Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) asked FBI Director Christopher Wray an important question on Tuesday about the Hunter Biden laptop scandal.
Just weeks before the 2020 election, the New York Post broke the laptop story. But social media companies, the media, and intelligence professionals attempted to bury the story by claiming it was Russian “disinformation.” The problem, of course, is the laptop was real, and the FBI knew it was real but declined to clarify what those with power had claimed about it.
At a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Kennedy pressed Wray on the FBI’s decision not to stand for the truth at the time.
“We had a controversy during the election about Mr. Hunter Biden’s laptop. At that time, you had 80 agents interfacing with social media, doing whatever they were doing. The FBI had the Hunter Biden laptop — got it on December 9, 2019 — the New York Post story, which a lot of the social media companies, at the suggestion of government, took down. The story came out on 10/14/2020,” Kennedy explained.
“Why didn’t the FBI just say, ‘Hey, the laptop’s real’? Why didn’t you just tell everybody the laptop’s real?” he asked.
Wray offered Kennedy two excuses. First, he said the FBI could not speak about an ongoing investigation. Second, he claimed no one at the FBI directed social media companies to suppress the story.
“But others were in government,” Kennedy interjected.
“Well, again, I can’t speak to others in government,” Wray responded. “That’s part of the point I was trying to make —”
“Yes, but you’re the FBI!” Kennedy protested. “You are not part of the White House or part of Homeland Security. You’re not supposed to be political. You see all of this controversy going on. Why didn’t the FBI say, ‘Time out, folks. We’re not getting in the middle of this, but the laptop’s real?'”
Wray answered that the FBI must be “very careful” about what the agency says “especially in the middle of an election season because that’s precisely some of the problems that led to my predecessor’s negative findings from the inspector general.”
The FBI director, however, failed to explain how choosing to tell the truth about the laptop would have divulged details about the Hunter Biden investigation or how it would have interfered in the election. After all, a core value of the FBI is candor, and lacking it will get you fired from the bureau.
That the FBI chose to sit on their hands and not correct a known lie suggests complicity in the dissemination of that lie. And at the very least, it appears clear that FBI leadership violated their own value of candor.
Kennedy questions FBI Director Wray on Mar-a-Lago raid, censorship in Judiciary 12 05 23www.youtube.com
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