A recent document indicates that an FBI special agent based in San Francisco provided false testimony regarding his interactions with major tech firms.
This misrepresentation allegedly pertained to their suppression of reports related to Hunter Biden’s laptop contents before the 2020 election.
The internal document, procured from Facebook, suggests that the agent, Elvis Chan, lied about conversations he had with the tech giant concerning the high-profile October 2020 revelations involving Hunter Biden and his father, Joe Biden.
The House Judiciary Committee unveiled internal communications where an employee from Facebook mentioned in a message dated Oct 15, 2020, that he had discussions with Chan.
The agent reportedly asserted that he was “up to speed” on the FBI’s investigation into Hunter’s laptop and assured, “there was no current evidence to suggest any foreign connection or direction of the leak,” according to The New York Post.
This message followed a discussion between the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force and Facebook representatives, in which the FBI did not explicitly verify the laptop’s authenticity.
Contrastingly, in a deposition on Nov. 29, 2022, as part of a lawsuit against the Biden administration, Chan declared that he had “no internal knowledge of that investigation.”
Further, he twice stated that his communications with Facebook were limited to a single conference call with the FBI task force.
The lawsuit, brought forward by the attorneys general of Missouri and Louisiana, accuses the Biden administration of collaborating with tech giants, violating free speech rights.
Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), the Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, labeled Chan’s testimony as “COMPLETELY FALSE.”
He emphasized that Chan acted as “the main conduit between the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force and Big Tech.”
Jordan voiced his frustration, stating, “Of course, there was ‘no evidence’ of ‘any foreign connection.’ The laptop was real, and the FBI knew it.”
He then expressed concern over the Biden DOJ’s apparent reluctance to let the committee interview Agent Chan.
Prior to this revelation, in May, an IRS investigator confirmed to the House Ways and Means Committee that the FBI had authenticated the materials on Hunter’s laptop in November 2019.
In a move to control misinformation, Facebook curbed the spread of The Post’s report on the laptop.
Similarly, Twitter invoked its policy against “hacked materials”, blocking users from sharing the story.
A subsequent attempt to undermine the story’s credibility saw 51 ex-intelligence officials release a letter, initiated by Biden campaign adviser Antony Blinken.
The letter suggested that the leaked emails bore “all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.”
In what may amount to perjury in the civil case, the credibility of Chan’s testimony was further questioned by the “Twitter Files” that emerged last year.
These reports from inside Twitter highlighted an apparent strategy to suppress The Post.
Notably, Chan delivered 10 unidentified documents to Yoel Roth, Twitter’s former trust and safety head, the evening before the laptop story release.
Chan also facilitated “temporary Top Secret security clearances” for Roth and some Twitter top brass for briefings on foreign threats during the election.
Despite these actions, Chan maintained in his testimony that there was no known interference.
He specified, “Through our investigations, we did not see any similar competing intrusions to what had happened in 2016”, alluding to the 2016 DNC email hack by Russian agents.
James Baker, Twitter’s deputy general counsel, and former FBI general counsel (2014-2017), also reportedly urged Roth to restrict access to The Post’s articles, suggesting “the materials may have been hacked.”
