The House Judiciary GOP account has just released a letter detailing the testimony that they’ve received from an FBI official. That testimony reveals that they knew the Hunter Biden laptop was real even as they were telling social media companies about Russian disinformation.
On July 17, 2023, the Committee conducted a transcribed interview of Laura Dehmlow, the Section Chief of the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force (FITF). During her transcribed interview, Dehmlow revealed that the same FBI personnel who were warning social media companies about a potential Russian “hack and leak” operation in the run-up to the 2020 election knew that the laptop belonging to Hunter Biden was not Russian disinformation. After the New York Post broke a story based on the contents of the laptop about Biden family influence peddling,’ the FBI made the institutional decision to refuse to answer direct questions from social media companies about the laptop’s authenticity despite months of constant information sharing up to that time. Put simply, after the FBI conditioned social media companies to believe that the laptop was the product of a hack-and-dump operation, the Bureau stopped its information sharing, allowing social media companies to conclude that the New York Post story was Russian disinformation.
They knew it was real but refused to answer any questions on the matter, allowing that perception — that they helped to foster by spreading the stories about Russian disinformation campaigns — to lay out there. They even stopped their people from telling the social media companies.
The Post published its story early in the morning on October 14. That same day, representatives from FITF attended a previously scheduled meeting with Twitter, during which a Twitter employee asked the FITF about the authenticity of laptop.’ According to Section Chief Dehmlow’s testimony, an analyst in the FBI’s Criminal Investigative Division embedded in FITF began to respond that the laptop was real, when an FBI lawyer interrupted to say that the FBI had “no further comment,” regarding the laptop’s provenance: [….]
So, I remember having a conversation with or being involved in a conversation with Twitter, and I honestly can’t recall if this was repeated to me – I might have been a few minutes late to the meeting – or if – or if I was – I actually overheard it. But it was – it was relayed to me later that somebody from Twitter – I don’t recall who. I’m not sure who. Somebody from Twitter essentially asked whether the laptop was real. And one of the FBI folks who was on the call did confirm that, “yes, it was, before another participant jumped in and said, “no further comment.”
Dehmlow said that going forward there was a discussed policy to say in the future “no comment” in upcoming meetings with the social media companies.
Mark Zuckerberg even detailed how they came to Facebook and warned them about such disinformation and then Facebook censored the laptop.
This was effectively election interference and it prevented millions of Americans from finding out the truth before the election on a topic critical to their votes. The House GOP notes this in their letter:
As the federal court in Missouri v. Biden explained in damning language, the FBI’s actions prevented millions of Americans from having a clear understanding about a salient issue in the 2020 presidential election: The FBI’s failure to alert social-media companies that the Hunter Biden laptop was real, and not mere Russian disinformation, is particularly troubling. The FBI had the laptop in their possession since December 2019 and had warned social-media companies to look for a “hack and dump” operation by the Russians prior to the 2020 election. Even after Facebook specifically asked whether the Hunter Biden laptop story was Russian disinformation, Dehmlow of the FBI refused to comment, resulting in the social-media companies’ suppression of the story. As a result, millions of U.S. citizens did not hear the story prior to the November 3, 2020 election.
Journalist Michael Shellenberger who has hit on a lot of the censorship issues in the Twitter Files summed this up, truly, with one word: “Massive.”
So here’s the proof of what we all knew. But nothing is going to be done until the Democrats are turned out of the White House and lose the Senate. Only then will there be any hope of cleaning house here.