Sen. Hawley demands answers from Facebook for ‘censoring a news report’ on Hunter Biden

Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., is demanding to know why Facebook is “censoring a news report” on Hunter Biden after the platform admitted it was limiting distribution of the story until independent fact-checkers could verify its accuracy.

‘.@Facebook I want to know on what grounds you are actively censoring a news report about potentially illegal corruption by the Democrat candidate for president,” Hawley wrote on Twitter. 

“If you have evidence this is 'disinformation,' disclose it immediately. Expect a formal inquiry from my office,” the senator continued. 

Facebook could not immediately be reached for comment on its policy of limiting story distribution. 

Earlier Wednesday the New York Post reported that Hunter Biden introduced his father, then Vice President Joe Biden, to a top executive at Ukrainian natural gas firm Burisma Holdings, where the younger Biden sat on the board in 2015. 

HUNTER BIDEN EMAILS UNDER INVESTIGATION BY SENATE HOMELAND SECURITY AFTER HARD-DRIVE REPORT EMERGES 

Less than a year later, Joe Biden pressured Ukrainian officials to fire Viktor Shokin, who was investigating Burisma. 

The Post report revealed that the former vice president, at his son's request, met with Vadym Pozharskyi in April 2015 in Washington, D.C.

The meeting was mentioned in an email of appreciation, according to the Post, that Pozharskyi sent to Hunter Biden on April 17, 2015 — a year after Hunter took on his lucrative position on the board of Burisma.

“Dear Hunter, thank you for inviting me to DC and giving an opportunity to meet your father and spent [sic] some time together. It’s realty [sic] an honor and pleasure,” the email read.

An earlier email from May 2014 also showed Pozharskyi, reportedly a top Burisma executive, asking Hunter for “advice on how you could use your influence” on the company’s behalf, the Post reported.

The former vice president has previously said he has "never spoken to my son about his overseas business dealings."

Facebook said it would rely on its fact-checking partners to determine the story's legitimacy, but until then, it is taking steps to tamp down on its spread.

"While I will intentionally not link to the New York Post, I want be clear that this story is eligible to be fact checked by Facebook's third-party fact checking partners," Facebook spokesperson Andy Stone tweeted Wednesday. "In the meantime, we are reducing its distribution on our platform."

The emails turned up in the hard drive of a laptop dropped off at a repair shop in 2019, the Post reported, adding that a copy of the hard drive ended up in the hands of Robert Costello, a lawyer for Rudy Giuliani, a personal attorney for President Trump.

Biden once boasted on camera that when he was vice president and spearheading the Obama administration’s Ukraine policy, he successfully pressured Ukraine to fire Shokin who was the top prosecutor at the time. He had been investigating the founder of Burisma.

FACEBOOK REDUCING DISTRIBUTION OF HUNTER BIDEN STORY IN NY POST 

“I looked at them and said: I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money,” Biden said to the Council on Foreign Relations in 2018.

“Well, son of a b---,” he continued. “He got fired.”

Biden and Biden allies have maintained, though, that his intervention prompting the firing of Shokin had nothing to do with his son, but rather was tied to the corruption concerns.

Biden repeatedly has claimed he’s “never spoken to my son about his overseas business dealings.”

The Biden campaign denied any such meeting took place. 

"The New York Post never asked the Biden campaign about the critical elements of this story," Biden campaign spokesman Andrew Bates said in a statement. "They certainly never raised that Rudy Giuliani - whose discredited conspiracy theories and alliance with figures connected to Russian intelligence have been widely reported - claimed to have such materials."

Bates added: "Moreover, we have reviewed Joe Biden's official schedules from the time and no meeting, as alleged by the New York Post, ever took place."

The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee is now investigating the emails. 

Committee Chairman Ron Johnson, R-Wis., told Fox News on Wednesday that the committee has been in touch with the person who provided the emails and was in the process of validating the information.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

"We regularly speak with individuals who email the committee’s whistleblower account to determine whether we can validate their claims," Johnson told Fox News. "Although we consider those communications to be confidential, because the individual in this instance spoke with the media about his contact with the committee, we can confirm receipt of his email complaint, have been in contact with the whistleblower, and are in the process of validating the information he provided.”

Fox News' Brooke Singman contributed to this report.