Morris: Multiple Indications FBI, Intelligence Agencies Guided Censorship of the Laptop from Hell
Despite the “Twitter Files” not providing any revelations on the issue of the federal government guiding censorship of the “laptop from hell” so far, there are multiple indications that this occurred in the lead-up to the election.
Over the summer, in an appearance on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast, Facebook (now known as Meta) CEO Mark Zuckerberg casually mentioned in conversation that the FBI was warning Facebook of “propaganda” ahead of the 2020 election, urging the platform to be “vigilant” to censor.
“The FBI, I think basically came to us — some folks on our team and was like, ‘Hey, um, just so you know, like, you should be on high alert. There was the — we thought that there was a lot of Russian propaganda in the 2016 election. We have it on notice that basically there’s about to be some kind of dump of — that’s similar to that. So just be vigilant.’”
Shortly afterwards, the New York Post published its first article about Hunter Biden’s “laptop from hell.” The story was immediately shut down by Twitter, while Facebook reduced its distribution — meaning it appeared on fewer people’s newsfeeds to a “meaningful” degree, according to Zuckerberg.
“We just kind of thought, Hey look, if the FBI, which, you know, I still view as a legitimate institution in this country, it’s a very professional law enforcement,” Zuckerberg told Rogan. “They come to us and tell us that we need to be on guard about something. Then I wanna take that seriously.”
While Zuckerberg said the FBI did not specifically identify the Hunter Biden story as the “Russian propaganda” in question, “it basically fit the pattern.”
But we know Facebook was not the only platform to receive this alert.
The New York Post reported this week that the FBI warned Twitter as well, in “weekly” meetings ahead of the 2020 election, that there would be what they called “hack-and-leak operations” involving Hunter Biden, even specifically noting this would become public in October, which is when the Post published the “laptop from hell” series.
The New York Post’s Miranda Devine unearthed a declaration to the Federal Election Commission given by Twitter’s former head of site integrity, Yoel Roth, in December, 2020, where he says that he was told in meetings with “the intelligence community” that “hacking attacks” would occur and be disseminated on social media.
“I was told in these meetings that the intelligence community expected that individuals associated with political campaigns would be subject to hacking attacks and that material obtained through those hacking attacks would likely be disseminated over social media platforms, including Twitter,” Roth told the FEC on December 21, 2020. “I also learned in these meetings that there were rumors that a hack-and-leak operation would involve Hunter Biden.”
Devine also reports:
The FBI was spying on Trump’s then-lawyer Rudy Giuliani’s online cloud, under the pretext of an investigation into alleged foreign agent registration violations, a probe which conveniently was dropped this year.
The covert surveillance warrant on Giuliani gave the FBI access to emails in August 2020 from Delaware computer repair store owner John Paul Mac Isaac disclosing information damaging to Joe Biden from the laptop Hunter Biden had abandoned at his store in April 2019.
The FBI also had access to my messages with Giuliani in October discussing when The Post would publish the story.
The FBI knew that Mac Isaac was a legitimate whistleblower because he had come to the bureau in the fall of 2019 to express national security concerns about evidence on the laptop of payments to the Biden family from Ukraine and China. On Dec. 9, 2019, two agents arrived at his store with a subpoena and took the laptop and a hard-drive copy.
Fox News also reported this week that FBI Supervisory Special Agent Elvis Chan testified to Attorneys General Eric Schmitt (R-MO) and Jeff Landry (R-LA) that the FBI held “weekly” meetings with Big Tech companies for “coordinating with social media platforms relating to censorship and suppression of speech on platforms.”
Fox News reports:
During the deposition, Chan said that he, along with the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force and senior Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency officials, had weekly meetings with major social media companies to warn against Russian disinformation attempts ahead of the 2020 election, according to a source in the Missouri attorney general’s office.
Those meetings were initially quarterly, then monthly, then weekly heading into the presidential election between former President Donald Trump and now President Biden. According to a source, Chan testified that in those multiple, separate meetings, the FBI warned the social media companies that there could be potentially Russian “hack and dump” or “hack and leak” operations. …
“On information and belief, the FBI’s reference to a ‘dump’ of information was a specific reference to the contents of Hunter Biden’s laptop, which was already in the FBI’s possession,” the complaint said.
Reporting from the New York Post adds that Chan said he could not “recall” if the discussions with social media companies included Hunter Biden’s “laptop in particular.”
“I do not remember us specifically saying ‘Hunter Biden’ in any meeting with Twitter,” Chan reportedly said, contradicting Roth’s claims to the FEC that Hunter was specifically mentioned.
Emma-Jo Morris is the Politics Editor at Breitbart News. Email her at ejmorris@breitbart.com or follow her on Twitter.
Tucker Carlson: What we learned from 'The Twitter Files'
Bombshell report alleges Biden family had 150+ suspicious bank activity flags
Rudy Giuliani sums up what ultimate elite capture looks like, stating: “The Biden Family is owned by the Chinese Communist Party.”
THE BIDEN KLEPTOCRACY
American people deserve to know what China was up to with Joe Biden, especially when Beijing had already shelled out millions of dollars to Biden family members — including millions in set-asides for “the big guy.” What else is on that infamous Hunter Biden laptop? The conflicted Biden Justice Department cannot be trusted to engage in any meaningful oversight on this issue. We need a special counsel now.
TOM FITTON - JUDICIAL WATCH
Hunter has reportedly sold five paintings worth $75,000 each to an anonymous buyer. Hunter’s art dealer, Georges Bergès, has previously boasted he had strong ties to businessmen in Communist China, which has concerned many due to the Biden family’s business ventures abroad.
“We are 95% sure that that artwork went to China,” Comer said. “We don’t know where exactly that went to in China, but we’re going to try to find out when we get subpoena power.”
BANKSTERS: GLOBAL PARASITES
Banksters: The Untouchable Bank (Global Finance Scandal Documentary) | Real Stories
Now we know: Twitter spiked the Hunter Biden story to save the 2020 election for The Big Guy.
After years of denial and deplatforming of those who dared question the collusion of Big Tech with Leftist deep state officials to influence the 2020 presidential election and make sure that Donald Trump was not reelected, the facts have been revealed. Elon Musk on Friday night revealed through Matt Taibbi (who though he is a Leftist seems actually to be a genuine journalist), how Twitter spiked the story of Hunter Biden’s laptop and prevent the sordid details of his influence-peddling for The Big Guy to get out to the public, and possibly tip the election in Trump’s favor. Since the revelation, the establishment media and leading Democrats have been in furious damage control mode, insisting that the revelations don’t reveal what everyone can see they reveal, and even if they do, they don’t matter. But it’s undeniable now: the fix was in.
“In an early conception,” Taibbi wrote, “Twitter more than lived up to its mission statement, giving people ‘the power to create and share ideas and information instantly, without barriers.’ As time progressed, however, the company was slowly forced to add those barriers. Some of the first tools for controlling speech were designed to combat the likes of spam and financial fraudsters.” But then, “Slowly, over time, Twitter staff and executives began to find more and more uses for these tools. Outsiders began petitioning the company to manipulate speech as well: first a little, then more often, then constantly.”
The censorship became a political tool. “By 2020,” Taibbi continued, “requests from connected actors to delete tweets were routine. One executive would write to another: ‘More to review from the Biden team.’ The reply would come back: ‘Handled.’” Both sides had recourse to this, but one side used it much more often than the other did: “Both parties had access to these tools. For instance, in 2020, requests from both the Trump White House and the Biden campaign were received and honored. However: This system wasn’t balanced. It was based on contacts. Because Twitter was and is overwhelmingly staffed by people of one political orientation, there were more channels, more ways to complain, open to the left (well, Democrats) than the right.”
When the New York Post published the Hunter Biden laptop story, Twitter went to extraordinary lengths to suppress it. Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) was the lone Democrat who had any freedom of speech concerns about all this; most of his colleagues in the Evil Party cheered Twitter on and called for more censorship, maintaining that “the First Amendment isn’t absolute.”
In response to be revealed definitively as the authoritarians they are, Leftist “journalists” and politicians have made predictable responses: they’ve heaped scorn on patriots for caring at all about Hunter’s laptop, claiming that it’s all about their perverted, prurient interest in nude photos of the president’s crackhead son. They’ve pointed out that Biden wasn’t president in 2020, and so this wasn’t an example of the government colluding with Big Tech to censor an inconvenient story. In reality, Hunter’s laptop contains evidence that Hunter sold access to his father, which, had it been widely known before the 2020 election, might have a considerable number of people who planned to vote for Joe Biden think twice about sending to the Oval Office a man who could be and had been bought by foreign interests.
And as for the business about Biden not being president in 2020, so this isn’t a First Amendment issue, that’s just another red herring. Biden is president now, or at least he has the title, and his handlers have demonstrated no greater respect for the freedom of speech than they did in 2020. They tried to establish a Disinformation Governance Board in the Department of Homeland Security, backing down only after a barrage of negative publicity. The Biden administration continued to work with Twitter to censor dissident voices, notably that of COVID hysteria skeptic Alex Berenson.
This is the administration that trotted out Old Joe in front of an ominous, Nazi-reminiscent red-and-black backdrop, flanked by two Marines, to declare that half of the American electorate represents “an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic.” The authoritarians are in charge now, and they are continuing their self-appointed role as the guardians of what you may and may not see and hear. Elon Musk, with his commitment to the freedom of speech, which is the foundation of any free society, has them frightened and enraged. Watch for determined efforts on the part of the Biden administration and its allies to crush Musk and his free Twitter. The victor will determine the direction of the United States for the entire rest of its life as a nation: freedom or slavery?
Rep. Comer: 'Thank Goodness for Elon Musk'; 'He's Providing Evidence'
(CNSNews.com) - "Thank goodness for Elon Musk," Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), the incoming chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, told "Sunday Morning Futures."
"He's definitely the Grinch that stole Christmas for the Democrat National Committee. And what he's showing here is evidence that the Biden campaign colluded with Big Tech to suppress a story that we now know is 100 percent true,” Comer told Maria Bartiromo.
"The problem the Democrats should have is, why were they so scared of the laptop story? And the answer, Maria, is because the laptop proves evidence that not only did Joe Biden lie to the American people about his involvement with his family's influence peddling and shady business dealings.
"It also proves that Joe Biden was a part of those shady business deals. And that's something every American should be concerned about."
Comer was referring to Musk's release on Friday of the so-called "Twitter Files," messages that show how politically-connected people petitioned Twitter to "manipulate speech" and ban information they didn't like, such as the Hunter Biden laptop story, which Twitter actively suppressed in the run-up to the 2020 election.
According to journalist Matt Taibbi, to whom Elon Musk released the information:
-- "By 2020, requests from connected actors to delete tweets were routine," we are told. "One executive would write to another: 'More to review from the Biden team.' The reply would come back: 'Handled.'"
-- "Because Twitter was and is overwhelmingly staffed by people of one political orientation, there were more channels, more ways to complain, open to the left (well, Democrats) than the right."
Comer says the committee he soon will lead plans to investigate the Biden family's alleged influence-peddling and how it may have influenced Joe Biden's policies toward China and others.
"Joe Biden met with every person that he earlier said he never met," Comer said.
"We have pictures. We have e-mails to prove it. Joe Biden was actively involved. What the Biden family was doing was selling access to Joe Biden. That's the family business.
"When people say, what are they -- what were they involved in? They didn't manufacture anything. They didn't sell anything. They don't own any property. They were influence peddling.
“So it's very concerning when you look at who they were influence peddling with. They were influence peddling with our adversaries in Russia, Ukraine, and, most concerning, China.
"And that's what I have been focused on, the threat of communist China."
Comer said the Biden family's influence peddling is a "national security risk.'
"And when you look at national security, and you look at the evidence on the laptop, energy policy is national security. And the most concerning part of the business deal, so to say, so to speak, that the Biden family was involved in was trying to help China get their foot in the door on the American energy industry.
"So, part of what the deal was that Joe Biden was going to be involved in was trying to help China purchase drillers in the natural gas industry. People are outraged over China buying farmland in the Dakotas. Think about China buying into our American energy industry, at the help of the Biden family.
"And then you look at all these crazy policies coming out of the Biden administration with respect to energy policy that are affecting every American in a negative way, and you think maybe he is compromised."
Comer said he's "pretty confident" that a number of federal employees were communicating with Twitter, "as to what they can censor and not, as to who they can ban and who they cannot."
Comer said his committee will do "everything we can to get to the truth."
"We believe that Elon Musk has a lot of evidence. Part of what I have said when I took over the Oversight Committee is, we're going to base everything on evidence, unlike Adam Schiff. We're not just going to be on fishing expeditions. When we go down a certain path, it's because we have credible evidence.
"And what Elon Musk is doing for the American people and for Republican oversight is that he's providing evidence."'
Meet the Beijing-Aligned Group That Branded a Republican’s Tough-on-China Rhetoric ‘Racist’
Collin Anderson •The Chinese-American nonprofit that branded a Republican congresswoman's tough-on-China campaign ads "racist" has extensive ties to Chinese Communist Party influence groups and Beijing-backed companies through its members, staff, and former leaders, a Washington Free Beacon investigation found.
In late October, with the 2022 midterms just two weeks away, the Committee of 100—a nonprofit that works to "advance U.S.-China relations"—issued a statement condemning China-related campaign ads from California Republican Michelle Steel. Those ads, which the committee said included "racist attacks" that encouraged "anti-Asian hate and violence," criticized Democrat challenger Jay Chen's past support for the Confucius Classroom program, a CCP-run initiative that provides American K-12 schools with Beijing-backed teachers and curriculum materials.
The committee's decision to wade into the race—a rare one, given that the nonprofit usually avoids electoral politics in favor of commenting on academic research, legislative developments, and federal appointments—sparked attention from mainstream media outlets and liberal groups. Within days of its release, NPR, the Los Angeles Times, and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee used the statement to declare that the Asian-American community had turned on Steel, with the Times and NPR innocuously describing the Committee of 100 as "a New York-based nonprofit led by prominent Chinese Americans" and a group that "represents Chinese Americans." Those descriptions, however, ignore the fact that many of the nonprofit's members, staff, and former leaders have extensive ties to CCP-controlled groups and Chinese state-backed companies—ties that have led some China experts to assert that the committee is a crucial target for the CCP's foreign influence efforts.
Committee member Ronnie Chan, for example, serves on the governing board of the China-United States Exchange Foundation, a CCP-funded Chinese foreign agent whose founder, billionaire Chinese national Tung Chee-hwa, is the vice chairman of a CCP advisory body. Fellow member Yu Meng, meanwhile, for three years worked as a top officer at the Chinese government-controlled State Administration of Foreign Exchange, a job that China's Thousand Talents Program—which the FBI says engages in "non-traditional espionage against the United States"—reportedly recruited him to take. Meng in 2015 told CCP propaganda rag People's Daily that he was inspired to take the job due to his commitment to "the motherland." Former committee chairman Dominic Ng also served on the board of the Asia Society, which worked to spread Confucius Institutes—the CCP-run higher education equivalent of Confucius Classrooms that a former top Chinese official called "an important part of China’s overseas propaganda set-up"—across the United States.
Committee of 100 members and staff have also partnered with Chinese state-backed companies and propaganda outlets. Senior communications director Charles Zinkowski, for example, previously managed U.S. media relations for Huawei, a CCP tech company that has helped the Chinese government surveil Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang concentration camps. The United States on Wednesday banned the approval of new Huawei tech over the company's "unacceptable risk" to national security. Committee member Guoqing Chen, meanwhile, cofounded majority state-owned Hainan Airlines, while fellow member Chi Wang serves as president of the U.S.-China Policy Foundation, which has accepted tens of thousands of dollars in funding from Huawei, CCP-run newspaper China Daily, and China's largest state-owned banks.
Those affiliations may explain why Chinese president Xi Jinping praised the Committee of 100 as a "friendly group" in 2015. They may also explain why the CCP's "United Front" system—which aims to advance Beijing's interests by influencing foreign individuals—has used the committee to pressure members to "toe the Party line," according to a 2019 Hoover Institution report. Some of the committee's former leaders, meanwhile, are reportedly part of that system. Former committee director George Koo is an "overseas director" of the China Overseas Friendship Association, a CCP-led foreign influence group, according to the Hoover report. Former Committee of 100 chair and current member H. Roger Wang is an honorary chairman of the association's local branch in Nanjing, Newsweek reported in 2020.
The Committee of 100, which did not return a request for comment, has denied allegations that it is linked to the CCP. But the nonprofit's support for controversial CCP initiatives is well documented. In 2018, then-committee chair Wang toldChina Daily that the committee should "get actively involved" in Beijing's Belt and Road Initiative, a CCP tool used to subjugate foreign nations through direct infrastructure investment. The committee also vocally opposed a Trump-era effort to prosecute Chinese spies but has refrained from condemning Beijing for its Uyghur genocide, Mark Simon, a former senior executive at the pro-democracy Hong Kong newspaper Apple Daily, wrote in a 2019 column.
"The Committee of 100 is a pro-Beijing group, concerned almost exclusively with the interests aligned with those of the Chinese Communist Party," Simon wrote. "In all their discussions about the US-China relationship try to find any significant objection to the actions of the CCP. You won’t."
The committee's attacks on Steel ultimately did not sink the Republican. Steel in November defeated Chen by 5 points in California's 45th Congressional District, which is home to nearly 150,000 Asian-American voters and which President Joe Biden carried by 6 points just two years ago. Steel's success in a district with a large Asian-American presence, a veteran Republican operative told the Free Beacon, shows that the Republican Party's push to combat China will remain at the center of the party's electoral message for cycles to come. And if Democrats turn to groups such as the Committee of 100 to brand that message "racist," it will only bolster Republicans, the operative argued.
"The seriousness of nonprofits with ties to China involving themselves in our elections cannot be understated," the operative said. "If Democrats want to lean in on their support, it will actually help Republicans."
The JCPA Contains a Massive Loophole for China
The Journalism Competition and Preservation Act (JCPA) contains a loophole that would allow foreign news organizations, including Chinese organizations, to influence the flow of information in the United States — even as lawmakers prepare to attach the derided media bailout bill to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), a bill to fund national defense.
The JCPA has already attracted condemnation for its core elements, namely the transfer of wealth to already-wealthy media companies and the potential for the media industry to demand more censorship from Silicon Valley platforms.
But the China concerns, which are reportedly attracting attention on the Hill, add another twist to the story of a bill that has repeatedly been revived from the dead by media lobbyists over the past two years.
The JCPA creates a “must carry and must pay” scheme, forcing U.S. tech companies both to carry and pay for the content of news organizations through mandatory arbitration agreements.
The news organizations are not limited to U.S. ones, meaning the JCPA would require U.S. companies to carry and subsidize a range of publications that spread propaganda from foreign sources. This would open up the US to increased foreign influence over American political and social movements, and increased exposure to CCP-supported narratives.
The potential to empower foreign adversaries is particularly extraordinary given that lawmakers are planning to attach it to the NDAA, a “must pass” bill that is meant to fund U.S. national defense.
There is a narrow exception in the JCPA carving out publications that are clearly “owned or controlled” by foreign powers. This very weak exception has not been revised since the JCPA was introduced and would instantly be abused by Russian, Chinese, and other foreign interests. “Owned or controlled” does not mean Chinese or Russian entities cannot partner or pay publications in other countries to carry their propaganda.
This is increasingly happening with entities like China Daily that ‘partner’ with U.S. publications to “insert articles that portray the Chinese government and life in China in a positive light,” including mainstream publications like Time and the L.A. Times. Freedom House recently highlighted Beijing’s increasing global media influence, which would be strengthened by a bill like JCPA.
Adverse foreign interests will be able to leverage JCPA to convey propaganda to US audiences, including by disguising their ownership of US-facing publications, partnering with US publications, and broadcasting foreign content on US platforms.
Many of the publishers that would benefit from JCPA are currently carrying advertisements and affiliated content from entities that are owned, controlled, or influenced by the CCP and its affiliates. JCPA would effectively require US platforms to carry CCP-promoted speech.
JCPA also damages US competitiveness and strategic interests by primarily targeting US companies and excluding foreign rivals from scope. This is why both the Trump and Biden administrations have challenged JCPA-style laws and proposals in Australia and Canada.
Exclusive–James Comer 95% Sure Hunter’s Artwork Sold to Chinese, Compromising Joe Biden
Rep. James Comer (R-TN), the top Republican on the House Oversight Committee, told Breitbart News Saturday he strongly suspects that Hunter Biden’s artwork was sold to Chinese oligarchs, potentially implicating president Joe Biden.
“With respect to China, since Joe Biden’s been president, that we didn’t even talk about in the press conference, was the fact that Hunter became an artist for a week, if you’ll remember, and he sold some very expensive artwork,” Comer prefaced, noting his Thursday press conference in which he said the Biden family will be investigated for nine potential violations.
Hunter has reportedly sold five paintings worth $75,000 each to an anonymous buyer. Hunter’s art dealer, Georges Bergès, has previously boasted he had strong ties to businessmen in Communist China, which has concerned many due to the Biden family’s business ventures abroad.
“We are 95% sure that that artwork went to China,” Comer said. “We don’t know where exactly that went to in China, but we’re going to try to find out when we get subpoena power.”
Former White House press secretary Jen Psaki has defended Hunter’s art scheme and his contact with potential “anonymous” art buyers as “reasonable, claiming Hunter “is not involved in the sale or discussions about the sale of his art,” and that Hunter will not be “informed” of “who is purchasing his art.”
The newly Republican-controlled House will have the power to compel testimony from key individuals, including Hunter, to reveal just how deep Joe Biden’s involvement in the family business is.
Comer gave a second example of potential Biden family wrongdoing while Joe Biden was president, citing the president’s policy decision to sell the Strategic Petroleum Reserves to China, which Comer suspects involved CEFC, a defunct Chinese energy company. Hunter had been trying to work a deal with the CEFC in which Joe Biden would receive a ten percent equity stake in the deal, according to whistleblower Tony Bobulinski.
“He sold the strategic reserves to a Chinese energy company,” Comer said. “We believe that parts of that energy company were the remnants of the CEFC.”
“We have plenty of quality whistleblowers that were on the inside,” Comer said, probably eluding to Bobulinski. “They were president of his company. They were, you know, business partners,” he said. “So we have that. We believe that some of the former owners of CEFC were part of this group that purchased oil from the oil reserves.”
Comer then slammed Joe Biden for potential wrongdoing with China while not raising pressing concerns about China’s role in failing to police the sale of fentanyl components.
“Joe Biden goes to China and he never mentions fentanyl, which has killed one hundred thousand people since he’s been president. He never mentioned a lot of the unfair trade practices that our manufacturers have, the fact that China is stealing our patents and our trademarks,” he said.
“This looks like a president who’s compromised by China. And you look at some of what little bank records we have, and Hunter Biden’s received millions of dollars from China. So this is worthy of an investigation,” he concluded.
In 2018 and 2020, Breitbart Senior Contributor and Government Accountability Institute President Peter Schweizer published Secret Empires and Profiles in Corruption. Each book hit #1 on the New York Times bestseller list and exposed how Hunter Biden and Joe Biden flew aboard Air Force Two in 2013 to China before Hunter’s firm inked a $1.5 billion deal with a subsidiary of the Chinese government’s Bank of China less than two weeks after the trip. Schweizer’s work also uncovered the Biden family’s other vast and lucrative foreign deals and cronyism. Breitbart Political Editor Emma-Jo Morris’s investigative work at the New York Post on the Hunter Biden “laptop from hell” also captured international headlines when she, along with Miranda Devine, revealed that Joe Biden was intimately involved in Hunter’s businesses, appearing to even have a 10 percent stake in a company the scion formed with officials at the highest levels of the Chinese Communist Party.
Follow Wendell Husebø on Twitter @WendellHusebø. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality.
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