Former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe Sunday stressed that when he reported in 2020 that the Hunter Biden laptop was not the result of a Russian disinformation campaign, that was the official position of the intelligence community and that nobody from his office at the time would have been speaking with Twitter officials about suppressing news about the matter.
His office, Ratcliffe told Fox News's "Sunday Morning Futures" host Maria Bartiromo, would only have been authorized to participate in a process approved and coordinated by then-President Donald Trump's National Security Council for "election security briefings to groups of private companies."
That would have included Twitter along with other companies like YouTube, Microsoft, and state officials, said Ratcliffe.
"None of those meetings would have had anything to do with content moderation, much less anything to do with, specifically, about the Biden laptop as Russian disinformation," he added. "There never would have been any authority or reason for anyone within the intelligence community to be saying anything otherwise."
In journalist Matt Taibbi's posts about the Twitter files, he reported there were weekly meetings between Twitter and the FBI, and the Department of Homeland Security.
"I know there are whistleblowers that are saying that as well," said Ratcliffe. "But Matt Taibbi also says there was only one reference to my office and someone liaising with my office, and I assume that, I certainly hope that, was part of the National Security Council-approved process for election security briefings."
He added that not only did his office never try to suppress the laptop story but "no one should have been" making that attempt.
"From Oct. 18, (2020) when I was on your program and stated the official position of the intelligence community and then the Department of Justice and the FBI stated in agreement the position of law enforcement, nobody should have been saying anything to the contrary to Twitter or anyone else," said Ratcliffe. "That includes former election officials; that includes reporters."
Further, Ratcliffe said that anyone who claimed that there was any "ambiguity" with the intelligence community's official position on the laptop not being part of a Russian disinformation campaign was "engaged in election interference and a disinformation campaign to mislead the American voting electorate."
Meanwhile, Ratcliffe said that it wasn't a coincidence that Jim Baker, the Twitter employee fired for his role in blocking the Hunter Biden story from appearing on the site, was a former general counsel for the FBI before he was hired by the social media site.
"Jim Baker was working and taking actions that worked to the favor of Hillary Clinton or Democrats or the left and universally working to the detriment of Republicans, conservatives, and Donald Trump," said Ratcliffe. "That was all before he got to Twitter and got involved with suppressing the Hunter Biden laptop story."
Baker was also at the FBI when it obtained the Biden laptop, and "would have known that the FBI" would have easily discovered that Russian disinformation was not behind the laptop.
"I don't think that Twitter just happened to find his resume on Monster.com," said Ratcliffe. "One of the things that need to be determined is what was his relationship with Twitter before he got to Twitter and whether he was 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 also noted that Twitter's files showed he was being shadowbanned as a congressman, and he wonders if that continued on Twitter when he became the DNI.
"I keep hearing that, well, Twitter's a private company, they can do what they want," said Ratcliffe. "That's not the case. Anyone, even private companies, can't engage in conduct which is fraudulent in nature, intended to interfere with the free exercise of voting rights."
Ratcliffe, meanwhile, two years ago did a national security assessment of TikTok and said Sunday that President Joe Biden has reversed "to the detriment of our national security" Trump's executive orders on the Chinese social media platform.
"This is more than about spying," he said. "It's about mass manipulation, censorship, and influencing the ideology of tens of millions of young Americans to the detriment of our national security posture with pro-China views, anti-United States views."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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