The FBI added, however, that it “cannot ask, or direct, companies to take action on information received.”
Meta also issued a clarifying statement, saying in a Twitter post that the remarks Zuckerberg made to Rogan were basically the same as what he told Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) in 2020.
“The FBI shared general warnings about foreign interference—nothing specific about Hunter Biden,” Meta said in the statement.
Zuckerberg told Rogan as much on the podcast when asked whether the FBI specified that Facebook needed to “be on guard” about the Hunter Biden laptop story.
“No. I don’t remember if it was that specifically. But it was, it basically fit the pattern,” Zuckerberg replied.
Hunter Biden’s Laptop
The laptop of President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, became the subject of scandal and scrutiny in October 2020 after the New York Post broke the story on its contents, which included information about the younger Biden’s foreign dealings and sordid personal life.
After the story broke, much of its coverage by legacy media outlets was focused on the possibility that the laptop was Russian disinformation meant to damage Joe Biden’s presidential campaign.
The laptop story was also suppressed by Facebook and Twitter, while a group of former intelligence officials came forward and said in a letter (pdf) that it had “all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.”
John Ratcliffe, then-director of national intelligence, said at the time that there was no intelligence that supported the claim that the laptop was Russian disinformation.
More recently, Ratcliffe told Fox News in an interview on Friday that, if the FBI did indeed try to suppress information about Hunter Biden’s laptop, this would amount to election interference.
“It is election interference, to the extent that these allegations are true that FBI agents were knowingly putting bad information out there, absolutely,” Ratcliffe said.
Polling has indicated that if the public had been aware of the suppressed story ahead of the election, it may have cost the elder Biden several percentage points of voters—possibly enough to thwart his bid for the White House.
From The Epoch Times
