Ken Klippenstein shared the 271-page opposition research file on Vance to his X account last Thursday, a platform where he had over 500,000 followers. His original post was initially flagged by X for failing to delete “several references” to a home address for Vance that was within the dossier, as well as the first several digits of his Social Security number.
Though he later redacted the information and posted an updated dossier, Klippenstein was sent an email Monday morning stating he had been permanently banned from X, according to an interview he conducted with Substack co-founder Hamish McKenzie. Klippenstein’s report on the dossier remains posted to his Substack account.
Three federal agencies confirmed in August that Iran was behind “recently reported activities to compromise former President Trump’s campaign” that leaked a multitude of documents hacked from the campaign to media outlets. The FBI, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence’s joint statement came after media outlets such as Politico and the New York Times said it had received suspicious documents, including the Vance dossier, that appeared to have been stolen from the Trump campaign.
While all of the major media outlets declined to publish the contents of the dossier, Klippenstein defended his decision to do so. Saying he provided vital “context” that it was from Iranian hackers, he stated his firm belief that the public should be able “to go in themselves and make their own determination.”
“At the end of the day, I just really have faith that people are mature enough to be able to adjudicate these things and think it through,” he said.
He deflected worries that Vance could be especially vulnerable to political violence due to his status as a vice presidential candidate to Trump, who has survived two assassination attempts. Klippenstein argued people with ill intent can easily access cellphone numbers and other private data on the internet without turning to “page 200 on a PDF in a news article.”
Klippenstein also said that the legacy media has overplayed the influence foreign countries could wield during past presidential elections, giving them a fresh hesitancy to publish dossiers.
Pointing to the allegations the Trump campaign faced in 2016 that Russia tried to rig the presidential race in its favor after former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton lost the election, Klippenstein said: “There was a kind of frantic look for a boogeyman to say, ‘oh, he didn’t actually win. He cheated,” or this other extraneous factor caused it to come about.”
He said that while he believes there is some level of foreign influence from countries such as Iran and Russia, it has reached a “sort of moral panic level.”
“I think that there’s a sense that if we can attribute electoral outcomes to these, you know, interlopers like the Iranians or the Russians, whatever, then we don’t have to deal with our own internal, domestic problems,” he said. “Because clearly, there are major splits within the electorate. There are major disagreements and so this just gives, it’s like a scene eater.”
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The investigative journalist said he “totally” believes Musk is “caving” to pressures that are striking a blow to freedom of speech by banning him on X.
“To me, the question has always been, do you provide people the appropriate disclaimer and the appropriate background information?” he questioned. “And in that first story, I summarized all of the information that the intelligence community has put out with respect to the hack, not just the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, but CISA, the cybersecurity and infrastructure security agency, the FBI.”