Twitter and Meta executives as well as journalists representing a range of mainstream media outlets participated in a training exercise regarding a possible leak of data about Hunter Biden. The exercises had similarities to a New York Post article published around one month later, according internal documents published by Michael Shellenberger as part Elon Musk’s ongoing, “Twitter Files” project.
Original Oct. 14, 2020 Post story was based upon a laptop that belonged to Joe Biden. It contained a 2015 email linking Joe Biden and Hunter’s business dealings in Ukraine with Burisma. A training exercise called “The Burisma leak” hosted by Aspen Institute was held in September. It described a possible timeline of events that would follow a hypothetical hack on Oct. 5, 2020 and the leaked Burisma documents. Hunter received more compensation than previously reported and communicated with his father about it.
Shellenberger reported that the Aspen Institute exercise imagines a hypothetical timeline from Oct. 5, 2020 to October 15, 2020 in which a cache document suggests that Joe Biden pressured Ukraine’s government to fire Viktor Shokin. Shellenberger reported that the purpose of this exercise was to “shape what media covered it — as well as how social media carried them.”
Vivian Schiller was the former CEO of NPR, as well as head of news at Twitter. According to Shellenberger, there were security executives from Meta and Twitter, along with reporters from The New York Times, The Washington Post and The New York Times.
The Post’s story actually contained an email, which was verified by the Daily Caller News Foundation shortly afterward. It claimed that the former vice president had met with Burisma executives. This contradicts his claims. Hunter Biden was also emailed by a Burisma executive asking for advice in stopping “politically motivated acts” against Burisma. The email, which was published by the New York Post on September 12, asks for help in stopping such actions. He stresses that Burisma damage could have multiple levels of [sic] adverse social, economic, and political consequences. [sic]”
A leaked audio recording in 2020 and a statement made public in 2018 by Joe Biden indicate that Joe Biden played a key role in the 2016 ouster of Shokin. Biden and his son have denied any wrongdoing.
Shokin was looking into Burisma’s behavior at the time, which occurred before Hunter Biden joined.
Twitter and the Aspen Institute did not immediately respond when Daily Caller News Foundation asked them for comment.
