FBI Team Involved In Censorship Of Hunter Biden Laptop Story Identified

Meta, Facebook’s parent company, identified the team as the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force (FITF), according to an updated complaint entered late on Oct. 6.

Meta named the team after receiving a subpoena in a case alleging the federal government pressured Big Tech firms to censor users.

“Pursuant to the third-party subpoena, Meta has identified the FBI’s FITF, as supervised by Laura Dehmlow, and Elvis Chan as involved in the communications between the FBI and Meta that led to Facebook’s suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story,” the updated complaint states.

Mark Zuckberg, Meta’s CEO, said in August that Facebook reduced the reach of posts about Hunter Biden’s laptop in response to advice from the FBI.

“The background here is the FBI I think basically came to some folks on our team [and] were like, ‘Hey, just so you know, you should be on high alert. We thought that there was a lot of Russian propaganda in the 2016 election, we have it on notice that basically there’s about to be some kind of dump similar to that, so just be vigilant,'” Zuckerberg said on Joe Rogan’s podcast. He made similar comments before the Senate in 2020.

“One of the threats that the FBI has alerted our company and the public to was the possibility of a hack and leak operation in the days or weeks leading up to this election,” Zuckerberg said then. Those alerts “suggested we be on high alert and sensitivity if a trove of documents appeared that we should view that with suspicion that it might be part of a foreign manipulation attempt,” he added.

The FBI did not respond to a request for comment on the updated lawsuit, which now names the FBI as a defendant. The bureau said previously that it is routinely in touch with U.S. companies but “cannot ask, or direct, companies to take action on information received.”

2 Officials

The FITF was established by FBI Director Christopher Wray in 2017 “to identify and counteract malign foreign influence operations targeting the United States,” according to the bureau’s website. Such operations include covert actions by outside governments aimed at influencing the American political scene or discourse, the bureau has said.

Laura Dehmlow is a supervisor of FITF. She has been named as a defendant in the case along with Elvis Chan, a special agent who manages the cyber branch at the FBI’s San Francisco Field Office.

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/fbi-team-involved-censorship-hunter-biden-laptop-story-identified

Special Counsel Durham Can Keep Witness List for Danchenko Trial Secret: Judge

Special counsel John Durham can keep a list of witnesses he plans to call in an upcoming trial secret, a judge ruled on Oct. 7.

U.S. District Judge Anthony Trenga, a George W. Bush appointee, approved a motion from Durham’s team.

The witness list will be sealed and will remain under seal until further order from the court, Trenga said.

Durham’s prosecution of Igor Danchenko, a key source for the anti-Donald Trump dossier compiled on behalf of Democrats ahead of the 2016 presidential election, is set to start on Oct. 11.

Michael Keilty, an assistant special counsel, asked the court on Friday to seal the list.

“Given that this case has garnered significant media attention, the government is concerned about the potential harassment of its witnesses should they be identified this far in advance of trial,” Keilty wrote.

Prosecutors plan to publicly file the list, which it provided to Danchenko’s lawyers on Oct. 10, Keilty said.

Defense lawyers did not object to the proposal, he added.

The filing cited rulings in other cases that sealed witness lists. In one, re Knight Pub. Co., the court wrote that a trial court “has supervisory power over its own records and may, in its discretion, seal documents if the public’s right of access is outweighed by competing interests.”

Prosecutors have not shed much light on potential witnesses in court filings. They did say they wanted to call Bernd Kuhlen, a German citizen who was a manager at the Ritz Carlton hotel in Moscow in 2016, while discussing Danchenko’s shifting statements regarding the claim that Trump, while staying at the hotel, made a degenerate request of hookers.

But Trenga denied the request, noting that none of the charges against Danchenko relate to the so-called pee tape.

Danchenko allegedly lied five times to FBI agents during interviews and was charged in 2021. The statements relate to his sourcing of information from Charles Dolan, a longtime Clinton family associate, and his alleged interactions with Sergei Millian, a businessman who used to be president of the Russian-American Chamber of Commerce.

It was later revealed that the FBI paid Danchenko as a confidential human source for more than three years.

Prosecutors have said they plan to call Dolan but that Millian will not testify due to concerns about his personal safety, and the safety of his family.

Danchenko has pleaded not guilty and said he told the truth in the interviews.

Danchenko provided information to Christopher Steele, the ex-British spy that compiled the anti-Trump dossier while being paid by Hillary Clinton, who was vying with Trump for the presidency, and the Democratic National Committee.

The dossier was infamously full of salacious, unsubstantiated accusations. Many of its claims have been ruled inaccurate or false by federal investigators, including the Department of Justice’s Office of Inspector General.

https://www.ntd.com/special-counsel-durham-can-keep-witness-list-for-danchenko-trial-secret-judge_853271.html