Twitter Files: FBI discredited factual information about Hunter Biden

The ongoing saga surrounding Hunter Biden’s laptop added another chapter this week. Independent journalist Michael Shellenberger dropped Part Seven of the Twitter Files Monday. The latest offering details how the FBI, and the greater intelligence community, discredited factual information about Hunter Biden and his foreign business dealings.

Elon Musk hired independent journalists like Shellenberger to help expose the company’s past actions in dealing with censored content.

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 (@shellenberger) December 19, 2022

In the latest report, Shellenberger presented evidence which he said points to an organized effort by members of the intelligence community to influence senior leaders of social media companies. Shallenberger said the effort to discredit leaked information about Hunter Biden began before the world even knew about the laptop.

Shellenberger reported throughout 2020 that the FBI and other law enforcement agencies had primed Twitter’s then head of site integrity, Yoel Roth, to dismiss reports of Hunter Biden’s laptop as a Russian “hack and leak operation.” Roth reportedly told the FBI there wasn’t a lot of malicious activity from Russian accounts on Twitter in 2020. However, Shellenberger said the FBI maintained its effort to influence the social media giant.

The day before the New York Post article published, revealing the existence of the laptop to the public, Shellenberger said an agent with the FBI sent Twitter 10 documents relating to Russian misinformation sharing.

Hunter Biden is suspected to have earned millions of dollars in contracts with foreign businesses, including ones linked to the Chinese government. Republicans in Congress have promised a full investigation into the matter when the new session convenes next year.