The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), a component of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), immediately began a pressure campaign to discredit the Hunter Biden “Laptop from Hell” story in 2020, newly disclosed documents show.
The documents were obtained by America First Legal in the course of its lawsuit against CISA, and show the agency characterizing the story as a “QAnon conspiracy theory” despite the fact that the FBI, with whom CISA worked closely, knew the Biden laptop story was legitimate a year prior.
/1🚨EXPLOSIVE DOCS — new docs obtained from our lawsuit against DHS’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) indicate the federal gov’t immediately participated in an effort to discredit the Hunter Biden laptop story the same day of the @nypost’s reporting: pic.twitter.com/L9bcuWbu5z
— America First Legal (@America1stLegal) October 25, 2023
In an internal bulletin headlined “countering foreign disinformation,” CISA officials characterized the New York Post’s story as a magnet for QAnon.
The bulleting linked to an Axios article titled “QAnon Conspiracy Theory Explodes Ahead of the Election,” and claimed that reports about what was purported to be Hunter Biden’s computer hard drive have sparked renewed activity from Q.”
/2 On Oct 22, 2020, two weeks before Election Day, CISA officials reported on the laptop story: “QAnon Conspiracy Theory Explodes Ahead of the Election … reports about what was purported to be Hunter Biden’s computer hard drive have sparked renewed activity from Q” and linked it… pic.twitter.com/UDHnabRg2P
— America First Legal (@America1stLegal) October 25, 2023
As Breitbart News has previously reported, CISA was at the center of the House Select Committee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government’s investigation into collusion between federal agencies, Silicon Valley tech companies, and the outside organizations pressuring them to censor Americans.
In particular, CISA worked closely with the Election Integrity Partnership (EIP), an organization which targeted Breitbart News, Fox News, the New York Post, and the Epoch Times, as well as the social media accounts of prominent conservatives Charlie Kirk, Tom Fitton, Jack Posobiec, Mark Levin, James O’Keefe, and Sean Hannity, amongst others, with false allegations of “disinformation.”
President Donald Trump was also frequently flagged for “disinformation” by the consortium, as well as his sons Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr.
After the inauguration of Joe Biden, CISA set up a “disinformation subcommittee,” whose members included Twitter’s former top censor Vijaya Gadde, Dr. Kate Starbird of the EIP, and former CIA legal advisor Suzanne Spaulding.
Allum Bokhari is the senior technology correspondent at Breitbart News. He is the author of #DELETED: Big Tech’s Battle to Erase the Trump Movement and Steal The Election.