Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and the Federal Bureau of Investigation are playing hot potato over the Hunter Biden laptop story.
Zuckerberg told podcaster Joe Rogan Thursday that Facebook blocked reports about the Biden laptop from feeds on Facebook (the company was renamed Meta in October 2021). The Meta CEO claims the FBI warned his company just before the laptop story broke that a Russian disinformation dump was coming.
An FBI spokesperson disputed the social media CEO’s recounting of the Hunter Biden laptop backstory.
“The FBI routinely notifies U.S. private sector entities, including social media providers, of potential threat information, so that they can decide how to better defend against threats,” the bureau said in a Friday statement, adding it “cannot ask, or direct, companies to take action on information received.”
The saga began in October 2020 when the New York Post published an inflammatory article linking Hunter Biden, presidential candidate Joe Biden and Ukrainian businessmen from the energy company Burisma. The younger Biden had reportedly been paid $50,000 per month for about one year before the email was allegedly found on the abandoned laptop.
The Post dropped its bombshell story about a laptop believed to be Hunter Biden’s abandoned at a Delaware computer repair shop weeks before voting began in the closely contested 2020 general election,
That story was withheld from Facebook users because Zuckerberg believed the FBI narrative about a Russian disinformation plot designed to advance then-President Donald Trump’s election chances. Twitter went even further and banished the Post from its social media platform.
Photos, videos, emails and text messages on the laptop allegedly depict the president’s son as a drug-addled pervert and raise troubling questions about possible corruption by then-Vice President Joe Biden.
Zuckerberg informed Rogan he couldn’t remember if the FBI specifically mentioned the laptop, but after the FBI released its statement, Meta posted a comment on Twitter describing the warning as general in nature.
“The FBI shared general warnings about foreign interference — nothing specific about Hunter Biden,” the Meta post stated.
Zuckerberg’s revelation about possible FBI election interference follows notice from Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) that multiple whistleblowers from inside the FBI have claimed they were barred by superiors from investigating the laptop.
FBI Director Christopher Wray told lawmakers earlier this month he could not comment on what, if anything, the bureau is doing regarding the laptop, according to a Daily Wire report. Director Wray added that he found reports alleging the bureau refused to pursue a laptop investigation ahead of the election “deeply troubling.”
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