During a Congressional testimony, a former FBI agent, Bradley Benavides, revealed that he had suggested to his leadership that Hunter Biden’s laptop could be part of a Russian disinformation campaign, despite the FBI already having confirmed its authenticity.
The Foreign Influence Task Force (FITF) created during the 2020 election aimed to address foreign misinformation, but there were instances of inaccurate information being injected into the public domain.
“I remember a question being posed broadly if there was a laptop purported to be attributed to Hunter Biden, is it possible that a foreign adversary, like the Russians, could be using that as a way to insert into the U.S. political system false information, bad information, corrupted information, all kinds of things that could be on the laptop? Is it possible, FITF, that the Russians are capable of doing this? And my response would have been yes,” Benavides said.
“Did you have to take anything back to your team or conduct your own analysis, or you just were able to provide an answer immediately?” he was questioned.
“I would have provided the answer immediately based on my understanding of sophisticated Russian operations,” Benavides said.
“Did you do anything else after this conversation with him?” he was asked.
“Not that I immediately recall. Not that I recall,” he said.
Additionally, documents released by Congress showed that the FBI had authenticated the laptop as early as 2019, ruling out the possibility of Russian disinformation by early 2020.
“I remember having a conversation with or being involved in a conversation with Twitter, and I honestly can’t recall if this was repeated to me – I might have been a few minutes late to the meeting – or if – or if I was – I actually overheard it,” FBI agent Laura Dehmlow said.
“But it was – it was relayed to me later that somebody from Twitter – I don’t recall who. I’m not sure who. Somebody from Twitter essentially asked whether the laptop was real.”
“And one of the FBI folks who was on the call did confirm that, ‘yes, it was,’ before another participant jumped in and said, ‘no further comment.’”
“When the information was relayed to you following the Twitter call, the first agent had said the laptop was real. Just to clarify, you knew prior to that conversation that the laptop was real. Is that correct?” she was asked.
“I did, yes,” she said.
“Do you know who else at FITF knew that the laptop was real?” an attorney asked.
“I don’t actually. I would assume both my – yes, I would certainly say that Brad Benavides was aware,” Dehmlow said.
“What about the individuals on the Russia unit?” she was asked.
“I would assume the unit chief was also aware. I’m pretty certain of that fact,” she said.
The FBI’s handling of the laptop story led to widespread censorship and raised concerns about First Amendment rights.
“The refusal of FBI officials—the very officials who knew the laptop was real—to verify the authenticity of the laptop allowed widespread censorship about an otherwise accurate news story,” Jim Jordan wrote.
“A significant number of FBI officials from the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force also participate in regular meetings with social-media platforms about disinformation,” Judge Terry Doughty of the United States District Court of Louisiana said.
“The FBI was included in Industry meetings and bilateral meetings, received and forwarded alleged misinformation to social-media companies, and actually mislead social-media companies in regard to the Hunter Biden laptop story.”
“The Court finds this evidence demonstrative of significant encouragement by the FBI Defendant.”
“I don’t know what ‘real’ means, and I would need context for that,” Benavides said when asked of Dehmlow.
“And I can’t put myself in Laura’s testimony to understand what she might have been trying to convey based on the question that was asked to her.”
