A State Department official urged Twitter to delete accounts he claimed were controlled by the Russian government, a newly disclosed file shows.

“The below are some Russian government controlled accounts that I think you will want to look into and delete,” Mark Lenzi, a security engineer, wrote in an email to a Twitter official in 2020.

Lenzi said that he was able to ascertain the accounts were Russian-controlled because of “obvious mistakes (including grammar) that don’t make any sense if you were really a Republican,” as well as “distinct increases in their tweeting around the Iowa caucuses and [New Hampshire] primary.”

Lenzi listed 14 accounts. Six have been suspended and one other no longer exists.

Other State Department officials have asked Big Tech companies to censor users, or funded similar efforts.

Twitter, Lenzi, and the State Department did not respond to a request for comment.

At least some of the accounts were not controlled by the Russian government.

Hans Mahncke, a co-host of EpochTV’s “Truth Over News,” reports knowing four of the account owners.

“These are some of my friends. They are anything but Russian-controlled,” Mahncke said.

One of the accounts Lenzi targeted, @Guccifer2Henry, said he only recently learned of the email.

“I’d wager that if Twitter looked into it, they quickly recognized that Lenzi was divorced from reality re his claims that my account, and at least several others that he mentioned, was a ‘Russian government controlled account,'” Guccifer wrote on Twitter.

A person affiliated with Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) contacted Twitter in 2019, according to internal messages.

Kevin Kane, a Twitter employee, wrote to colleagues that he spoke with the campaign director for King, “who provided a very large list (attached) of 354 suspicious Twitter accounts they have identified.”

The reasons for suspicion included “anti King” posts, writing about Finland, and using the hashtag “fakenews,” according to the list.

Other reasons included being followed by a specific person, sharing a post by a specific person, and “spreading misinformation on spending on immigrants.” One person was singled out for being excited by a visit by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.).

King’s campaign also flagged accounts and groups to Facebook, the list shows.

King’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

The emails and list were released by Matt Taibbi, a journalist who has been granted access to Twitter’s internal files by CEO Elon Musk.

Lenzi, a Republican, spoke to FBI agents in 2018 about Konstantin Kilimnik, a Russian national who worked for the International Republican Institute in Moscow.

Special counsel Robert Mueller later cited Lenzi when claiming that Kilimnik was a Russian agent. Both Lenzi and Stephen Nix worked for the institute. Nix disputed Lenzi’s story.

One of the accounts that Lenzi later flagged posted a thread on Twitter digging into the Kilimnik issue, including highlighting how Lenzi had not worked with the institute since 2007.

Lenzi worked on late Sen. John McCain’s (R-Ariz.) presidential campaign in 2008 but vowed to vote for Democrat former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign in 2016, the account noted.

Lenzi described himself as “a lifelong Republican” in his message to Twitter.

“Significantly, and somewhat rate at the State Department, I am a lifelong Republican that has worked for the [Republican National Committee] so in my work I have been able to identify a lot of Russian controlled Twitter accounts that have made it through some of your previous purges,” he wrote.

Lenzi asked the Twitter employee not to mention his name. He also offered to speak over the phone and give more details about his allegations against the accounts.

Lenzi was stationed in China starting in August 2016. He says that he, his wife, and their two children began experiencing “sudden and unexplained physical and psychological symptoms” such as headaches and nosebleeds in November 2017.

Lenzi claimed the problems stemmed from the so-called Havana Syndrome, or a supposedly unknown set of issues that have affected U.S. workers in multiple countries, beginning in Cuba.

Lenzi said he had a disability and received permission to telework during part of every workday and for other accommodations such as “extra time to complete tasks,” according to a lawsuit he filed against the government.

Lenzi was upset he was given jobs in the United States.

“Domestic postings do not provide the same opportunities for Mr. Lenzi to put his technical … capabilities and language skills to use, and present him with fewer challenges and opportunities for career advancement,” the suit says.

The government has opposed the suit, saying Lenzi’s claims of discrimination and retaliation were rejected in equal employment opportunity cases. The case is ongoing.