FBI agent says bureau met with social media giants ‘weekly’ ahead of 2020 election, report says – after Trump ally Sebastian Gorka admits he’s ‘deeply underwhelmed’ by Elon Musk’s Twitter exposé is
- Republican AGs of Louisiana and Missouri are investigating the federal government over alleged “collusion” with social media companies
- They reportedly heard from FBI Agent Elvis Chan that Bureau officials were having increasing meetings with Big Tech over “misinformation.”
- Mark Zuckerberg’s admission that Facebook censored a story about Hunter Biden’s laptop to heed warnings from the FBI propelled the investigation
- Elon Musk promised a bombastic exposé he dubbed the “Twitter files” aimed at shedding light on their suppression on Twitter
- Donald Trump and many of his allies claimed it was smoking evidence
- But it didn’t show that Biden officials asked Twitter to remove the story
- Sebastian Gorka and AJ Delgado, former Trump aides, rejected the “exposé”.
The FBI met weekly with officials from the top social media companies ahead of the 2020 presidential election, reports reported Saturday.
Agent Elvis Chan reportedly made the revelation during deposition for a Republican-led case against the Biden administration charging alleged “censorship” of social media, according to Fox News.
Missouri and Louisiana GOP attorneys general are accusing White House officials of working with Big Tech to remove unfavorable reporting “under the guise of fighting misinformation.”
It comes amid the aftermath of the Twitter “exposé” promoted by Elon Musk, which appeared to prove the platform – which he recently acquired for $44 billion – worked with Democrats to tip the scales in the 2020 election to be on the scales.
It revolved around correspondences between top Twitter officials about the suppression of the New York Post’s infamous story about Hunter Biden’s laptop, which was published in October 2020.
But while Donald Trump and many of his allies cried out in response to the so-called “Twitter files,” others in his camp surprisingly shrugged.
“So far I am deeply overwhelmed. We know the Dems in DC are working with the Dems in Palo Alto,” former Trump administration official Sebastian Gorka wrote on Twitter after journalist Matt Taibbi published the findings.
‘Big whoop. Need a paper trail of crime. Elon should have better.’
Former Trump administration aide Sebastian Gorka said Elon Musk “better” had stronger evidence of collusion to censor stories on Twitter after hyping Matt Taibbi’s “Twitter exposé.”
Gorka was one of the few current or former Trump allies to shrug off the findings that Musk promised would be illuminating
Tesla billionaire Musk had promised another exposé would appear Saturday after Taibbi, but he backtracked — literally — at 11 a.m. that evening, writing, “Looks like we’re going to need a day or so.”
The correspondence released shows Twitter employees going back and forth trying to justify their censorship of the story under the site’s hacked materials rules. It appears that many senior platform officials were hesitant about whether Hunter Biden’s laptop was accessed in an unscrupulous manner.
Taibbi also provides screenshots showing Twitter employees complying with Biden campaign requests to remove certain links — a practice followed by both campaigns at the time.
Links sent by the Biden team allegedly contained nude photos of Hunter Biden that were posted without his consent.
While Musk made suggestions that Democrats could have helped violate the First Amendment, Taibbi’s reporting points out that the Trump administration, then in power, made the same demands on Twitter.
“The government’s suppression of speech is newsworthy,” Trump’s 2016 adviser AJ Delgado wrote on Saturday. “So when is it [Taibbi] make a thread about the requests/emails sent by the Trump WH???
It includes requests from the Biden campaign team to remove certain links – which were allegedly inappropriate images of Hunter Biden posted without his consent
She pointed out that he “hastily mentioned” the actions of the Trump White House but accused him of “whitewashing it.”
But none of the reports show that the Biden team ever asked to censor or remove the New York Post article — something Facebook also did after warnings from the FBI, according to its CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
Zuckerberg told podcast host Joe Rogan in August that Bureau officials had told him to be on “high alert” about things related to “Russian propaganda” ahead of the election.
He couldn’t recall if the FBI had specifically flagged the laptop story, but said it “basically fitted the pattern.”
Musk suggested that Twitter was “acting on orders from the government to stifle free speech,” seemingly in reference to the Biden campaign that asked the platform to remove links — but it was Donald Trump who, at the time, did the government, not Joe Biden
Musk promised more would come on Saturday, but said at 11 p.m. that evening it would be delayed
The interview is one of the counts cited in the lawsuit filed by Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry and Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt against the Biden administration.
In her reported deposition of FBI agent Elvis Chan last week, he allegedly claimed to be part of a group made up of foreign influence and cybersecurity infrastructure experts who met regularly with social media giants to shed misinformation ahead of the 2020 race to discuss.
A source in Schmitt’s office told Fox that the discussions revolved around Russian disinformation.
The federal judge who ordered Chan to testify reportedly said he had “authority on cybersecurity issues for the FBI in the San Francisco, California area, where major social media platforms are headquartered, and played a critical role for the FBI.” in coordination with social networks. Media platforms related to censorship.’