House Republicans are trying to construct a 2020 conspiracy theory: Claims that the FBI was trying to undercut Trump make no sense
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Even as voters went to the polls in November 2016, there was strong evidence that Russia or Russian actors were hoping to influence the outcome.
In June of that year, The Washington Post reported on the hacking of the Democratic National Committee, an act attributed to Russian actors and which resulted in the leak of stolen documents the following month aimed at disrupting the Democratic convention. In August, the Daily Beast reported on a social media effort conducted by Russians that aimed to boost Donald Trump's candidacy. Then, in October, a new set of leaks of material stolen from a top adviser to Hillary Clinton — a theft attributed to Russian hackers at the time.
Inside the government, the effort was recognized for what it was (though its efforts to halt the interference fell obviously short). For its part, the public only gained a sense of the full scale of the attempt to influence the election after it was over. Investigations, including that of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, clearly connected the hacks to Russian intelligence. Social media companies like Twitter and Facebook produced examples of accounts and posts that had been part of the Russian influence effort.
Mueller's probe also fleshed out details on the social media push. It was a function of the "Internet Research Agency," a group funded by Yevgeniy Prigozhin, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin (whom American intelligence had identified as explicitly authorizing the effort to interfere in the election). Prigozhin was indicted along with a number of employees for their efforts to create the social media content that had embarrassed Twitter and Facebook more than it had influenced voting.
Speaking to reporters in November, Prigozhin admitted his role in the effort.
"We interfered. We are interfering and we will interfere," he said. "Carefully, precisely, surgically and in our own way, as we know how to do."
"Are interfering" — as in, he and his team were attempting to influence the 2022 midterms, too. This was, at least per his self-interested presentation, an ongoing effort.
After that 2016 black eye, the social media companies had announced various tools for uprooting foreign influence efforts. In 2020 and 2022, they announced the cancellation of accounts believed to be linked to Russian interference efforts. Meanwhile the federal government, eager to prevent Russia from repeating its 2016 successes, worked with the companies to share information about what it was seeing.
That contributed to one of the most infamous moments of the 2020 election. In October of that year, the New York Post ran a story on material it claimed had been recovered from a laptop belonging to Joe Biden's son Hunter. Even at the Post, the story raised eyebrows. Fox News reportedly passed on it. The conduit for the information was Rudy Giuliani, an attorney for Donald Trump who had no qualms about sharing dubiously sourced material, including from Russian actors. The FBI had been warning social media companies about 2016-style efforts to inject stolen information into the election; the laptop story very much carried that aroma. Twitter and Facebook briefly limited the story's reach or its ability to be shared.
The effect was negligible. Trump was unpopular and lost to Biden handily in the presidential election. But then Trump decided to deny his loss, first on the grounds that the election had been stolen through fraud (which it demonstrably wasn't) and, later, that it had been stolen through nefarious influence. This latter framing had the advantage of being unfalsifiable, so Trump's allies ran with it.
An opportunity presented itself. Republicans who'd fostered hostility toward social media (in keeping with a liberal-elites-fighting-humble-American-patriots narrative) could try to argue that Twitter's response to the laptop story had cost Trump the election. Such ideas have the effect of dropping a crystal into the supersaturated solution that is right-wing media so, in short order, a full conspiracy was built out around it. The right's skepticism of the FBI (stoked by Trump, coincidentally, in an effort to downplay questions about his campaign's connections to Russia) blended with cherry-picked documents released after Elon Musk's purchase of Twitter to create a narrative about the FBI intentionally encouraging social media companies to silence Americans — or even paying them to do so, which they didn't.
On Wednesday night, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) hyped this line of rhetoric in an interview with Fox News's Sean Hannity.
"The most important right we have as American citizens under the First Amendment is our right to speak, our right to communicate in a political fashion and not be attacked, harassed for doing so," Jordan said, which of course isn't what the First Amendment allows at all. But, he argued, this is what he suggested had happened: "We believe all of these big tech companies were working with big government to suppress free speech, to suppress Americans' right to communicate on these platforms, which are now, in essence, the public square."
A lot has been written about the difference between the government preventing people from speaking (a violation of the First Amendment) and Twitter's preventing people from posting (a decision within the rights of a private business) so there's little point rehashing it. But notice that the claim itself is unsupported. The FBI didn't work to "suppress free speech," it and other law enforcement organizations provided information to tech companies about potential foreign threats in an effort to prevent a repeat of 2016. And they were doing this at a time when Russia was actively trying to repeat what it did in 2016, as Prigozhin admitted. (His November comments were first reported in the United States this week.)
Where's Jordan's evidence for his presentation of events? Well, he doesn't have any.
"That's what we believe happened," he told Hannity. "We're looking for the, uh — looking for the evidence."
A bit later, he offered more in support of why he purports to believe this is what happened.
"It wasn't just the FBI. It was several government agencies, part of this Foreign Intelligence Task Force who were meeting not just with Twitter, but with all these platforms," he explained. "And they met weekly in the run-up to the 2020 election. And they've continued to meet in the run-up to the 2022 midterms."
You have to be pretty distant from reality to see this as supporting your conspiracy theory rather than undercutting it. The FBI was out to get Trump so … they met with social media companies in 2022? Which makes more sense: that the FBI and other agencies wanted to undercut Republican politicians so they had regular, reported meetings with Twitter and Facebook to plan how to do that — or that they were working together in an effort to limit the ability of foreign actors to influence elections, which the foreign actors had demonstrably done and have since admitted to continuing to try to do?
For Jordan, a lot of this is a game. He's gained a lot of power by playing along with Trump even when Trump didn't uphold his end of the bargain. Jordan's a regular in right-wing media, where he makes sweeping pronouncements of nefariousness that don't hold up.
The reality is simple and unexciting. Russia has tried to influence our elections, including through social media. The government and social media companies, caught flat-footed in 2016, worked together to fight the effort.
And Donald Trump lost in 2020 because he was less popular than Joe Biden.
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Kind of like how the gop still trying to prove that Hillary Clinton ordered CIA and FBI investigations of Trump's secretive relationships with Russian spies in 2016. Mrs Clinton had retired from public office in January of 2013. The CIA and FBI probes (plural) into Donald Trump's many Russian dealings were both legally predicated and they predated the 2016 Presidential election by years. Trump got himself investigated by seeking out and meeting with and talking to clandestine agents of Putin's Russian State Intelligence Services. Beginning by at least 2014 and continuing right up to Election day in 2016 Trump was in constant secretive negotiations with Vlad Putin to build Trump Tower in Moscow!
It's amusing you have to resort to making things up to attack Trump.
Same spiel at least once a day. Not sure who the member is trying to convince. The membership at large or themselves.
Hillary retired as Sec of State in Jan 2013!
Because, the Durham Probe proved the CIA and FBI probes of Trump's Russian connections were legally predicated and predated the 2016 presidential election!
The MAGA are still in denial of the facts.
Prove me wrong on just one point I make!
The best you come up with is a "Nunt Uh!"
Is that a deflection? Sure looks like it to me as nothing has been mentioned, except for you of course in a previous comment, about Mrs Clinton in the comment you are replying to. Strange......................
John Durham tried, AND FAILED, to prove me wrong but I still wait for you to do so!
Tell you what. Find all your sources, compile them into the Reader's Digest version WITH citations for each point and we can talk. Other than that, it is now and has been for the last two years minimum, bullshit.
Prove me wrong on just one point I make!
Lol. Now you play the dishonest conspiracy theorist's go to card. Since you can't provide any evidence (let alone prove) that The CIA and FBI probes (plural) into Donald Trump's many Russian dealings were both legally predicated and they predated the 2016 Presidential election by years". Since you can't provide proof of things that never happened, you make a cowardly demand that others prove a negative.
Here's your proof. Your repeated inability over months and years to provide any evidence of these investigations existing proves they didn't exist. The absence of evidence proves they didn't happen.
You made an assertion. It's your burden to prove it. If you weren't making things up, you could do it easily.
For the last time, he was in fucking real estate! And right up until election day says a lot. It stopped.
Best you compartmentmentalize this and find a new shtick.
Contact Putin and see if the CIA notices.
The CIA and FBI probes (plural) of Trump's Russian connections were legally predicated and predated the 2016 Presidential election by years.
Hillary Clinton retired from public office in January of 2013.
Trump was secretly negotiating with Vlad Putin to build a Trump Tower in Moscow right up to election day in 2016 and was lying about it.
Trump and Co sought out, met with and established long term relationships with multiple clandestine agents of Russian State Intelligence Services in the years leading up to the 2016 Presidential election. Ours and every other Intelligence services in the world took notes.
Prove Me Wrong!
John Durham damn sure did not because he could not...
What's your point? I have no interest in Russia or Putin. I don't have enough money to build a high rise.
My point is that, YES, Trump was being investigated by our CIA and FBI and every other Intelligence agency in the world including MI6 and Interpol in the years leading up to the 2016 election because he was communicating with a lot of Russian spies and Vlad Putin himself! Only in far rightwing lala land is that not a legal predicate for getting investigated...
Durham spent years and millions of US taxpayer dollars and did not disprove me.
Butt, you can try. I will wait...
The CIA and FBI never confirm or deny any details about their ongoing investigations...
But, it is implausible that the CIA and FBI were not investigating Trump because every other western country was also...
Not to have would have been negligence.
These facts are why Durham Struck Out.
When did he profess to prove you wrong? He wasn't concerning himself with your bullshit pre 2016 claims. He had bigger fish to fry.
They all missed the Michael Cohen trials.
That Trump was in constant secretive negotiations with Vlad Putin to build a Trump Tower in Moscow right up to election day in 2016 was in evidence!
Exactly! Durham Fried ZERO NO ZIP Fishs.
All those fish he set out to fry are still raw, sushi, because Durham's set out to prove that the CIA and FBI probes of Trump's Russian dealings were illegal.
If you do not know, he failed miserably!
Here is what Barr charged him with..................
It wasn't just the FBI and CIA. It was anyone.........................
Probably about half of the Mueller investigations and when that fell through as bullshit, the ongoing "we have to get Trump" continuance by Congress for three more years............right up through 2022 with the J6 committee..................
Ours and every other western intelligence agency in the world including MI6 and Interpol were investigating Trump's many secretive relationships with clandestine agents of Vlad Putin's Russian State Intelligence Services in the years leading up to the 2016 election because Trump and Co sought out and met with Russian spies and even Vlad Putin himself. This is all very well documented by numerous sources, including the Steele Dossier...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Links_between_Trump_associates_and_Russian_officials#:~:text=By%20April%2019%2C%202019%2C%20The,2016%20campaign%20and%20presidential%20transition.%22
Prove It!
Much like Trump, keep doubling down with your ridiculousness.
Perfect. Just perfect. I couldn't draw up your response any better.
Another perfect post. Now you are citing imaginary trials.
The Steele Dossier was a compilation of information foreign intelligence agencies accumulated about Trump's Russian connections in the years leading up to the 2016 elections. That many other nations were also investigating Trump's and Putin's secretive relationship is future proof the CIA and FBI probes of Trump's Russian connections were legally predicated and long predated 2016...
Lol. Why even bother with such a transparently false claim? Anyone who hasn't been living under a rock for the last few years can cite very public statements about investigations.
I hate to break it you, but the IG published a report going over the investigation into Trump and the other people involved. It was front page news and cited to you hundreds of times [deleted]
Wow. This is just delusional. It bears no relation to reality.
h
Doesn't that confirm they investigated?
He didn't say investigations found nada.
They found out that Trump was meeting with Russian spies and talking to Putin.
Try searching out and meeting with a few clandestine agents of Russian State Intelligence Services "spies" and see of the CIA and FBI will investigate you, too.
No Sean, it is not and denial is futile...
Though you can see pyramids from it.
Ongoing investigations Sean. Ongoing...
I cannot help if you cannot understand it.
Everything Trump said was a big fat lie...
You are duped. Fooled! Misled by Trump!
Lol. Read this again... but the IG published a report going over the investigation into Trump and the other people involved.
The FBI and everyone else stopped investigating "collusion" with Russia in 2019. . There is no "ongoing investigation." You are, yet again, making shit up because you have zero proof of your imaginary allegations.
The overall premise of this article is about 2020 and the accusation that the FBI told social media not to post the laptop story.
There are 46 comments on this seed and only one or two of those comments refers to the seeded premise.
Im locking the fucking article.