FBI politicization ‘dangerous’ for Democrats, Republicans: Michael Shellenberger
Author Michael Shellenberger, who released part of the 'Twitter Files,' explains the significance of Twitter censoring the Hunter Biden story and the FBI being involved.
"Twitter Files" publisher Michael Shellenberger is calling for Congress to probe revelations the FBI and intelligence community worked to "discredit" the Hunter Biden laptop story ahead of the 2020 presidential election.
On "The Brian Kilmeade Show" Tuesday, the author detailed his research into the "Twitter Files" and called for accountability from Washington.
"It's a chilling episode in American history, and I really hope that Congress gets a grip on it and that there's some special investigations because this has got to absolutely be rooted out," Shellenberger said.
The lengthy Twitter thread reveals what Shellenberger calls an "influence campaign" by the FBI that eventually "worked" when Twitter censored Hunter Biden’s scandalous laptop.
"What I quickly put together is a pattern where it appears that FBI agents, along with former FBI agents within the company, were engaged in a disinformation campaign aimed at top Twitter and Facebook executives, as well as at top news organization executives to basically prepare them, prime them, get them set up to dismiss Hunter Biden information when it would be released," Shellenberger told host Brian Kilmeade.
As one of several independent journalists entrusted with the "Twitter Files," Shellenberger focused his thread on how the FBI worked to discredit the Hunter Biden story before and after the New York Post released the story in October 2020.
"They were grossly exaggerating any potential Russian disinformation as a way to promote their own disinformation so that when the Hunter Biden laptop was released, not only would it be censored, I think more importantly, it would be discredited in the minds of, you know, left of center Americans or moderate Americans who basically just viewed the whole episode as suspicious and ended up dismissing the contents of the laptop," he said.
Shellenberger argued "every American needs to understand" the role the FBI played in preventing initial investigations into the laptop as early as 2019 when a Delaware computer store owner turned the laptop over to the agency. In addition, the author explained the FBI's efforts to censor and discredit the New York Post's 2020 story on Twitter and other social media platforms merit an investigation into the agency.
"It's quite appalling and requires a very serious congressional investigation and maybe a special prosecutor, because if what's going on looks like what's going on and this is the politicization of the FBI that's dangerous, that needs to be rooted out. And you need reform of this agency," Shellenberger said.
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In response to the "Twitter Files," a spokesperson for the FBI told Fox News Digital, "The FBI regularly engages with private sector entities to provide information specific to identified foreign malign influence actors’ subversive, undeclared, covert, or criminal activities. Private sector entities independently make decisions about what, if any, action they take on their platforms and for their customers after the FBI has notified them."
While the media have been reluctant to acknowledge the Hunter Biden story, Shellenberger expressed optimism that bipartisan support for investigating political agendas infiltrating the FBI can be achieved.
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"When you remind Democrats in my experience that… a politicized FBI, a biased FBI can be turned against Democrats and has been in the past turning against liberals and leftists as much as it can be against conservatives and Republicans…. that's not a good road to go down as a country," he said.
"This is a very disturbing pattern of behavior here by the FBI. I think that when people do look at it, they're going to go, this is grossly inappropriate."
Fox News' Brian Flood, Joseph A. Wulfsohn, Adam Sabes and David Rutz contributed to this report.
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