After leaked Twitter Files revealed the truth about the 2020 elections and the attorney’s involvement in the platform’s suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story in October 2020, Twitter CEO Elon Musk announced Tuesday that he had fired Twitter deputy general counsel Jim Baker. Baker’s firing was a response to Musk’s concerns “about Baker’s possible role in suppression of information important to the public dialogue,” Musk said.
When asked on Twitter if Baker, a former general counsel for the FBI, was questioned before being fired, Musk said: “Yes. His explanation was . . . unconvincing.”
In light of concerns about Baker’s possible role in suppression of information important to the public dialogue, he was exited from Twitter today
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 6, 2022
Why did Elon Musk fire Jim Baker?
According to internal Twitter emails revealed by writer Matt Taibbi, Baker participated in conversations about whether the New York Post’s report from October 2020 regarding Hunter Biden’s laptop may be prohibited under the social media platform’s “hacked materials” policy.
“I support the conclusion that we need more facts to assess whether the materials were hacked,” Baker wrote at the time in response to a Twitter executive who asked if the site could “truthfully claim” that the laptop story was “part of the policy.”
“At this stage, however, it’s reasonable for us to assume that they may have been and that caution is warranted,” Baker said.
28. To which former Deputy General Counsel Jim Baker again seems to advise staying the non-course, because “caution is warranted”: pic.twitter.com/tg4D0gLWI6
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 3, 2022
Days after making the initial “Twitter files” public, Taibbi published a follow-up thread on Tuesday in which he and journalist Bari Weiss described their dismay at learning that Baker had participated in reviewing the initial “Twitter files” “without knowledge of new management.” He said that because of this information, the two journalists could not fulfill their earlier commitment to publish a follow-up to the files over the weekend.
According to Taibbi, a lawyer connected to the new management provided the “Twitter Files” to him and Weiss, but “things then became complicated.” Over the weekend, Weiss learned that Baker was responsible for publicizing the data.
“My jaw hit the floor,” Weiss reportedly told Taibbi.
“The news that Baker was reviewing the ‘Twitter files’ surprised everyone involved, to say the least. New Twitter chief Elon Musk acted quickly to ‘exit’ Baker Tuesday,” Taibbi wrote.
The news that Baker was reviewing the “Twitter files” surprised everyone involved, to say the least. New Twitter chief Elon Musk acted quickly to “exit” Baker Tuesday.
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 6, 2022
Baker was a crucial player in the FBI’s investigation into bogus claims of collaboration between Russia and Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign while serving as general counsel for the bureau under former Director James Comey.
During his time there, Baker collaborated with Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, two fiercely anti-Trump FBI agents.
Baker apparently discovered himself under criminal investigation for allegedly leaking information to journalists after leaving the department in 2018.
Regarding the Russia investigation and his actions, while working for the FBI, Baker has stood by them.
Baker also served as a key witness this summer for special counsel John Durham in his case against Michael Sussmann, a former Hillary Clinton lawyer who was cleared of all charges of lying to the FBI in May.
Additionally, Baker has been associated with Mother Jones journalist David Corn, who first revealed the existence of the Steele Dossier, a dossier put together by British ex-spy Christopher Steele that contains several unsubstantiated allegations about Trump.
Before Corn announced the document’s existence on October 31, 2016, Baker allegedly spoke with him in the weeks before the November 2016 presidential election.
In June 2020, a month after facing criticism for classifying as spreading misinformation two Trump tweets asserting that mail-in ballots would result in a “rigged election,” Twitter appointed Baker to help manage its legal staff. Baker was fired by Musk after Taibbi published internal papers that showed the lawyer and other top Twitter executives debating how to respond to The Post’s article from October 2020 about Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop and the alleged influence-peddling schemes it revealed.
Without any proof of a hack, Twitter took action to suppress the story in accordance with its “hacked materials” policy.
For linking to The Post’s reporting on the issue, the business even suspended the accounts of people who attempted to spread the charges, including former White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany’s account.
“Hacking was the excuse, but within a few hours, pretty much everyone realized that wasn’t going to hold. But no one had the guts to reverse it,” an ex-employee told Taibbi.
The “Twitter Files,” as Taibbi dubbed the expose, revealed that there were significant reservations about Twitter acting as a censor for the Biden campaign, even within the company itself regarding the decision to ban The Post’s explosive report.
Who is Jim Baker?
James “Jim” Baker is a well-known lawyer. According to his LinkedIn profile, he worked for the US Department of Justice from November 1990 to October 2007 after earning his law degree from Michigan State.
He worked for the DOJ for 17 years before holding various jobs in businesses and legal firms in Washington, DC, including Verizon, Bridgewater Associates, and CNN.
Baker served as the FBI’s general counsel in 2016 and 2017. During that time, he provided James Comey, the bureau’s then-director, with advice on several critical inquiries and decisions, including the investigation into possible Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
He avoided the spotlight for a while, but in December 2022, when he was let go from his high-profile position at Twitter, he finally gained attention.
