(National Review) Twitter CEO Elon Musk said Tuesday he has fired Twitter deputy general counsel Jim Baker in response to concerns “about Baker’s possible role in suppression of information important to the public dialogue” after the “Twitter files” revealed the lawyer’s involvement in the platform’s suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story in October 2020.
Asked on Twitter if Baker, a former FBI general counsel, was asked to explain himself before the firing, Musk replied: “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
Internal Twitter emails published by journalist Matt Taibbi reveal Baker was involved in discussions about whether the New York Post‘s October 2020 story about Hunter Biden’s laptop could be banned under the 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 added.
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 releasing the first set of the “Twitter files,” Taibbi released a supplemental thread on Tuesday explaining that he and fellow journalist Bari Weiss were shocked to discover Baker had been involved in vetting the first batch of the Twitter files “without knowledge of new management.” He said this revelation delayed the two journalists from publishing a follow-up to the files over the weekend as previously promised.
