An exhibition at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum on the history of the fabricated ‘Protocols of the Elders of Zion.’ Photo: USHMM.

The FBI said on Wednesday that it regretted the “distress” caused by a Twitter post on the account belonging to the agency’s vault of archive documents that referenced the notorious antisemitic fabrication, “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.”

“Earlier today FOIA [Freedom of Information Act] materials were posted to the FBI’s Vault and FOIA Twitter account via an automated process without further outlining the context of the documents,” the FBI stated. “We regret that this release may have inadvertently caused distress among the communities we serve.”

Earlier today FOIA materials were posted to the FBI’s Vault and FOIA Twitter account via an automated process without further outlining the context of the documents. We regret that this release may have inadvertently caused distress among the communities we serve.

— FBI (@FBI) August 19, 2020

On Wednesday afternoon, the FBI Records Vault tweeted links to a slew of newly-released files — including the one concerned with the “Protocols,” an antisemitic fabrication first published in 1903 by the Tsar’s secret police in Russia, and purporting to an reveal a secret cabal of Jewish elders planning to take over the world.

Protocols of Learned Elders of Zion: https://t.co/BpI5Tc8oKc

— FBI Records Vault (@FBIRecordsVault) August 19, 2020

The agency’s file on the “Protocols” includes several letters sent by US citizens during the 1960s and 1970s to FBI Director  J. Edgar Hoover urging him to study the document.

Some of Hoover’s responses to these missives were also included — typically, a short, polite note thanking the correspondent and informing them that information in the FBI’s files was classified.

Other records tweeted by the FBI on Wednesday included its file on Ernst Zundel, a notorious German Holocaust denier who died in 2017.

A note to Hoover from the FBI’s office in Midland, Texas, dated May 9, 1965 described Zundel as “persuasive” and “highly intellectual,” concluding that “for these reasons, he is extremely dangerous.”