FBI Gagged Agents To Hide The Truth About Hunter Biden’s Laptop

A new report released on Tuesday shows the FBI imposed a “gag” order in relation to the Hunter Biden laptop to conceal the truth about its authenticity from voters ahead of the 2020 election.

Internal FBI chat messages obtained by investigative journalists Catherine Herridge and Michael Shellenberger show that “senior bureau officials actively [shut] down discussion of the laptop’s credibility days before the 2020 presidential election.” According to the report, an FBI official told House investigators that an FBI employee “inadvertently” confirmed the laptop’s authenticity during a conference call on the same day the New York Post published its bombshell story that implicated Joe Biden in his family’s foreign business dealings.

“I recall that when the question came up, an intelligence analyst assigned to the Criminal Investigative Division said something to the effect of, ‘Yes, the laptop is real,’” the official reportedly testified. “I believe it was an (Office of General Counsel) attorney assigned to the (Foreign Influence Task Force) stepped in and said, ‘We will not comment further on this topic.’”

In a series of heavily redacted messages provided to the House for investigation purposes, an unnamed individual tells FBI special agent Elvis M. Chan (who, according to Herridge, was “tasked with interacting with social media companies”) there is a “gag order” on discussions related to Hunter Biden’s laptop. Chan is reportedly told in a separate exchange that the “official response” is “no commen(t).”

In other messages, Chan asks, “what kind of case is the laptop thing? corruption? campaign financing?” An unidentified FBI official responds “CLOSE HOLD” before the rest of the message is redacted.

“oh crap,” Chan responds. “ok. it ends here. need to talk.”

In another exchange reported by Herridge and Shellenberger, Chan is asked, “Anyone discussing that NYPost article on the Biden’s?”

Chan reportedly says: “yes we are. c d confirmed an active investigation. No further comment.”

Herridge reports that “c d” likely references the FBI’s Criminal Division.

Another unidentified FBI employee also said, “please do not discuss Biden matter,” according to the report.

While the Hunter Biden laptop had been authenticated by the FBI as early as November 2019, the agency warned social media companies of so-called “Russian propaganda” and “hack-and-leak operations” by “state actors” after the New York Post released its story. Twitter and Facebook began throttling the reach of the story almost immediately, with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg admitting his platform suppressed the story following the FBI’s warning.

In fact, as explained by The Federalist’s John Daniel Davidson, the “FBI arranged for top Twitter officials to get special security clearances so the agency could share intelligence about possible foreign threats to the upcoming presidential election.”

“This was all a ruse to groom and pressure Twitter into censoring the Hunter Biden laptop story when it inevitably appeared, which is exactly what the company did,” Davidson wrote.

Notably, the laptop has since been used by federal prosecutors as evidence in Hunter Biden’s trial on gun crime charges.

But the FBI’s refusal to immediately publicly verify the laptop and its contents in the weeks leading up to the election was nothing short of election interference. The FBI’s silence on the authenticity of the laptop — and the agency’s own efforts to cast doubts with its warnings to social media companies — meant that 51 former “intelligence officials” who signed onto a letter suggesting the laptop was Russian disinformation were taken at face value. As a result, the propaganda press was able to peddle the lie that the laptop and its contents were merely a foreign disinformation operation and that voters should pay no attention.

In fact, a poll conducted by Newsbusters found that 17 percent of Biden voters would not have voted for him had they known about news stories, such as the Hunter Biden laptop scandal, being suppressed by the propaganda press and Big Tech.

As Davidson said in a post on X, “The FBI and DOJ officials responsible for this need to go to prison. They actively interfered in a presidential election for political reasons, and if there’s not accountability for this then Americans can have no confidence in these agencies, or our elections, ever again.”

Brianna Lyman is an elections correspondent at The Federalist. Brianna graduated from Fordham University with a degree in International Political Economy. Her work has been featured on Newsmax, Fox News, Fox Business and RealClearPolitics. Follow Brianna on X: @briannalyman2