From Twitter Came Weaponization

A few months ago, I wrote about traveling to East Palestine to perform some testing of water after the chemical spill. Two days before, I stopped in Washington DC to interview for a position on the Weaponization Committee.

I’ve had a number of Twitter accounts, with a handful that reached varying levels of social media success - and a few more that people don’t know I operated.

The first account that would become fairly popular (all of them have also been suspended for lengthy periods) was one I started in September of 2021. A year and a half later, I was standing in the Rayburn Office Building an hour before my interview was scheduled.

Arriving at 2pm on a Friday, one of the first things I noticed was the lackadaisical security that had me walk through metal detectors but otherwise provided no resistance to me just walking in off the street. I immediately had access to members of Congress. I found the room where I was going to be interviewed and walked around the next corner. The building seemed oddly empty, reminding me of a community college campus the week after final exams.

I loitered in the hallway, taking note that no security roamed them, and nobody asked if I had any reason to be there. I found a window that provided a view of the entrance I had walked into minutes before.

A steady stream of young people funneled out in torn jeans, wrinkled khakis and rumpled shirts. A confusing number of people had dogs, not apparent service dogs, but personal animals that they led outside to relieve themselves on the patch of grass nearest the entrance.

The corners of the floor and window showed the age of the building, caked with dirt and decay.

I scanned through apartment listings on my phone, checking on a Studio apartment I had found within walking distance of the Capitol building - at Newseum Residences. I had submitted my application the night before to ensure they would hold the apartment for me, it was by far the best place I’d found.

I was ready to drop everything, leave a career, put my house up for rent and to arrive in Washington DC within 2 weeks to jump full force into working as a staffer for the United States Congress. The surrealism of the moment caught up to me. I started as just some guy on Twitter with no connections, no following, and now I was interviewing for a position where I could influence the direction of the US government.

It was immediately apparent as the interview started that I had wasted my time.

The Committee had no interest in pursuing anything significant. After comparing themselves to the Church Committee, they weren’t going to look at any intelligence abuses or Russiagate or anything of that nature. It was clear they had no leadership, and no sense of purpose.

In the days after the interview I responded somewhat rudely, letting them know my interests weren’t really aligning with theirs. If I was coming to Washington DC, I was coming to raise hell.

In the weeks prior and the weeks after, numerous Congressional contacts and intermediaries had requested my suggestions for who they should subpoena, which documents they should pursue, and which documents they should try to get released.

I dutifully responded to each request. I produced list after list. I drafted reports, summaries, questions, and lobbied hard for the Committee to do something substantive.

They won’t be doing anything.

There is some irony in it. It was my role in this social sourcing and journalism with the other sleuths that has given me some opportunities and a contact list filled with influential people, but the same people haven’t taken the time to get the Kash Patel/Devin Nunes HPSCI report on the 2016/17 ICA released, something that would be extremely helpful to our sleuthing.

Walkafyre found that the government made 23 productions of files to Senator Lindsay Graham a few years ago, and Senator Graham only released a few of those productions publicly. Poor Walkafyre has been fighting the battle for those files through FOIA but they are claiming tons of exemptions, exemptions we know they didn’t apply to the files they sent to Senator Graham.

Plenty of other examples.

We can’t rely on people ostensibly on our side to help us.

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Today, AG Garland said that John Durham still hasn’t submitted his report. Part of what I have argued on this platform since December was that, despite media reports to the contrary, there is a likelihood that Durham is not done and Durham’s report won’t be out by next spring. We also have to consider there will be a lengthy redaction/declassification process once the report is actually submitted.

That’s why the Weaponization Committee could’ve been so important.

We deserve answers before the next election and we have talked over and over about the litany of issues. We know there are serious doubts about the hack of the DNC, the attribution for the alleged hack, the delay in getting forensic files to the FBI (why did it take months?), and more. I hope Durham still has a grand jury going, because it’ll be a hard pill to swallow if he has to explain everything as coincidence and incompetence. Prove it.

The people with the answers could have been, and could still be, subpoenaed and questioned.

Jim Jordan refuses to do it.

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One day I’ll share all the behind the scenes stories in greater detail, but there is still a great deal in motion and in the works. The most important work we will do is going to take place over the next few months.

From Twitter to Congress, a researcher, a FOIA requester, a pro se attorney, a litigant, a journalist - it’s been quite a story.