House chairman accuses FBI of lying about social media contacts involving Hunter Biden laptop
Jim Jordan publishes documents he says contradicts testimony of FBI agent Elvis Chan.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan released new evidence Monday that he said shows the FBI lied about meeting with Big Tech companies before the 2020 election to discuss Hunter Biden's laptop, a story that social media companies were censoring at the time.
The "FBI LIED ABOUT MEETING WITH BIG TECH REGARDING NY POST’S HUNTER BIDEN LAPTOP STORY," Jordan wrote on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.
Jordan published documents showing the FBI's comments on the Hunter Biden story when it first broke and how FBI Special Agent Elvis Chan testified about his meetings with Facebook representatives.
Chan and Foreign Influence Task Force Section Chief Laura Dehmlow met with Facebook on Oct. 14, 2020, the day the New York Post published its story on the Hunter Biden laptop. Dehmlow met with both Twitter and Facebook that day.
At this time, the FBI had the laptop in its possession and knew that it was real, Jordan said.
Documents published by Jordan show that when a Twitter representative asked whether the story was real, an FBI agent said "yes," but an FBI lawyer jumped in, cutting him off with, "No further comment."
Dehmlow then said the FBI held emergency deliberations on how to respond to the question going forward. When the Facebook meeting was held later in the day, the FBI simply said, "No comment," when asked whether the Hunter Biden story was factual.
Twitter and Facebook then censored the story.
In November 2022, Chan testified in a censorship lawsuit brought by the states of Missouri and Louisiana against the Biden administration that he was "confident" he was not part of any meetings with Big Tech, other than the one with Facebook on Oct. 14, 2020.
However, Jordan published an internal Facebook document showing that Chan had a "follow up" call with the social media platform on Oct. 15, 2020, one day after the initial meeting.
Additionally, Chan testified that he had "no internal knowledge" of his agency's investigation of Hunter Biden's laptop.
However, a Facebook employee who is a former FBI agent wrote on Oct. 15 that "Chan advised that he was up to speed on the current state of the matter within the FBI," according to messages published by Jordan.
"Our investigation remains ongoing and we will continue to update the public with our findings as we prepare and consider legislation to fight the censorship-industrial complex and protect the First Amendment," Jordan pledged.