GOP Senators Demand FBI Communication With Facebook on Hunter Biden Amid Claims of Quashed Reporting
15:18 GMT 30.08.2022 (Updated: 16:03 GMT 30.08.2022)
© AP Photo / Andrew Harnik, Pool
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Earlier, GOP Senator Ron Johnson in a letter to Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz cited “individuals with knowledge” as saying that “local FBI leadership” had deliberately slow-walked First Son Hunter Biden’s so-called “laptop from hell” probe for months, the New York Post reported.
Two Republican Senators have penned a letter to Facebook* owner Mark Zuckerberg demanding that all communications with the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Justice Department (DOJ), and other government agencies pertaining to Hunter Biden and his dubious business dealings be turned over.
The trove of documents from the now-notorious "laptop from hell" that Joe Biden’s son had abandoned at a repair store in Delaware shed light on shady overseas business dealings of Hunter Biden and suggested he may have peddled access to his father, who was then vice president.
Furthermore, the names of the DOJ and FBI officials who communicated with Facebook regarding alleged "Russian disinformation" during the 2020 election should be revealed, Sen. Ron Johnson, a ranking member of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, and Sen. Chuck Grassley, ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, wrote.
Their letter, dated August 29, also requested from Facebook the names of officials who the FBI and DOJ made contact with during the 2020 election, and the dates of when the social media platform "decreased the distribution of articles relating to Hunter Biden’s laptop."
“The American people deserve to know whether the FBI used Facebook as part of their alleged plan to discredit information about Hunter Biden. If so, Congress and the American people require clarity with respect to the extent the FBI communicated with Facebook during the 2020 election about Hunter Biden-related information,” the senators wrote.
Senators Johnson and Grassley said Zuckerberg’s recent revelation that the American online social network service, which is part of the company Meta Platforms*, took deliberate steps to censor information about Hunter Biden based on the FBI’s guidance “raises even more questions about the FBI’s actions regarding Hunter Biden’s laptop."
“As you may know, whistleblowers have recently alleged to Senator Grassley that in August 2020, FBI officials initiated a scheme to downplay derogatory information on Hunter Biden for the purpose of shutting down investigative activity relating to his potential criminal exposure by labeling it ‘disinformation.’ Whistleblowers have also alleged to Senator Johnson that local FBI leadership instructed its employees not to look at the Hunter Biden laptop immediately after the FBI had obtained it,” the GOP senators wrote.
In a second letter, addressed to Attorney General Merrick Garland and FBI Director Christopher Wray, the Republicans demanded records relating to the DOJ and FBI’s contact with Facebook, Twitter, and other social media companies regarding the Biden family.
The GOP senators lambasted the FBI’s “consistent failure to answer congressional inquiries.”
“The FBI’s consistent efforts to falsely paint information relating to Biden family misconduct as Russian disinformation continues to draw serious concerns,” they wrote.
25 August 2022, 08:06 GMT
FBI Intervention on Hunter Scandal
On August 25, Mark Zuckerberg revealed in an episode of the podcast The Joe Rogan Experience that in the weeks before the 2020 election, which pitted Democrat Joe Biden against Republican Donald Trump, who was seeking reelection, the FBI alerted Facebook specifically that there was “about to be” a “Russian propaganda” effort involving a document dump which “fit the pattern” of The Post’s October 14, 2020 story.
At the time when the story broke, tens of thousands of emails and text messages retrieved from the hard drive of the first son’s laptop hinting at possible criminal activity and a “pay-to-play” scheme in which Hunter Biden collected cash from foreign business interests in exchange for political access to his powerful father, Joe Biden, were dismissed as “Russian disinformation.”
“Basically, the background here is the FBI, I think basically came to us – some folks on our team – and was like, ‘Hey, just so you know, you should be on high alert. We thought that there was a lot of Russian propaganda in the 2016 election. We have it on notice that basically there’s about to be some kind of dump that’s similar to that. So just be vigilant,’” Zuckerberg stated.
Accordingly, after the FBI intervention, Facebook resorted to an algorithm to suppress stories about Hunter Biden's laptop before the November 2020 election.
Earlier, the New York Post reported that Republican Senator Ron Johnson in a letter to Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz cited “individuals with knowledge” as saying that “local FBI leadership” had dragged its feet deliberately over the laptop investigation after the computer was recovered in December 2019.
“These new allegations provide even more evidence of FBI corruption and renew calls for you to take immediate steps to investigate the FBI’s actions regarding the laptop,” Johnson wrote, referring to Horowitz.
FBI Director Christopher Wray testified earlier this month that he found allegations the FBI mishandled the laptop to be "deeply troubling."
Notorious Laptop
Hunter Biden’s laptop is part of an ongoing Department of Justice probe in Delaware into his murky business activities and possible tax violations.
US President Joe Biden has repeatedly dismissed any knowledge of his son’s business activities, with most mainstream news outlets and social media companies shielding the Democrat against damaging fallout from the laptop’s revelations ahead of the 2020 presidential election campaign, when the computer was dismissed as part of a “Russian disinformation operation.”
Earlier this year, The New York Times and The Washington Post finally confirmed that the laptop and its damning contents were authentic.
The GOP has since lambasted the quashing of the story on Hunter Biden and has vowed to investigate Mark Zuckerberg, the FBI, and the first son if they retake the majority in the House of Representatives after November’s midterm elections.
*The activity of Meta (Facebook and Instagram) is banned in Russia over extremism.
