Mark Hemingway: Are FBI and CIA Agents at Twitter and Other Tech Monopolies Just "Sheep-Dipped" Government Wolves?

I think the term "sheep-dipped" refers to dipping a wolf in sheep-paint to cover up his real nature.

Although this term mostly applies to military intelligence officers being "cleaned up" as non-spooks, he applies it here to FBI and CIA agents.

Are these guys really just still government operatives, still being paid by the government, but tasked to infiltrate "private" corporations while executing FBI/CIA directives?

According to the latest drop of "Twitter Files" from Michael Shellenberger, "As of 2020, there were so many former FBI employees -- 'Bu alumni' -- working at Twitter that they had created their own private Slack channel and a crib sheet to onboard new FBI arrivals." It appears that Twitter still has 14 employees on the payroll who worked at the FBI and CIA.

The problem isn't just confined to Twitter. My colleague and Federalist contributor Ben Weingarten recently wrote an article for the New York Post, "Inside revolving door between Democrat Deep State and Big Tech."

In addition to covering what was happening at Twitter, Weingarten details a broader number of suspicious links between Silicon Valley and U.S. intelligence agencies. Given the near-constant string of deep-state scandals and social media censorship we've endured in recent years, a big question we should all be trying to answer right now is, "What exactly are all these spooks doing at tech companies?"

So far, the answer appears to be: "They're almost certainly up to no good." After the first batch of "Twitter Files" dropped, it was revealed that Elon Musk fired Twitter Deputy General Counsel James Baker. Prior to going to work at Twitter, Baker was a top lawyer at the FBI from 2014 to 2017. In that capacity, he played a significant role in shepherding FBI's baseless and illegal Russiagate investigation.

In fact, it's probably safe to assume one of the reasons Baker exited the FBI was to dodge any accountability for the FBI's reckless and politically motivated attempt to investigate the president of the United States. Twitter was a pretty soft landing.

Or at least it was, until it was revealed that Baker, who was still employed at Twitter as of a few weeks ago, got fired after he intercepted the internal company communications Musk was giving to journalists Matt Taibbi and Bari Weiss to expose the censorship and misdeeds of the company's previous management. Nobody has quite figured out what he was doing, but there's widespread speculation Baker may have removed Twitter communications with the FBI or other damning info before it could become public.

Yes, large global corporations need high-level, discreet corporate security, and potentially for benign purposes the particular skillsets that former law enforcement and intelligence personnel provide. However, the situation with Baker makes the problem plenty obvious. If you're inclined to automatically trust the professionalism and integrity of the FBI and CIA, please have your head examined.

I want to know how many of these FBI and CIA agents are "sheep dipped." In the intelligence world, "sheep dipping" is a term of art. It describes a tactic whereby a member of the military is "officially discharged from service" to do covert work. In secret, they are still eligible for rank promotions and military benefits.

Hemingway explains how he knows about "sheep-dipping" -- his own father was a Marine whose work with the CIA was "sheep-dipped" out of existence.

He then connects this to... Lee Harvey Oswald's possibly-faked "defection" to the Soviet Union. And to Russiagate operative Stefan Halper.

posted by Ace at 02:00 PM

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