Independent journalist Ken Klippenstein was suspended by social media company X on Thursday after he posted a link to an allegedly hacked dossier of Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. J.D. Vance.
The former Intercept reporter published the document on his Substack and was suspended for “violating [X’s] rules against posting private information” shortly after posting a link to his story on the social media site.
The 271-page research report was compiled by the Trump campaign to vet Vance before he was picked as the former president’s running mate this summer.
“The dossier has been offered to me and I’ve decided to publish it because it’s of keen public interest in an election season,” Klippenstein wrote. “As far as I can tell, it hasn’t been altered, but even if it was, its contents are publicly verifiable. I’ll let it speak for itself.”
Some of the information in the document included publicly searchable data related to Vance, which X described as “un-redacted private personal information.”
“Ken Klippenstein was temporarily suspended for violating our rules on posting un-redacted private personal information, specifically Sen. Vance’s physical addresses and the majority of his Social Security number,” the company said in a statement.
The Trump campaign announced it had been hacked last month and the FBI pinned the breach on Iran, which was allegedly attempting to disrupt both presidential campaigns. The FBI said the hacked Trump campaign documents were shared with the Biden campaign, too.
The documents had also been shared with multiple media outlets, which did not publish them in full.
The source who sent the documents to Klippenstein has similarly offered documents containing the Trump campaign’s research files on other vice presidential finalists, according to NBC News.
“Did I make a mistake in not redacting the ‘private’ information on J.D. Vance? If I wanted a Twitter account, apparently so. But on principle? I stand by it absolutely,” Klippenstein wrote.
Before Elon Musk bought the social media platform and changed its name, conservatives blasted Twitter for limiting or deleting posts related to a similar hack of Hunter Biden. However, Musk’s content moderation decisions, such as reinstating accounts previously banned for hate speech, has been criticized as well.
Russian intelligence leaked files from Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign in 2016. The decisions to publish those documents in a wide swath of outlets generated liberals’ criticism.
