A former official in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) disputed remarks by Twitter’s former Head of Trust & Safety, Yoel Roth, that Twitter executives held weekly meetings with DNI officials on election security.
Cliff Simms, the former Deputy Director of National Intelligence for Strategy and Communications, told the DCNF that the ODNI was not meeting Twitter executives frequently during the 2020 presidential election. The allegation stems from a remark made by Roth relayed through a Twitter Slack channel, reported by Matt Taibbi, where he discusses frequent meetings with representatives from the intelligence community, writing “Weekly sync w/FBI/DHS/DNI re: election security.” (RELATED: Director Of National Intelligence Avril Haines Says America’s Spies Should Have Fewer Secrets)
Simms claims that an ODNI liaison only met Twitter executives once during the election cycle, as part of a general outreach to all social media companies as authorized by the National Security Council asking them to exercise caution in relation to foreign influence attempts. He also highlighted remarks made by former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe on Fox’ News Sunday Morning Features with Maria Bartiromo.
20. This post about the Hunter Biden laptop situation shows that Roth not only met weekly with the FBI and DHS, but with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI): pic.twitter.com/s5IiUjQqIY
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 9, 2022
“There was only one reference to my office, to someone liaising with my office, and I assume – I certainly hope – that was part of the National Security Council approved process for election security briefings,” Ratcliffe said Sunday. He has also tweeted that the “[intelligence community] had zero intelligence supporting a false narrative that the Biden laptop was Russian disinformation,” the focus of the Twitter Files controversy, regarding the company’s censoring of a New York Post story in October 2020 about Hunter Biden’s business dealings.
Simms’ and Ratcliffe’s responses appear to contradict the revelation that Roth met weekly with the DNI, part of the Twitter Files chapter regarding the company’s permanent suspension of former President Donald Trump’s account on Jan. 8, 2021, which Twitter CEO Elon Musk later reversed in November.
Roth, Twitter and current ODNI spokespersons under the Biden administration did not respond to a request for comment.
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