Earlier this month, Twitter owner Elon Musk provided independent journalists with proof that the company aided Democrats in 2020. This included suppressing reports on Hunter Biden's abandoned laptop.
One of those journalists is Michael Shellenberger, and in a series of tweets on Monday, he called for an investigation of the FBI's role in keeping that story under wraps.
In Twitter Files #7, we present evidence pointing to an organized effort by representatives of the intelligence community (IC), aimed at senior executives at news and social media companies, to discredit leaked information about Hunter Biden before and after it was published.
— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) December 19, 2022
Shellenberger began by noting how in December of 2019, the FBI took possession of Biden's laptop from Delaware computer store owner John Paul Mac Isaac.
He then recalled how in August of 2020, Mac Isaac provided a copy of the laptop hard drive to then Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani, who was under FBI surveillance. Giuliani in turn sent the copy to the New York Post.
On the evening of October 13, Hunter Biden's attorney sent an email to Mac Isaac. Shellenberger explained that two hours later, "FBI Special Agent Elvis Chan sends 10 documents to Twitter’s then-Head of Site Integrity, Yoel Roth, through Teleporter, a one-way communications channel from the FBI to Twitter."
The following day, the Post began publishing articles about Biden's laptop. In addition to his illegal drug use and involvement with prostitutes, the laptop also documented Biden's extensive business dealings with foreign figures.
Yet although it was in possession of the laptop, the FBI "primed" Roth to dismiss stories about the device as being Russian disinformation.
A similar approach was apparently taken with Facebook, as platform founder Mark Zuckerberg told podcast host Joe Rogan that the company was warned of an upcoming Russian propaganda dump.
13. They did the same to Facebook, according to CEO Mark Zuckerberg. “The FBI basically came to us [and] was like, ‘Hey... you should be on high alert. We thought that there was a lot of Russian propaganda in 2016 election. There's about to be some kind of dump similar to that.'" pic.twitter.com/yPGP8nYgCq
— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) December 19, 2022
This was despite the fact that Twitter executives acknowledged that they had seen relatively little Russian disinformation activity in 2020.
What's more, Special Agent Chan admitted that the FBI had not seen "any similar competing intrusions to what had happened in 2016."
Fox News reported on Tuesday that the FBI reacted to Shellenberger's revelations by insisting it hadn't provided "specific instructions or details regarding the Hunter Biden laptop story." That didn't go over well with George Washington University Law Professor Jonathan Turley.
Fox News quoted Turley as saying, "It is not clear what is more chilling: the menacing role played by the FBI in Twitter’s censorship program or its mendacious response to the disclosure of that role."
