There remains no real evidence of FBI involvement in the Hunter Biden laptop story. And the hearings actually undercut the purported evidence
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Shortly before the House, newly under Republican control, launched its first big hearings of 2023, a Washington Post-ABC News poll suggested that the American people were quite skeptical of them. It showed that the public felt, by 56 percent to 36 percent, the newly created select subcommittee on the "weaponization of the federal government" was "just an attempt to score political points," rather than a legitimate committee.
On that count, the initial hearings did not disappoint.
At both a House Oversight Committee hearing and at a later "weaponization" panel hearing, Republican lawmakers spun an elaborate theory. The crux: that the FBI and/or other government officials interfered in the 2020 election by getting social media companies — especially Twitter — to suppress a New York Post story about Hunter Biden's laptop.
To this day, though, there remains no real evidence that government officials were directly involved in that decision — and now multiple high-ranking former Twitter officials have joined in disputing that claim under oath.
Often the claim was more suggested than directly asserted.
"I think you guys wanted this to be taken down," Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) told former Twitter executives on Wednesday. "I think you meet with these guys every week. … They send you all kinds of emails. They send you documents on the supersecret James Bond Teleporter. You get information on that. I think you guys wanted to take it down. I think you guys got played by the FBI. And that is the scary part." (Jordan, chair of the weaponization subcommittee, made those comments at the Oversight Committee hearing.)
And Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) began Wednesday's hearing thusly: "America witnessed a coordinated campaign by social media companies, mainstream news and the intelligence communities to suppress and delegitimize the existence of Hunter Biden's laptop and its contents."
Comer added, "In the months leading up to the laptop story, the FBI advised senior Twitter executives to question the validity of any Hunter Biden story" — a claim that would soon be directly contradicted by a witness.
Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), at the weaponization subcommittee hearing, cited the "suppression, illegally, of the Hunter Biden laptop story, paid for by the U.S. taxpayers."
Other Republicans were more direct in alleging government involvement in the supposed suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story:
Rep. Clay Higgins (R-La.) said the FBI "knew it was leaking, they knew it would hurt the Biden campaign, so the FBI used its relationship with Twitter to suppress criminal evidence being revealed about Joe Biden one month before the 2020 elections."
Rep. Pat Fallon (R-Tex.) said the Twitter executives "may have collaborated with U.S. intelligence community regarding stories that y'all didn't want the public to see." He added that "the immediacy with which you all acted to censor the New York Post Hunter Biden laptop story seems to be very indicative of foreknowledge."
Former congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, who recently left the Democratic Party and has allied with conservative Republicans, testified that "Facebook limited the exposure of the New York Post Hunter Biden laptop story just weeks ahead of the 2020 election, only after talking with the FBI."
Rep. Eric Burlison (R-Mo.) accused the FBI of "spreading a lie and a bogus claim about it being Russian interference again."
The backstory here is a bit convoluted. But the essentials go like this: Twitter and Facebook had regular meetings with government officials during the 2020 election. Their stated purpose was to prevent a repeat of past instances in which malign foreign actors hacked and leaked information about political opponents in the United States, which then spread far and wide on social media. This is all in the public record.
That public record does not, however, include any evidence that government officials specifically asked for the suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story. In fact, CNN has reported that tech executives and government officials have directly disputed that, including in sworn testimony. And the Twitter executives testifying last week echoed that.
"I am aware of no unlawful collusion with, or direction from, any government agency or political campaign on how Twitter should have handled the Hunter Biden laptop situation," said former Twitter deputy general counsel James Baker, who previously worked for the FBI. Baker added that he didn't recall ever speaking with the FBI about the matter.
Both former Twitter senior director Yoel Roth and former chief legal officer Vijaya Gadde testified that they recalled no interactions with the FBI about it.
When Republicans haven't directly alleged a coordinated, government-led suppression of the Hunter Biden story, they've more broadly gestured at the notion that government officials poisoned the well in their meetings with the tech companies.
This is what Comer was referring to when he claimed the FBI preemptively warned Twitter about Hunter Biden stories. And it appears to be what Fallon was getting at with his comments.
But that hasn't been established, either, and indeed was undercut by testimony Wednesday. The claim appears to be based on an affidavit Roth signed shortly after the 2020 election. In it, he said that "federal law enforcement agencies communicated that they expected 'hack-and-leak operations' by state actors might occur in the period shortly before the 2020 presidential election, likely in October."
Roth added, "I also learned in these meetings that there were rumors that a hack-and-leak operation would involve Hunter Biden."
Some Republicans have thus concluded that the government might have known the Hunter Biden story, specifically, was coming and then preemptively sought to get it suppressed.
But Roth has now testified that his affidavit has been misconstrued. He said it wasn't even law enforcement that raised Hunter Biden's name, but others from the tech industry who attended the meetings.
"I don't believe that perspective was shared by law enforcement," Roth said. "They didn't endorse it. They didn't provide that information."
Roth's testimony lines up with a November deposition from FBI agent Elvis Chan, who said, "I do not remember us specifically saying 'Hunter Biden' in any meeting." Chan said he recalled one meeting in which an analyst from Facebook broached Hunter Biden. (Some conservative media outlets had suggested Chan's deposition and Roth's affidavit contradicted each other.)
This isn't the only time Republicans have raised such claims, without direct evidence. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.), who is on the Oversight Committee, told Fox News last week that Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg had said, in Mace's words, that the "FBI personally reached out to Facebook and told them and warned them about this story, that they should bury that story. " In fact, Zuckerberg merely said that the FBI told Facebook to be on "high alert" for propaganda and that he didn't recall hearing anything specifically about Hunter Biden.
Jordan seized upon an email that Chan sent to Roth and others at Twitter the night before the Hunter Biden story broke, about a "teleporter link for you to download 10 documents." Some have suggested the documents might have pertained to the upcoming New York Post story. But Roth in his testimony said the documents "did not relate to Hunter Biden," echoing what an unnamed FBI official recently told CNN.
The theorizing involved in these hearings is an outgrowth of the "Twitter Files," in which new Twitter owner Elon Musk has shared internal company documents with Substack writers who have been critical of social-media censorship. And the claims echo Musk himself, who has alleged that Twitter broadly acted "under orders from the government to suppress free speech."
But even one of the writers who has studied the internal emails, Matt Taibbi, has said that "there is no evidence — that I've seen — of any government involvement in the laptop story."
When Comer appeared on CNN before last week's hearings, he was asked whether he had any "definitive proof" of government involvement.
"I would invite CNN to watch our committee hearing Wednesday and see if you can pick up any new information," Comer said.
To the extent new information emerged from the hearings, it undercut Comer's own prepared summary of the situation. And the hearings featured much more political posturing than anything amounting to proof.
Tags
Who is online
232 visitors
Does anyone on Newstalkers know of any evidence that the FBI intervened with twitter or facebook to protect Hunter Biden? Not Fox News, right wing media crap, but evidence?
Congress doesnt seem to have any.
C'mon, John!
You know better.
They don't need proof. They just repeat over and over until they can go to the next step: "Where there's smoke, there's fire." And thus they have created the proof they want.
I see what you did here - you got me to say the obvious. Devious!
Where there's smoke there should be investigations.
In a highly partisan political world those 'investigations' produce smoke by intended friction in a seemingly endless loop of investigators investigating investigators all of which is a fantasy of revenge. In order for this to 'succeed' 2 graves are required, one for the accused and one for the accuser.
Because both are dead horses
Where the fuck have you been for the last 6 years of Democrat BS investigations based on TDS driven fever dreams?
We need to investigate Whitewater!
Where the fuck have you been for the last 30 years of Republican BS investigations based on CDS driven fever dreams? See that works both ways. Your side has no high ground in this aspect either.
Dont give them the satisfaction of an equivalency they dont deserve.
You don't say much but it's always good reading when you do
Thanks.
"Mark Zuckerberg on Joe Rogan's podcast defended Facebook's decision to slow down the Hunter Biden laptop story drawing a connection with a warning from the FBI.
"The FBI basically came to us and spoke to some folks on our team and was like, 'Hey, just so you know, you should be on high alert," Zuckerberg told Rogan. "We thought that there was a lot of Russian propaganda on the 2016 election. We have it on notice that basically there's about to be some kind of dump similar to that so just be vigilant.'"
Zuckerberg stated that while the story was being fact checked, "the distribution on Facebook was decreased, but people are still allowed to share it."
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2022/08/26/mark_zuckerberg_after_concerns_from_the_fbi_facebook_limited_the_hunter_biden_laptop_story.html#:~:text=Mark%20Zuckerberg%20on%20Joe%20Rogan%27s%20podcast%20defended%20Facebook%27s,should%20be%20on%20high%20alert%2C%22%20Zuckerberg%20told%20Rogan.
That is not even close to being evidence that the FBI asked Twitter or Facebook to squelch the laptop story.
You'll have to wait for the damning evidence. The FBI doesn't usually announce that they are going to deny free speech rights or censor a story.
We're still waiting for the damning evidence you promised from John Durham.
One fucked up right wing investigation at a time please.
Whitewater.
It's pretty much in the emails and Twitter logs. And investigations are usually to question witnesses and look for further evidence.
I would say this investigation has as much credibility as the Mueller investigation, if no more
So we are not to think that under this veiled "directive" that someone(s) at Twitter and Facebook didn't take it upon their own political views and over zealous self important "duty" to quell anything political in nature and nip it in the bud? And thought that anything that came up with the name "Biden" in it was to be questioned and clipped. This is so covered in bullshit my screen has straw clippings embedded........................
Conspiracy mongers always think there is something there
Yeah....tell us all about conspiracy mongers! LOL!
Do you think trmp's Truth Social wouldn't do the same thing?
If directed by the FBI, I would hope so...............................your point is.............
What makes you think that this was directed by the FBI?
And your point seems to be that as long as it was trmp's FBI everything's cool
Did you even read my original post? From the article...........
Where did I state that? "Officials" were in the meeting and put them on the lookout. It is Twitter and Facebook and their notorious neo liberal political viewed employees that carried on from there.
gov't officials are not necessarily the FBI
and if the right wing had gotten there first.....
Can't rule them out. And ANY GovCo officials would be enough for some to take it as an edict.
I didn't rule them out but I'm not going to go around spouting some half-cocked theory about the FBI collaborating with Face Book and Twitter when I have 0 proof
Not quite sure what you are looking for here. It was the FBI, OR GovCo officials if that suits you better, that had the meetings with the left leaning (hard) Twitter and Facebook and others I am sure. So how would it be right wing. As said, they were asked to be on the lookout and they took it under their biased arm. It isn't GovCo that told them "only right wing stuff". THAT was their definition.............
We can leave the FBI out of it now as it has been shown to you that it was Twitter and Facebook who read into what "officials" told them and the two applied their own definition as to what it was they wanted them to do. It isn't against the law on a social network to assign one's own definition to what is and isn't.
And I never said "collaborating"...................
Now that is some thing you need to prove.
And my original point since you think those 2 are hard left leaning...do you not think that trmp's social media platform would have pulled the same dirty stunt? And yes it is dirty if that's what really happened
Just what did I say when you asked it the first time?
I don't remember. I could go back and look but i really don't care all that much. It did seem vague at the time
There never was a Trump's FBI!
I dont see the letters FBI anywhere in your explanation.
It doesn't. DO try to keep up. That bridge was crossed several comments up.