Elon Musk's X suspends journalist who shared leaked J.D. Vance dossier

The X (formerly Twitter) account of journalist Ken Klippenstein was suspended Thursday after he shared details of a dossier about Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) that Iran allegedly hacked.

"Here's the dossier the media refused to publish," Klippenstein wrote in a post on X soon before his account was suspended.

The former Intercept reporter also linked to an article on his website explaining why he published the so-called dossier.

"It reportedly comes from an alleged Iranian government hack of the Trump campaign, and since June, the news media has been sitting on it (and other documents), declining to publish in fear of finding itself at odds with the government's campaign against 'foreign malign influence,'" Klippenstein wrote. "I disagree. 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."

According to Klippenstein, the dossier consisted of a "271-page research paper the Trump campaign prepared to vet now vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance."

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"As far as I can tell, it hasn't been altered, but even if it was, its contents are publicly verifiable," he added. "If the document had been hacked by some 'anonymous' like hacker group, the news media would be all over it. I'm just not a believer of the news media as an arm of the government, doing its work combatting foreign influence. Nor should it be a gatekeeper of what the public should know."

X CEO Elon Musk has previously likened the alleged suppression of stories about Hunter Biden's laptop to election interference.