WASHINGTON — House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer is vowing to get to the bottom of the “collusion” to censor The Post’s Hunter Biden laptop scoops as former Twitter executives on Wednesday morning. faced questioning.
Comer (R-Ky.) will lead former Twitter employees Vijay Gaude, Joel Roth and James Baker in one of his first tasks as committee chairman — determining the story behind the actions of the Republican platform. try to
“Tomorrow’s hearing is the House Oversight and Accountability Committee’s first step in examining restrictions on protected speech and interference in the democratic process between the federal government and Big Tech,” Comer said in a statement provided to The Post. said in the statement.
“Twitter, under previous leadership, was a private company allowing the federal government to do what it constitutionally cannot do: restrict the free exercise of speech.”
The social media giant banned distribution of The Post articles linking then-Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden to the foreign business deals of his son Hunter and brother James Biden weeks before the 2020 election – Claimed without evidence that the reporting violated the “hacked content” policy. .
Former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey told a 2021 congressional hearing that censoring the post was a “total mistake,” but declined to elaborate on who was responsible.
Billionaire Elon Musk, who took over the company in October, immediately fired Goode, the social network’s former policy director, who received a $12.5 million severance package.
Roth, the former director of trust and safety, resigned in November and Musk fired Baker, a top Twitter attorney who previously served as the FBI’s general counsel, in December. Accused of allegedly undermining efforts to expose historical censorship communications.
Musk’s recent “Twitter Files” revelations reveal close cooperation between the FBI and Twitter in the 2020 election — even though the First Amendment prohibits the government from policing legal domestic speech.
According to a document released by Musk, the FBI paid Twitter $3.5 million from October 2019 to February 2021 to process its moderation requests, but it’s not clear what authorities specifically did. How much did it weigh on the laptop, which was provided to The Post by Delaware Computers? Repairman John Paul McIsaac — who revealed paperwork showing Hunter Biden had legally abandoned the device.
McIsaac says he gave the original laptop to the FBI in December 2019. He later provided a copy of his files to Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s personal lawyer, who alerted The Post.
Musk has disclosed to congressional investigators the talismanic scope of the inquiry, including a secret communication on the occasion of The Post’s first laptop bombshell.
According to Musk, FBI agent Elvis Chan, based in San Francisco, used a special transmission platform called a teleporter to send 10 documents to Roth and at least one other person on the night of October 13, 2020, which the It was hours before the Post’s initial laptop story was published. -Continued evidence.
In July 2020 — three months before The Post broke the laptop story — Chan emailed Roth suggesting that, beginning 30 days before Election Day, according to Musk’s disclosures, Twitter’s Executives will be granted temporary security clearance to discuss threats with FBI officials.
“In the months leading up to the New York Post’s report about the Biden family’s business schemes based on the contents of Hunter Biden’s laptop, the FBI advised senior Twitter executives to question the veracity of any Hunter Biden story. Pick up,” Comer said in his statement. Hearing
“Immediately after the publication of the New York Post article, the United States used social media companies, the mainstream news, and the intelligence community to suppress and outlaw the existence of Hunter Biden’s laptop and its contents. observed a coordinated campaign.”
Comer added: “We owe it to the American people to provide answers about the collusion to censor information about Joe Biden’s involvement in his family’s business schemes and to prevent this type of censorship from happening again.” stop.”
The oversight committee hearing will likely be the first of many to investigate the story. On Monday, the Republican-led House Judiciary and Intelligence Committees requested interviews with 12 of the 51 former intelligence officials who used it, five days after initial reports from The Post indicated that Hunter Biden’s laptop contained Russian disinformation. was
The Post’s first laptop bombshell revealed that Vadim Pozharsky, an executive at the Ukrainian energy company Brisma, emailed Hunter in 2015 to thank him for “the opportunity to meet his father” — who is Biden’s father. The truth is contradictory. September 2019 claim that he “never talked” with his son about “his overseas business dealings” and August 2019 claim That “I have never discussed anything with my son or my brother or anyone else about their business. Period.”
The laptop revelations drew questions about possible corruption and conflicts of interest in foreign affairs.
The Biden campaign vaguely denied the initial laptop article. But further reporting revealed that Joe Biden had attended a 2015 DC dinner with a group of his son’s associates the day before the Burisma exec’s email, with Pozharsky and a Kazakh trio accompanying the Bidens. The picture was taken.
Hunter also invited Russian billionaire Yelena Baturina and her husband, former Moscow mayor Yuri Luzhkov, to the dinner — though it’s unclear if either attended. A 2020 report by a Republican-led Senate committee alleged that Baturina paid $3.5 million in 2014 to a firm affiliated with Hunter Biden. Baturina is one of a dwindling number of Russian oligarchs still facing sanctions from the Biden administration over Russia’s more than 11-month-old invasion of Ukraine.
Hunter earned up to $1 million a year for serving on the Brisma board from 2014 to 2019, when her father was put in charge of the Obama administration’s Ukraine policy. Official visitor logs show that Joe Biden met his son’s business partner, Devon Archer, in 2014 when both Hunter Biden and Archer joined the Bursma board.
Another October 2020 bombshell from The Post described Joe Biden’s alleged role as Hunter Biden and Jim Biden’s business plan with the company CEFC China Energy, a foreign influence of Beijing’s “Belt and Road.” was known as a key figure in the campaign.
An email recovered from the laptop dated May 13, 2017, said the “big guy” would get 10 percent of the deal. Hunter Biden’s former business partner, Tony Bobolinski, has alleged that he discussed the CEFC deal with Joe Biden in May 2017, and that both Bobolinski and James Gallier, another former associate of Hunter Biden, referred to Joe Biden as a “big man.” was identified as
Hunter and James Biden Earned $4.8 million CEFC China Energy in 2017 and 2018, according to a Washington Post review of Hunter Biden laptop documents. one October 2017 email A call about CEFC’s effort to purchase US natural gas identifies Joe Biden as a participant.
Other laptop records have linked Joe Biden to his other business pursuits through relatives — notably in Mexico, where he flew Air Force Two after hosting a group of colleagues at the vice presidential residence in Washington. The rider flew with his son and brother’s companion.
In a separate Chinese venture, business records show the first son still owns a 10% stake in Chinese state-backed BHR Partners, which it says manages $2.1 billion in assets, his father insists. However, there will be no conflicts related to the family business. interest during his presidency.
Hunter co-founded BHR Partners within weeks of joining Air Force Two on an official visit to Beijing by then-Vice President Biden in 2013. According to the Wall Street Journal. Hunter introduced his father to BHR CEO Jonathan Lee, and Joe Biden later wrote college recommendation letters for Lee’s children.
Democrats have dismissed the investigation into Hunter Biden’s laptop as frivolous.
Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.), a former member of the House Intelligence Committee, appeared to accept the laptop’s authenticity in a recent briefing on the Comer investigation, but argued, “If you look at what’s on Hunter Biden’s laptop, There’s so much interest in things, so you should. In your private time, not on taxpayers’ money.
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