Most people know that Twitter and Facebook suppressed the Hunter Biden story a few days before the 2020 presidential election. And many people know that the FBI was actively encouraging that censorship.

That was implied by Mark Zuckerberg when he told Joe Rogan that the FBI gave him warnings that “fit the pattern” of the New York Post story on Hunter Biden.

Later, Facebook (Meta) softened Zuckerberg’s admission with these words: “The FBI shared general warnings about foreign interference— nothing specific about Hunter Biden.”

What many people don’t know is that the FBI connection to Twitter was much less subtle. There is no doubt that the FBI told Twitter to be on the lookout for hacked information, that it would involve Hunter Biden, and it would arrive in October. The part about hacked information is particularly important because Twitter’s policy was to ban hacked information.  

In my forthcoming book, Debunked?, I highlight some fascinating information that can be found in documents related to a Federal Election Commission (FEC) complaint. In that filing, made by the Republican National Committee (RNC) in October 2020, it is alleged that Twitter made an illegal and “prohibited corporate in-kind contribution” to the Biden campaign. According to the RNC, the contribution was made by suppressing the Hunter laptop story shortly before the election.

The counterargument, made by Twitter, is most revealing. The company argued that it was told by the FBI that the Hunter Biden story was likely “hacked information,” and suppression of the story was justified because Twitter has an anti-hacked information policy. Here is what Twitter’s former Head of Site Integrity (Yoel Roth) said in his sworn affidavit (Exhibit A), submitted to the FEC:

“Since 2018, I have 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.... These expectations of hack-and-leak operations were discussed throughout 2020. I also learned in these meetings that there were rumors that a hack-and-leak operation would involve Hunter Biden.”

The link between the FBI and Twitter was more clearly identified in a letter written to the FEC by Twitter’s law firm, Covington & Burling, LLP. In the letter dated Dec. 21, 2020, the firm stated:

“Twitter had been warned throughout 2020 by federal law enforcement agencies to be on the alert for expected “hack-and-leak operations”. . . Reports from the law enforcement agencies even suggested there were rumors that such a hack-and-leak operation would be related to Hunter Biden [emphasis added]. Given the prior warnings of a hack-and-leak operation and doubts about the provenance of the materials republished in the N.Y. Post articles, the Site Integrity Team preliminarily determined that the materials could have been obtained through hacking, as defined in the [Twitter] Hacked Materials Policy.”

By October 2020, the FBI had one or more Hunter Biden laptops for at least 10 months, and it had to know that the laptop was genuine. Therefore, it also knew that the embarrassing and potentially illegal information about Hunter did NOT come from a hack. In all likelihood, the “hacked” part of the FBI warnings was pure disinformation, designed to nicely mesh with Twitter’s anti-hacked-information policy. In other words, the FBI was probably trying to help Twitter suppress the story so that Joe Biden would win the election.

The FBI disinformation impacted the election in two ways: It allowed Twitter to justify the suppression of the story, and it prevented Twitter from being charged with making an illegal and “prohibited corporate in-kind contribution” to the Biden campaign. The FEC ruled against the RNC, and to a large extent, its ruling was based on the hacked information lie.

It could be argued that fascism is an alliance between government and business for the purpose of suppressing the civil rights of citizenry. President Biden recently claimed that there are many “semi-fascists” in the country. Was he referring to his own FBI?

Joe Fried is an Ohio-based CPA who has performed and reviewed hundreds of certified financial audits. He is the author of the new book, Debunked? An auditor reviews the 2020 election— and the lessons learned (Republic Book Publishers, 2022). It provides a comprehensive overview of irregularities that affected the 2020 election.

Image: Pixabay / Pixabay license