America’s top former intelligence officials were mostly mum Saturday after the release of internal Twitter documents detailing how The Post’s bombshell revelations were censored by the social media company.
Leon Panetta, a former CIA director and defense secretary, John Brennan a former CIA director, Mike Hayden, a former CIA director, and Jim Clapper, a former director of national intelligence — who all once said The Post’s reporting had “all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation,” — declined or did not respond to request for comment about whether the latest disclosures had changed their opinion.
The quartet made their allegations as part of an open letter denigrating The Post’s reporting as Russian misinformation which was signed by dozens of other longtime intelligence hands.
“Our experience makes us deeply suspicious that the Russian government played a significant role in this case,” the letter read. “If we are right, this is Russia trying to influence how Americans vote in this election, and we believe strongly that Americans need to be aware of this.”
Of the four, only Clapper has ever publicly addressed the letter, offering a vigorous defense to The Post in March.
“Yes, I stand by the statement made AT THE TIME, and would call attention to its 5th paragraph,” he said referring to an area of the letter where the signatories admit they do not have any material evidence of Russian involvement. “I think sounding such a cautionary note AT THE TIME was appropriate.”
Another letter signer, John Sipher, former CIA senior operations officer, responded on Twitter by retweeting a post from NBC reporter Ben Collins, dismissing the significance of the files.
“What Elon Musk’s Twitter files have revealed so far is that content moderation at Twitter WAS being decided by a team of people with differing viewpoints. Now it’s being decided by the richest man on Earth with an axe to grind against one political party — a true scandal,” Collins mocked.
Other letter signatories The Post reached out to including Douglas Wise, a former Defense Intelligence Agency deputy director, Nicholas Rasmussen, a former National Counterterrorism Center director and Marc Polymeropoulos, a former CIA senior operations officer did not respond to request for comment.
Steven L. Hall, a former CIA senior intelligence officer and Don Hepburn, a former national security executive also did not respond to a request for comment.
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December 04, 2022 at 01:10AM
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Former top intel chiefs silent after Musk Twitter disclosures - New York Post
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