This is one of the biggest political scandals in history. While it’s good that this is being exposed, we should pray that it would never happen again.
From The Federalist. Elon Musk’s release of internal communications pre-dating his purchase of Twitter is providing an ever-expanding menu of scandals. From Twitter coordinating censorship decisions with the government and politicians, to the censorship of scientists discussing the Covid response, to the blacklisting of prominent conservatives — including candidates for office — to the banning of the president of the United States from Twitter based on a pretext, each edition of the “Twitter Files” launches a new angle of outrage over the tech giant’s politically motivated decision-making.
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But the barrage of information is blinding both pundits and the public to the most egregious political scandal in recent history: Our FBI interfered in the 2020 election by lying to tech giants about the Hunter Biden laptop story to induce Twitter, Facebook, and likely others to censor the story. …
‘Hacked Materials’
In the first dump of the Twitter Files, independent journalist Matt Taibbi focused on “How and Why Twitter Blocked the Hunter Biden Laptop Story.”
Internal communications revealed that Twitter censored the New York Post’s story based on its “hacked materials” policy, preventing users from sharing the story and even suspending the New York Post’s official account. Those same communications showed Twitter staffers questioning the propriety and/or veracity of the “hacked materials” explanation, with both Yoel Roth and Jim Baker defending the decision. …
A Detailed Warning
There is no need for a paper trail confirming that the government expressly told Twitter the Hunter Biden laptop, which served as the basis for the New York Post article, had been hacked, however, because intelligence agencies gave Twitter (and Facebook) a warning detailed enough to prompt the tech giants to presume the story represented the anticipated threat. …
The proof of these realities comes first from a Dec. 21, 2020, letter from Twitter to the Federal Election Commission, accompanied by a declaration signed by Roth. In his statement to the FEC, Roth stated that “since 2018 he had regular meetings with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI, and industry peers regarding election security.”
“During these weekly meetings, the 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 explained. Significantly, Roth then noted that during those meetings he learned “that there were rumors that a hack-and-leak operation would involve Hunter Biden.” …
Warnings from the FBI likewise prompted Facebook to censor the Hunter Biden story, according to founder Mark Zuckerberg. During an August 2020 interview … Zuckerberg began by providing his host with a backdrop to Facebook’s decision to limit distribution of the New York Post’s story, explaining: “The FBI basically came to us, some folks on our team, [saying,] ‘Hey just so you know, you should be on high alert.”
Zuckerberg continued, explaining that the bureau told Facebook, “[W]e thought there was a lot of Russian propaganda in the 2016 election” and that “we have it on notice that basically there’s about to be some kind of dump similar to that so just be vigilant.” …
When asked whether the FBI had specifically told him to be on guard about the laptop story, Zuckerberg, after initially responding, “no,” equivocated, stating, “I don’t remember if it was that specifically, but it basically fit the pattern.” …
Dripping with Deceit
The FBI’s warning and the federal government’s efforts to prompt the private censorship of speech, however, are not the heart of the scandal. Worse still is that the New York Post story was true, the computer files were not hacked, and the October surprise was not Russian disinformation but a legitimate and important news report establishing Joe Biden lied to the American public about his knowledge of his son’s business dealings and was also implicated in a pay-to-play scandal. And the FBI knew those facts for nearly one year, having seized the Hunter Biden laptop from the computer repair shop owner in December of 2019.
So, not only did the FBI prompt Twitter and Facebook to censor the Hunter Biden laptop story, the bureau did so by deceiving the companies.
The FBI lied so Joe Biden’s campaign would survive — and that scandal is far worse than our government prompting the private censorship of speech based on the intelligence community’s honest assessment that a story or post is Russian disinformation.
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(Excerpt from The Federalist. Photo Credit: Getty Images)