The FBI finally weighed in on Mark Zuckerberg’s claim that Facebook suppressed the Hunter Biden laptop story after being warned about “Russian propaganda” by the bureau ahead of the 2020 presidential election.
Zuckerberg, who founded the company which is now known as Meta, told podcast giant Joe Rogan this week that Facebook restricted sharing of the story because the FBI had warned the company just before it broke that a Russian disinformation dump was coming. The revelation, coupled with whistleblowers’ allegations the bureau barred agents from investigating it, raises questions about the FBI’s role in the election.
“The FBI routinely notifies U.S. private sector entities, including social media providers, of potential threat information, so that they can decide how to better defend against threats,” the bureau said in a statement Friday night, adding that it “cannot ask, or direct, companies to take action on information received.”
The same FBI who lied about Russian “collusion” and raided President Trump’s home asked Facebook to manipulate its feed to bury the Hunter Biden story.
— Rep. Jim Jordan (@Jim_Jordan) August 26, 2022
While Facebook and Twitter, which also silenced the New York Post bombshell ahead of the election, are private companies not technically bound by the First Amendment, any action taken under government pressure could become a constitutional issue.
Photos, videos, emails, and text messages on the abandoned laptop, which were also ignored by legacy news outlets, paint the president’s son as a drug-addled, venal degenerate and raise troubling questions about President Joe Biden’s own role in his son’s corrupt dealings. A recent poll by TechnoMetrica Institute of Policy and Politics suggested that 79% of Americans believe President Trump likely would have won re-election if voters had known about the contents of Hunter Biden’s laptop and that it was authentic.
Long after the election, media outlets like CNN and the Washington Post, which had dismissed the laptop as Russian disinformation, acknowledged it was authentic.
Zuckerberg told Rogan he couldn’t remember if the FBI alluded specifically to the laptop, but after the FBI released its statement, Meta tweeted that the warning had been general in nature.
“The FBI shared general warnings about foreign interference — nothing specific about Hunter Biden,” the statement said.
Zuckerberg’s revelation came on the heels of Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) disclosing that multiple whistleblowers from inside the FBI have told him they were barred by their superiors from investigating the laptop.
The computer, which Hunter Biden abandoned at a Wilmington, Delaware, computer repair shop, is believed to have been in the possession of the FBI since late 2019, more than a year before the election. It contains photos of Hunter Biden naked and smoking crack, unseemly discussions about his family, and sexual activities, and references to the role of the “Big Guy” in corrupt dealings with foreign entities. The “Big Guy” has been named by former Hunter Biden associate Tony Bobulinski as Joe Biden.
FBI Director Christopher Wray told lawmakers earlier this month that he could not comment on what, if anything, the bureau is doing regarding the laptop. But he said he found reports that the bureau refused to pursue a laptop investigation ahead of the election “deeply troubling.”
Johnson called on Department of Justice (DOJ) Inspector General Michael Horowitz to investigate why the bureau, which is part of the DOJ, has apparently refused to investigate the laptop.