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“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 answered.
Later Dehmlow was pressed for more details. “Do you knowwho else at FITF knew that the laptop was real?”a committee lawyer asked.
"I don’t actually. I would assume both my – yes, I would certainly say thatBrad Benavides was aware,” she answered.
“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 added.
Documents recently released by Congress from two IRS whistleblowers show the FBI had determined that a laptop Hunter Biden abandoned at a Delaware repair shop that was handed over to agents under a federal grand jury subpoena had been authenticated by the FBI as early as 2019 and that the possibility ofRussian disinformation on it was already ruled out by early 2020.
Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan is pressing FBI Director Christopher Wray on the work of the FITF and other bodies created by the federal government in the name of fighting disinformation, citing testimony and documents showingfederal disinformation hunters sometimes created their own false impressionby making proclamations without full evidence to back it up.
For instance, 51 intelligence officials signed a letter in October 2020 claiming the Biden laptop could be Russian disinformation without citing any evidence, and memos dug up by Jordan evidence that the letter was instigated by now-Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, then a staffer with Joe Biden’s campaign, to create a “talking point” at the last presidential debate.
“The refusal ofFBI officials—the very officials who knew the laptop was real—to verify the authenticity of the laptopallowed widespread censorshipabout an otherwise accurate news story,” Jordan wrote Wray in a letter earlier this year.
In his historic ruling in July banning federal agencies from further censorship activities with Big Tech firms,Judge Terry Doughtyof the United States District Court of Louisianasingled out the FBI Foreign Influence Task Forcefor behavior that chilled the First Amendment’s guarantee to free speech. “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,” the judge noted.
He added: “TheFBIwas included in Industry meetings and bilateral meetings, received and forwarded alleged misinformation to social-media companies, andactually 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.”
Benavides was asked about Dehmlow’s claims and insisted he did not know the laptop was “real” and that he did not try to determine if it was in the FBI’s hands after he gave his answer to the executive assistant director.
“I don't know what 'real' means, and I would need context for that,” he told the committee. “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.” (Clinton language)
Committee lawyers pressed further: “Did you have any knowledge of the FBI's possession of any laptop, regardless of whether the laptop had been authenticated, determined to be Hunter Biden's laptop, determined to be a version of Hunter Biden's laptop possibly corrupted, possession of any 24 laptop whatsoever connected to this issue?
“I was aware of a public narrative around this generally. I assessed, based on John's question, that the FBI might be in possession of the laptop. I was never told, nor would I have asked, ‘Does the FBI have this laptop?’ I would not have done that,” he answered.
Benavidesalso confirmed to Congress thathe was part of a briefing to Sens. Chuck Grassley and Ron Johnson in summer 2020that warned some of the information they were collecting in their probe of Biden family influence peddling and the millions in foreign dollars it collected might have been fanned by Russia through a Ukrainian lawmaker aligned with Putin.
“I would have been in the room for that. I would not have delivered the defensive brief,” he explained,identifying his boss, Nikki Floris,as the agent which gave the briefing.
(They sound dumb but the are not, deny, deny, deny!)