The strawman of using the date of breach here is asserting that the breach was in response to another event.

Timeline of releasing the breached data can be correlated with another event, but the date that they obtained the loot is irrelevant. They could have simply purchased this from an unknown 3rd party themselves. We simply don't know.

It does matter, because it represents the difference between two different scenarios that don't have the same chance of occurring:

1. The FBI/CIA hacked Twitter and leaked their database in retaliation for the "Twitter files"

2. The FBI/CIA hacked Twitter (or someone else did and they obtained the data) back in early 2022 (for an unknown reason), and are now leaking the data in retaliation for the "Twitter files"

Or it’s 3?

3. FBI/CIA hack Twitter as soon as they can compile enough justification. Use data whenever it is useful, including retaliation.

Based on Snowden leaks, it wouldn’t surprise me if Twitter was hacked very soon after it was created.

This data was allegedly extracted using an exploit in the Twitter public API sometime in early 2022.

The seller could be lying about that, but there is relatively strong circumstantial evidence that suggests they are telling the truth.

What’s the evidence?

It’s moot anyway, since they can always filter their stolen databases by potential methods of exfiltration, so the dump looks like it only used a certain vulnerability.

> What’s the evidence?

To be honest the evidence for anything in this discussion is circumstantial and probably spurious at best.

All we know for sure is that someone is attacking Twitter via blackmail via hacking just after Twitter released bad PR for some of the worlds most powerful hacking organisations.

All the skeptic comments in this thread seem to worry about the veracity of the claims, but that’s irrelevant to the question of would FBI/CIA retaliate.