The FBI yesterday responded to the evidence I unearthed in Twitter Files Part 7 suggesting that the FBI may have covered up the Hunter Biden laptop and waged a disinformation campaign aimed at persuading news organizations, social media platforms Twitter and Facebook, and voters that the Hunter Biden laptop was a product of a Russian “hack and leak” operation.
“The correspondence between the FBI and Twitter show nothing more than examples of our traditional, longstanding and ongoing federal government and private sector engagements, which involve numerous companies over multiple sectors and industries,” said the FBI. “It is unfortunate that conspiracy theorists and others are feeding the American public misinformation with the sole purpose of attempting to discredit the agency.” [Emphasis mine.]
Could it be that the FBI is eager to debate “theories” because it wants to avoid the facts? Consider three key ones:
The FBI took Hunter Biden's laptop in December 2019 and always knew it was real and didn't come from hacking.
The FBI spent most of 2020 telling Twitter’s senior executives that a "hack-and-leak" involving Hunter Biden would occur in October 2020.
The FBI was spying on Rudy Giuliani when he gave a copy of Hunter Biden’s laptop hard drive to The New York Post.
It’s true that we don't know if the FBI agents who warned Twitter of a "hack-and-leak" operation involving Hunter Biden also knew that a) the FBI had Biden's laptop and b) Giuliani was giving it to The New York Post. But they didn't need to know that. They could have simply been following orders from higher-level executives.
Moreover, it was precisely the job of those higher-level executives at FBI to know of all FBI operations, including the investigation of the Hunter Biden laptop, the surveillance of Giuliani, and the warnings to Twitter and Facebook executives of a hack-and-leak operation. And that fact alone is enough for Attorney General Merrick Garland to appoint a special counsel, and for Congress to investigate.
Let me put it another way.
It appears as though FBI employees and former employees worked together to cover up evidence of criminal activity on Hunter Biden's laptop, and misinform news and social media organizations about foreign intereference. And that appearance is enough for a serious investigation into the FBI.
Perhaps the FBI agents who hyped a Russian hack-and-dump involving Hunter Biden didn't know about the laptop or the surveillance of Giuliani. Perhaps FBI found no criminal activity by Hunter Biden. If so — great! But then we need to clear FBI's name and reputation through a thorough investigation.
If FBI agents had, in fact, been engaged in an influence operation aimed at influencing the election through the manipulation of mainstream reporters and senior executives at Twitter and Facebook, we need to root them out, reckon with the implications, and de-politicize the FBI.
If the above is true, then this is, by far, the worst scandal in the history of the FBI. We simply can't let our highest law enforcement organization interfere in an election in the ways that FBI agents appear to have done.
The good news is that members of Congress are demanding accountability.
“One way we could get the FBI in front of the committee really quickly is say, ‘We're not giving you a penny until you all come down here and explain to us what this task force was and why you told Twitter to suppress the Hunter Biden laptop story when you knew darn well it was true,” said Rep. James Comer.
"Congress never authorized the FBI to do this,” said Comer. “The government has no business in censoring speech whether it's liberal speech or conservative speech. They have no business doing it. This is another act by the deep state out of control. And Republicans in the majority in January are going to have to do something about this.”
It’s long past time that the FBI (and the CIA) are held to account and their out of control criminal overreach is stopped.
