of 2022, DOJ requested of the IRS and FBI all management-level emails and documents on this case. I didn’t produce my emails, but I provided them with my sensitive case reports and memorandums that included contemporaneous documentation of DOJ’s continued unethical conduct. [my emphasis]

After the October meeting, prosecutors came back to Shapley, and asked again, which he got really touchy about.

[T]his was the culmination of an October 24th communication from Delaware U.S. Attorney’s Office and — well, it was really Lesley Wolf and Mark Daly who called the case agent, [redacted], on the telephone and said, hey, we need — we need Shapley’s emails and his — these sensitive case reports that he’s authored back to May.

And they didn’t ask for discovery for anybody else. They didn’t ask for, from the — mind you, the agents had provided discovery March-April timeframe, so there was 6 months or so of additional discovery, and they’re not asking for that, right? They’re only asking for mine.

So [redacted] sends me an email with Wolf and Daly on it that says, hey, you know, they asked for this, you got to talk to Shapley. I respond, hey, yeah, I’m available 9:15, let’s chat. And she sends that, she forwards my email to Shawn Weede, number [two] — a senior level at Delaware U.S. Attorney’s Office.

And then he contacts me about this discovery, and he’s kind of putting a lot of pressure on me. So even Weiss called up, the deputy chief, to complain about timing of the emails that got turned over from me at that request. [my emphasis]

It appears that it’s not that DOJ treated the leak differently, it’s that they noticed that the first time they asked for emails, he had blown off the request.

Again, as I noted here, as Darrell Waldon, the same agent who said he’d take care of the TIGTA referral, started reviewing his emails, Shapley asked for advance notice of anything suspicious — precisely the thing he said Hunter Biden should not get.

If you have questions about any emails I would ask you share it in advance so I can look at them and be prepared to put them into context. The USAO was so eager to got my emails (which they already had 95% of) … then surprise … they “might” have a problem with a few of them that memorialized their conduct. If the content of what I documented, in report or email is the cause of their consternation I would direct them to consider their actions instead of who documented them.

I have done nothing wrong. Instead of constant battles with the USAO/DOJ Tax, I chose to be politically savvy. I documented issues, that I would have normally addressed as they occurred, because of the USAO and DOJ Tax’s continued visceral reactions to any dissenting opinions or ideas. Every single day was a battle to do our job. I continually reported these issues up to IRS-CI leadership beginning in the summer of 2020. Now, because they realized I documented their conduct they separate me out, cease all communication and are not attempting to salvage their own conduct by attacking mind. This is an attempt by the USAO to tarnish my good standing and position within IRS-CI … and I expect IRS-CI leadership to understand that. As recent as the October 7 meeting, the Delaware USAO had nothing but good things to say about me/us. Then they finally read “discovery” items (provided 6 months previous — that are not discoverable) and they are beginning to defend their own unethical actions.

Consider the below:

  1. I am not a witness — therefor Jencks/impeachment is not an issue.
  2. I am not the receiver of original evidence nor engaged i any negative exculpatory language against the subject … My documentation only shows the USAO/DOJ Tax’s preferential treatment of this subject. [bold underline original, italics mine]

Shapley’s boss, Michael Batdorf, was, at that point, quite supportive of the possibility that Shapley would have concerns about prosecutorial misconduct. Two months later he began to put a hold on what Shapley and others were doing.

I don’t think any of this shows that these IRS agents were leakers one way or another, and I also think it likely that whoever did some of these leaks used a cut-out.

Shapley may not be the leaker. But he sure seems to be hiding stuff in his emails. And only after his emails got turned over did he start claiming to be a whistleblower.

Matt Taibbi Declares John Podesta’s Risotto Recipe Was “True”

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The Democrats on Jim Jordan’s insurrection protection committee were really unprepared for Matt Taibbi and Michael Shellenberger yesterday, failing to call out their repeated false claims.

One of the most interesting details came when Taibbi described that someone besides Elon Musk invited him to have unfettered access to a company under a consent decree. Given the likelihood that this person was not even a Twitter employee, it gives the FTC far more reason to want to know why a company under a consent decree made information on individual users available to journalists.

But the hearing was nevertheless useful for the way it revealed that Taibbi doesn’t know the difference between “authentic” and “true.” In an exchange with Stephen Lynch about whether Russia interfered in the 2016 election (in which Lynch falsely claimed that the intelligence report attributing the Russian campaign to Russia involved 18 intelligence agencies, instead of three, and mispronounced both Shellenberger’s and Yevgeniy Prigozhin’s name), Taibbi professed to be uncertain whether Russia conducted a hack-and-dump campaign.

Lynch: Do you believe that Russia engaged in a hack-and-release campaign damaging to the Clinton campaign, back in 2016?

Taibbi: I don’t know and I would say it’s irrelevant.

[snip]

Lynch: Mr. Shellenbech [sic] do you believe that the Russians engaged in a hack-and-release campaign with respect to the damaging information they released regarding the Clinton campaign?

Shellenberger: To the best of my awareness, that is what happened, yes.

Lynch: Okay, fair enough.

Shellenberger: That’s not the same thing as influence campaign.

Lynch: I understand.

Taibbi: Also that material was true. That is not a legitimate predicate for censorship.

Taibbi obviously thought he was being very clever, justifying publishing material stolen from an American because it was “true.” (And Shellenberger was being equally clever, not understanding that a hack-and-leak campaign is, indeed, part of an information operation.)

But instead, he betrayed something that is obvious from his propaganda efforts: Taibbi doesn’t understand the difference between “authentic” and “true.” When someone makes false claims about authentic material, it is a lie.

For example, Taibbi has repeatedly claimed that the FBI was not building cases on the suspected voter suppression accounts they turned over to Twitter, even though he included a screen cap showing the FBI taking steps — asking in what venue they needed to serve legal process and seeking a preservation order — that allows them to conduct an investigation.

The email is authentic. His claims about FBI’s efforts to investigate voter suppression are — he himself proved — a lie.

He also betrays that he doesn’t understand some of the material released in 2016 was neither “true” nor “authentic.” Not only were the Guccifer 2.0 documents altered, but the persona repeatedly falsely claimed they were something they were not, most obviously when the persona claimed he was releasing Clinton Foundation documents and I had to explain that that’s not what they were to Glenn Greenwald.

That persona did just what Taibbi has done with the Twitter files, wow credulous people (like Greenwald) with “authentic” files, while making false claims about them.

#MattyDickPic’s confusion about the difference between “true” and “authentic” became more obvious later in the hearing.

Goldman: Are you aware that there was an analysis of the hard drive that was done by the Washington Post at a later date?

Shellenberger: My awareness is that multiple media organizations have done an analyses, including CBS, and found that it was indeed, the laptop was authentic, and that nothing had been changed on it.

Goldman: Let’s just get something clear. The laptop that the FBI had is different than the hard drive that Rudy Giuliani gave to the New York Post. A hard drive, you will agree with this, is a copy of a laptop, right?

Shellenberger: Yes.

Goldman: And you are aware that hard drives can be altered, are you not?

Shellenberger: Of course.

Goldman: So are you aware that the Washington Post analysis of the hard drive showed that it had been altered?

Shellenberger: I have heard that, but I’m also saying that CBS verified —

Taibbi: Politico …

Shellenberger: and other media organizations have verified…

Never mind that Shellenberger seems to have no fucking clue that the laptop CBS analyzed is not the same hard drive that Rudy gave to the Post, and therefore is not the “laptop” on which the story that Twitter throttled was based. Never mind that CBS’ analysis is inconsistent with John Paul Mac Isaac’s claims that the process by which he made his own copy of the laptop was repeatedly interrupted, a problem that would make it difficult to distinguish from an iCloud hack and a real laptop (who puts voice mail messages on a laptop hard drive, for example?), a detail consistent with what I know of the Washington Post analysis (which was conducted by two different people).

But the cutest was little #MattyDickPics chiming in to claim that Politico had authenticated “the laptop.”

They claim no such thing! They authenticated some files (and not forensically, but instead by a witness who couldn’t even confirm the emails hadn’t been altered).

Shreckinger’s source remembered viewing both emails but was not able to compare the text leaked to the Post with the original emails. Other emails from the leaked files matched a cache of emails released by a Swedish government agency, two people who communicated with Hunter Biden said.

This kind of “authentication,” when the claims of someone with a bias like Tony Bobulinski can supplant forensic authentication, is precisely the problem with hack-and-leak reporting, regardless of whether Russian hackers or Matt Taibbi’s buddies do the hacking.

And neither Michael Shellenberger nor Matt Taibbi understand that.

Matt Taibbi does not know the difference between “true” and “authentic,” and it shows in his propaganda.