OPINION:
The malign influence of the deep state was revealed in a Delaware federal courtroom Tuesday. FBI Special Agent Erika Jensen acknowledged the provenance of the notorious MacBook Pro that Hunter Biden abandoned at a computer repair shop in April 2019.
This is the same laptop, filled to the brim with fresh evidence of the first son’s felonies, seized by the FBI in December of that year. The G-men and the Justice Department sat on the device until the statute of limitations expired on the most significant crimes contained therein.
This is the same laptop that 51 former intelligence officials swore was “Russian disinformation” on the eve of the 2020 election. The top echelon of the intelligence community signed the claim, including Jim Clapper, Michael Hayden, Leon Panetta, John Brennan, John McLaughlin and Michael Morrell.
Sure, anyone paying close attention at the time knew the laptop was real. The “disinformation” letter wasn’t for them. It was for casual voters who had yet to make up their mind.
Emails can be readily authenticated through cryptographic signatures known as DKIM, or they can be verified through simple investigative techniques such as checking laptop emails against what recipients received in their inbox. Beyond that, the trove of explicit videos and photographs of the younger Biden smoking crack and cavorting with women of low character would be impossible to fabricate. Even Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service isn’t that good.
Special Agent Jensen explained the FBI — a key member of the intelligence community — validated the laptop against Hunter’s iCloud account and ensured the device’s serial number matched Apple’s ownership records. Federal agents also obtained complete and independent backup copies of his iPhone and laptop data from the company under a warrant.
The invoice from the repair shop where the laptop was found was in those backups in 2019. This means the intelligence community knew the laptop was legitimate from day one, but the 51 former officials signed the fraudulent “disinformation” letter anyway.
Polling shows their false assertion likely played a decisive role in handing the election to President Biden. But the fib about the laptop’s origin wasn’t just a concoction of erstwhile spooks.
Active FBI agents also peddled the lie in order to suppress laptop stories from sources such as the New York Post. In 2021, the Federal Election Commission decided not to charge Twitter with making an in-kind contribution to the Biden campaign because the social media platform censored laptop reporting in response to the bullying of “federal law enforcement agents.”
“I was told in these meetings,” former Twitter executive Yoel Roth said, “that the intelligence community expected that individuals associated with political campaigns would be subject to hacking attacks. … I also learned in these meetings that there were rumors the hack-and-leak operation would involve Hunter Biden.”
There was no hack, and Russia wasn’t involved. These were deceptions spread for the purpose of influencing an election.
When government officials censor speech to change the outcome of an election, it’s a serious constitutional violation. Anyone who has exploited the government’s spy powers for such personal ends should be investigated and held to account, because the cycle of abuse will end only when such misdeeds have consequences.
A reckoning is long overdue.
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