The FBI warned Twitter during “weekly” meetings before the 2020 election to expect “hack-and-leak operations’’ by “state actors” involving Hunter Biden, and “likely” in October, according to a sworn declaration by Twitter’s former head of site integrity, Yoel Roth.
The warnings were so specific that Twitter immediately censored The Post’s scoop about Hunter Biden’s laptop on Oct. 14, 2020, citing its “hacked materials” policy, a move described on Saturday as “election interference” by Twitter’s new owner, Elon Musk.
The extraordinary revelation for the first time lays bare how the FBI was involved in pre-bunking the story of the laptop, which had been in the bureau’s possession for almost a year.
“I was told in these meetings that the intelligence community expected that individuals associated with political campaigns would be subject to hacking attacks and that material obtained through those hacking attacks would likely be disseminated over social media platforms, including Twitter,” said Roth in a Dec. 21, 2020, declaration to the Federal Election Commission.
“I also learned in these meetings that there were rumors that a hack-and-leak operation would involve Hunter Biden.”
Roth’s signed declaration formed part of Twitter’s defense against a complaint by the Tea Party Patriots Foundation that its censorship of The Post was an “in kind” campaign contribution to then-presidential candidate Joe Biden’s campaign.
Feds’ social gatherings
The FBI also warned Facebook to be on “high alert” for a “dump” of “Russian propaganda” before the 2020 election, in terms specific enough that it “fit the pattern” of The Post’s story, CEO Mark Zuckerberg told podcast host Joe Rogan in August.
Facebook also censored The Post ahead of Twitter’s throttling of the story in October, pending “fact checks” that never appear to have been done.
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