Would Donald Trump have won reelection had the Hunter Laptop story not been censored in various ways by social media companies and ignored by the media?
That’s a tricky question to answer, for sure.
It is unclear whether or not the Hunter Biden laptop story would have altered the outcome of the 2020 presidential election had social media companies, including Twitter and Facebook not suppressed it. At the time, 58.5 million Americans had already early voted in the election.
The New York Post found its Twitter account locked after its initial report appeared in October 2020. Former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey threatened the publication saying that its account would only be unlocked if it deleted its tweet with its laptop story.
The mainstream press not only suppressed the spread of the story. It also published countless articles about the letter signed by 51 former U.S. intelligence leaders and operatives that claimed the laptop was an act of Russian disinformation.
We now know the laptop is authentic. We also know that the letter looks like a political operation hatched by the Biden campaign.
Former Acting CIA Director Mike Morrell told the House Judiciary Committee last month that he wrote the letter because he wanted Joe Biden to win and for him to have a talking point he could use in his debate with Donald Trump.
Emails on the laptop connected Hunter Biden with CEFC Energy, a Chinese energy company that had close ties with Chinese military intelligence. Three of Hunter Biden’s business associates had documented personal ties with Chinese intelligence.
The letter described the emails about Hunter Biden’s involvement with the corrupt Ukrainian energy firm Burisma as “having all of the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.”
‘Conspiracy Theories’ Have a Way of Being Proven Correct
Twitter CEO Elon Musk told CNBC that that alleged “conspiracy theories” like the Hunter Biden laptop have had a tendency of being vindicated in recent years.
“The difference between a conspiracy theory and the truth is about six months as it pertains to so many of the stories surrounding Donald Trump: COVID, and more,” Clay Travis, founder of OUTKick, told Fox & Friends. “The 2020 election may well have changed if the Hunter Biden laptop story had been fully disseminated and discussed and analyzed both by the media and anyone who was out there contemplating voting.
Travis continued: “The fact it was suppressed helped to ensure that the full truth was not told about Hunter Biden.”
Polling Suggests Laptop Story Might Have Swayed Votes
A TIPP poll of 437 adults conducted last August found that the news about the laptop could have swayed their votes. It found that 79% of those surveyed said they would have changed their votes had they known the laptop was real.
Polling by the Conservative Media Research Center done following the 2020 election found that 17% of Biden voters would not have voted for him had they known the laptop story was true. Its poll of 1,750 voters also showed that 45.1% of Biden voters were unaware of Hunter Biden’s financial scandals that potentially implicated Joe Biden.
The FBI Colluded With Social Media Companies to Suppress the Story
Independent journalist Michael Shellenberger reported on Twitter that the FBI told Twitter executives to be on the lookout for Russian disinformation.
“And yet, during all of 2020, the FBI and other law enforcement agencies repeatedly primed Yoel Roth to dismiss reports of Hunter Biden’s laptop as a Russian “hack and leak” operation,” Shellenberger tweeted.
He along with journalist Matt Taibbi found that Facebook and other media had similarly been influenced.
Travis suspects the FBI went out of its way to protect Hunter Biden.
“The FBI has had this laptop since December of 2019. That is coming up on four years that they have had this to be able to be able to determine whether or not there are crimes,” Travis said. “It is quite clear there are many different felonies he could have been charged with including tax evasion, and the fact it still appears that the fix is in, and they are not applying it judiciously and fairly.
Travis continued: “Look at George Santos. They only needed a few months to throw 13 different felony counts at him, yet they can’t resolve the Hunter Biden case in four years.”
He concluded that the only reason he is being protected is that he is Joe Biden’s son.
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John Rossomando was a senior analyst for Defense Policy and served as Senior Analyst for Counterterrorism at The Investigative Project on Terrorism for eight years. His work has been featured in numerous publications such as The American Thinker, The National Interest, National Review Online, Daily Wire, Red Alert Politics, CNSNews.com, The Daily Caller, Human Events, Newsmax, The American Spectator, TownHall.com, and Crisis Magazine. He also served as senior managing editor of The Bulletin, a 100,000-circulation daily newspaper in Philadelphia, and received the Pennsylvania Associated Press Managing Editors first-place award for his reporting.
