The Praetorian Guard
“Proclaiming Claudius Emperor” by Lawrence Alma-Tadema, 1867.
The Praetorian Guard was a unit of elite Roman soldiers who protected the emperor. They eventually grew so powerful that they controlled, selected, and executed emperors. The FBI (including the CIA et al) is America’s Praetorian Guard.
According to Britannica.com,[1]
“Praetorian Guard, Latin Cohors Praetoria, household troops of the Roman emperors. The cohors praetoria existed by the 2nd century BC, acting as bodyguards for Roman generals. In 27 BC the emperorAugustus created a permanent corps of nine cohorts, stationing them around Rome; in 2 BC he appointed two equestrian prefects to command them, but in AD 23 Tiberius’powerful prefect Sejanus became their sole commander. He concentrated them in fortified barracks outside the walls of Rome, gaining significant political influence for them.
Subsequently, they generally participated in appointing emperors and were responsible for the accession of Claudius (41); the disorders of 68–69; the lynching of Domitian’s murderers (97); and the murders of Pertinax (193), Elagabalus (222), and Balbinus and Maximus (238). Septimius Severus reorganized the guard in 193, recruiting its members from the legions. Constantine I disbanded them in 312.”
Potential emperors would have to bribe and keep the Praetorian Guard happy or they would choose someone else to rule the empire. For example, after assassinating the emperor Caligula in 41 AD, the Praetorians found Claudius hiding in some curtains because he thought he would be assassinated too and proclaimed him “commander” (“imperator” which is Anglicized as “emperor”).[2]
The FBI is involved in electing the modern emperor: The President of the USA. They created the Steele Dossier used to spy on President Trump, they buried and discredited the Hunter Biden laptop story, and they are being exposed in running Twitter.
First, the FBI used the Steele Dossier to spy on Trump after during the 2016 presidential election. The BBC wrote an article about one person connected to the dossier, Igor Danchenko, being acquitted of lying to the FBI. They outline the origins of the Steele Dossier in their article, including how it was used as an excuse to spy on Trump.[3]
“The Steele dossier, published by news website Buzzfeed 10 days before Mr Trump took office, made a number of explosive claims linking Mr Trump to the Kremlin - including that Russia had compromising material on the Republican candidate.
Mr Danchenko had reportedly worked with ex-British spy Christopher Steele on the dossier. He went on to become a paid informant for the FBI between 2017-20.
He appeared emotional as the verdict was read, and did not comment after the hearing.
Mr Steele, a former British spy, was hired to compile the dossier by Washington DC-based research firm Fusion GPS, which was itself retained by a law firm on behalf of Mr Trump's political opponents, Hillary Clinton, the Democratic candidate in the 2016 election, and the Democratic National Committee.
[…]
As early as July 2016, US investigators began to examine whether there were any links between Mr Trump and the Kremlin in an operation known as Crossfire Hurricane. This led the following year to a major investigation headed by special counsel Robert Mueller.”
Secondly, during the 2020 election, the FBI tried to discredit the Hunter Biden Laptop. Hunter was the son of Joe Biden who was running for president in 2020. Hunter left a laptop at a repair shop. The laptop was given to the FBI by the repair shop in 2019. It showed him doing drugs and talking about bribes. He is on the board of several businesses in China and Ukraine. It could be used to bribe or blackmail President Biden and would have been influential in determining how people vote. The repair shop owner gave a copy of the hard drive to a lawyer who gave it to the New York Post.[4]
The New York Post broke the story during the election but social media companies and the mainstream media censored and ridiculed the story.
Per a Nov 22, 2022 story for the New York Post by Victor Nava,[5]
“At the time The Post broke the story, most news outlets chose to ignore the laptop’s contents, which links President Biden to his son Hunter and brother Jim Biden’s foreign influence-peddling schemes, and social media companies censored it based on FBI misinformation warnings.
The Washington Post and New York Times eventually verified the contents of the laptop in March of 2022.
Andy Ngo, a conservative journalist, reacted to the CBS report on Twitter by saying, ‘A CBS investigation authenticates the content of Hunter Biden’s laptop. Two years earlier, Joe Biden, Democrats, intelligence operatives, big tech & liberal media said the laptop’s content was faked to fool the public.’”
Thirdly, the Twitter Files are showing that intelligence operatives have been colluding with big tech and liberal media to control the press. Since Elon Musk bought Twitter, he has given internal information from the company to different publishers to expose Twitter’s collusion with intelligence operatives. On December 2, Matt Taibbi posted a thread on detailing the corruption.
He tweeted,[6]
“7. Slowly, over time, Twitter staff and executives began to find more and more uses for these tools. Outsiders began petitioning the company to manipulate speech as well: first a little, then more often, then constantly.
8. By 2020, requests from connected actors to delete tweets were routine. One executive would write to another: ‘More to review from the Biden team.’ The reply would come back: ‘Handled.’
[…]
10.Both parties had access to these tools. For instance, in 2020, requests from both the Trump White House and the Biden campaign were received and honored. However:
11. This system wasn't balanced. It was based on contacts. Because Twitter was and is overwhelmingly staffed by people of one political orientation, there were more channels, more ways to complain, open to the left (well, Democrats) than the right. https://opensecrets.org/orgs/twitter/summary?id=D000067113”
Bari Weiss is also involved in the Twitter Files. She touched on Twitter shadow banning people who questioned authority. She tweeted on Dec 8,[7]
“1. A new #TwitterFiles investigation reveals that teams of Twitter employees build blacklists, prevent disfavored tweets from trending, and actively limit the visibility of entire accounts or even trending topics—all in secret, without informing users.
2. Twitter once had a mission ‘to give everyone the power to create and share ideas and information instantly, without barriers.’ Along the way, barriers nevertheless were erected.
3. Take, for example, Stanford’s Dr. Jay Bhattacharya (@DrJBhattacharya) who argued that Covid lockdowns would harm children. Twitter secretly placed him on a ‘Trends Blacklist,’ which prevented his tweets from trending.”
The two tweets we published 6 days apart. On Dec 6, Matt Taibbi tweeted the reason that there was a delay in Bari Weiss publishing. The reason was interference from the FBI. He wrote,[8]
“On Friday, the first installment of the Twitter files was published here. We expected to publish more over the weekend. Many wondered why there was a delay.
We can now tell you part of the reason why. On Tuesday, Twitter Deputy General Counsel (and former FBI General Counsel) Jim Baker was fired. Among the reasons? Vetting the first batch of ‘Twitter Files’ – without knowledge of new management.
The process for producing the ‘Twitter Files’ involved delivery to two journalists (Bari Weiss and me) via a lawyer close to new management. However, after the initial batch, things became complicated.
Over the weekend, while we both dealt with obstacles to new searches, it was @BariWeiss who discovered that the person in charge of releasing the files was someone named Jim. When she called to ask ‘Jim’s’ last name, the answer came back: ‘Jim Baker.’
‘My jaw hit the floor,’ says Weiss.”
Elon Musk then fired James Baker in a tweeted response to Matt Taibbi also tweeting an article by John Turley on Dec 6 detailing James Baker’s involvement.[9]
“In light of concerns about Baker’s possible role in suppression of information important to the public dialogue, he was exited from Twitter today”
John Turley also had an interesting article on a plot to kidnap Michigan governor Gretchen Winter. On April 20, he wrote on the acquittal of those involved,[10]
“While Fox and Croft can be retried, the acquittal raises an additional challenge. Harris and Caserta may feel fewer inhibitions in testifying. With the exception of perjury, they can safely take the stand to discuss their actions — and more importantly, the actions of the government.
The Michigan case stands as one of the most chilling examples of entrapment techniques used by the FBI. While Whitmer declared Trump ‘complicit’ in her planned execution, the FBI increasingly appeared more ‘complicit’ in the creation of a government-inspired, government-funded, and largely government-staffed plot.
The problem was that these guys seemed at points more interested in partying than conspiring. The FBI, therefore, decided to take control and get them serious about some major crimes. An informant known as ‘Big Dan’ was paid over $50,000 to get the conspiracy going, including paying for the defendants to travel to Wisconsin to ‘train.’
[…]
The Whitmer conspiracy was a production written, funded, and largely populated by FBI agents and informants. At every point, FBI literally drove the conspirators and controlled their actions. In the end, a majority of the ‘conspirators’ were actually FBI agents or informants.
As discussed earlier, various key FBI agents and informants were removed from the case due to their own legal problems.”
Fox and Croft were retried and found guilty of several counts.[11]
Back to James Baker.
The Twitter File are still being published. Today, Dec 20, 2022, Edward Snowden commented on one thread,[12]
“This thread is a remarkable case study on how the FBI overcame a major tech company's resistance to running favors for the Feds by basically running an influence operation against key staffers—and paying to rent others—until they had the censorship crew eating out of their hands.”
The part of the thread that Mr. Snowden tweeted was part 46 by Michael Shellenberger on Dec 19,[13]
“41. There is evidence that FBI agents have warned elected officials of foreign influence with the primary goal of leaking the information to the news media. This is a political dirty trick used to create the perception of impropriety.
42. In 2020, the FBI gave a briefing to Senator Grassley and Johnson, claiming evidence of “Russian interference” into their investigation of Hunter Biden. The briefing angered the Senators, who say it was done to discredit their investigation. https://grassley.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/grassley_johnson_to_fbi_-_august_2020_briefing.pdf…
43. ‘The unnecessary FBI briefing provided the Democrats and liberal media the vehicle to spread their false narrative that our work advanced Russian disinformation.’
45. In the end, the FBI's influence campaign aimed at executives at news media, Twitter, & other social media companies worked: they censored & discredited the Hunter Biden laptop story. By Dec. 2020, Baker and his colleagues even sent a note of thanks to the FBI for its work.
46. The FBI’s influence campaign may have been helped by the fact that it was paying Twitter millions of dollars for its staff time. ‘I am happy to report we have collected $3,415,323 since October 2019!’ reports an associate of Jim Baker in early 2021.
47. And the pressure from the FBI on social media platforms continues In Aug 2022, Twitter execs prepared for a meeting with the FBI, whose goal was “to convince us to produce on more FBI EDRs" EDRs are an “emergency disclosure request,” a warrantless search.”
The Praetorian Guard was a unit of elite Roman soldiers who protected the emperor. They eventually grew so powerful that they controlled, selected, and executed emperors. The FBI (including the CIA et al) is America’s Praetorian Guard.
[1]https://www.britannica.com/topic/Praetorian-Guard
[2]https://allthatsinteresting.com/praetorian-guard
[3]https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-63305382
[4]https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hunter-biden-laptop-data-analysis/
[5]https://nypost.com/2022/11/22/cbs-mocked-for-hunter-biden-laptop-report-2-years-after-post-story/
[6]https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1598822959866683394?lang=en
[7]https://twitter.com/bariweiss/status/1601007575633305600
[8]https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1600243405841666048
[9]https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1600237095364096000
[10]https://jonathanturley.org/2022/04/20/top-prosecutor-drops-out-of-whitmer-kidnapping-case/
[12]https://twitter.com/Snowden/status/1605210843188285441
[13]https://twitter.com/ShellenbergerMD/status/1604908670063906817