Inside the FBI's Elaborate System to Protect Joe After the Hunter Biden Laptop Story Broke
Matt Vespa
This story isn’t over. Heads should roll over this elaborate plot to muzzle the Hunter Biden laptop story, which the FBI knew was authentic from day one. Michael Shellenberger, Alex Gutentag, and Catherine Herridge wrote in Public about the now-released, though heavily redacted chats, the bureau had among top officials and the agent who acted like the liaison between the FBI and Silicon Valley. The bureau had an extensive team working with social media companies to suppress certain opinions and stories while trying to influence public opinion. That operation has blessedly been obliterated. We also learned that an FBI official authenticated the laptop in October of 2020, which was when the gag order was issued (via Public):
In 2024, an FBI official admitted to House investigators that an FBI employee had inadvertently confirmed the authenticity of Hunter Biden’s laptop to Twitter on a conference call the morning of October 14, 2020, the day the New York Post published a story about it.
“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’,” testified the then-Russia Unit Chief of the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force in a closed door transcribed interview.
[…]
The FBI provided the chat messages to congressional investigators with heavy redactions.
Some of the redactions on the chats are marked “OGC AGC,” which appears to mean that they were made by the FBI’s Office of General Counsel and Associate General Counsel.
An individual whose name is blacked out, tells Elvis M. Chan, the San Francisco-based FBI special agent tasked with interacting with social media companies, there was a “gag order” on discussion of Hunter Biden’s laptop. In a separate exchange, Chan is told “official response no commen(t).”
In the chat, the FBI officials showed awareness that the laptop may have contained evidence of criminal activity.
Asked Chan, “actually what kind of case is the laptop thing? corruption? campaign financing?”
Another FBI employee responds, “CLOSE HOLD —” after which the response is redacted.
To which Chan responds, “oh crap” appearing to underscore the serious nature of the probe, which included felony tax charges. Chan adds, “ok. It ends here”.
[…]
According to the IRS whistleblowers, DOJ prosecutors blocked standard investigative protocols that might have led to Joe Biden ahead of the presidential campaign.
“There were a lot of overt investigative steps that we were not allowed to take because we had an upcoming election,” said Joseph Ziegler, the IRS case agent on the Hunter Biden probe.. “And it related to the president's son. So not even the candidate.”
The FBI chat is cryptic and the heavy redactions make it difficult to discern context. For example, an employee says to Chan that “[redacted] has a gag order from [redacted]... got checked by [redacted] had to backtrack - sorry!”
[…]
Shapley added, “It was misinformation to try to make something else look like misinformation.”
The IRS whistleblowers [Gary Shapley and Joseph Zeigler], who were recently elevated to IRS headquarters to support badly needed cultural change at the Agency, said federal investigators “corroborated” early in the case that ‘The Big Guy’ on Hunter Biden’s laptop was then candidate Joe Biden.
[…]
Speaking exclusively to Catherine Herridge Reports after Hunter Biden’s guilty plea to felony tax charges last fall, the IRS whistleblowers said the FBI, IRS, and Justice Department knew immediately the Hunter Biden laptop was real.
more
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2025/04/03/the-fbi-admits-they-knew-the-hunter-biden-laptop-was-authentic-from-day-one-n2654878
