Disinformation experts are keeping quiet after the news that the Biden Campaign prompted a 51-person letter that cast doubts on the Hunter Biden Laptop story in advance of the 2020 Presidential Election.
Michael Morrell, former CIA Deputy director, testified before the House Judiciary Committee. He said that conversations with Anthony Blinken, now Secretary of State and Senior Advisor to Biden’s campaign during the 2008 election cycle. The Daily Caller News Foundation repeatedly asked groups and individuals who study and expose “disinformation,” for comments, about whether or not the campaign engaged in misinformation and whether people should be skeptical about previous attempts to suppress this story.
Joe Biden, or more precisely Joe Biden’s handlers, organized one of largest election year disinformation campaign since Hillary Clinton’s absurd effort just a few short years ago. Democrats make a mockery out of US intelligence, think tanks and security experts as well as Big Tech and the media in an attempt to cover up their own corruption. Tom Jones, President of the American Accountability Foundation, told Daily Caller News Foundation that “we now know how much of a joke they have become.” The silence of the so-called ‘disinformation specialists’ also brings them in on the joke. If these elites want to know why Americans don’t trust their leadership anymore, they might need to look in the mirror.
Joan Donovan, the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy’s research director and the head of the Technology and Social Change Project about “media manipulating” at Harvard University, was quick to challenge the story’s source on a Harvard Kennedy School Podcast on election night 2020. She said that the project “stinks of tradecraft” and “drop.”
She said that when researchers try to create a story repeatedly, but it fails, they adapt and intensify their tactics. “We expected different types of attacks, such as a leak. But [what is] most suspicious about it, you have someone with millions of dollar. He can’t pay for Best Buy’s Geek Squad to come to his home to pick up the laptop on which he has evidence of crimes? It’s hard to believe.
Donovan did not tweet any comments about the Biden campaign being alleged to be the source of the intel-letter, but she tweeted in April 2022 the “content” on the Hunter Biden computer was the “most common straw man” at a disinformation conference that she attended.
Nina Jankowicz also made a number of comments that downplayed the laptop story. She was originally slated to lead the Department of Homeland Security Disinformation Governance Board, but she resigned following online criticism. She told The Associated Press that in October 2020, the laptop might not have been Hunter Biden’s and that it should be “viewed[ed] a Trump campaign-product.” On Twitter she shared a New York Times piece that “cast[ed] yet more doubt” on the NY Post story about Hunter Biden.
Jankowicz has not responded to Daily Caller News Foundation regarding the testimony. Donovan replied that she was out of the office for a week and “would respond when available.”
Other groups that are meant to combat “disinformation”, such as the DCNF, have not responded to DCNF requests for comments or made any statements about the Committee’s conclusions. The Global Disinformation Index rated the New York Post one of the most risky news sites for 2022. The Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab found that Fox News gave more coverage to the Biden Laptop story than CNN and MSNBC.
Richard Davidson told DCNF that the piece you are referring to was a case-study which clearly compared two events (Biden Laptop and WikiLeaks), rather than a judgment of the veracity of either incident or its politics. The Atlantic Council, and by extension the Digital Forensic Research Lab, (DFRLab), are nonpartisan, and do not take institutional positions. The DFRLab is proud of its timely research, policy change and global coalition building to ensure human rights, transparency and accountability in the global information ecosystem.
Washington Free Beacon reports that Aspen Digital, a division of Aspen Institute, held a workshop in September 2020 for academics, journalists, and social media companies to discuss how to deal with a possible “hack and dump” scenario. The scenario used was leaked Hunter Biden email. First Draft News attended the workshop, but did not respond DCNF’s comment request.
Morrell told House Judiciary Committee he had signed the letter in order to help Biden to win the 2020 presidential elections and share his concern about Russian influence. The Committee wrote Blinken on 20 April that “apparently the Biden Campaign played an active part in the origins” of the public statements, which prevented American citizens from being able to make a fully informed choice during the 2020 Presidential election.
The letter stated that “although the signatories of the statement have an unquestioned freedom of speech and association, which we do not contest, their reference to their credentials in national security gave weight to the story as it suggested they had access to specialized knowledge unavailable to other Americans,” This concerted effort was to suppress and minimize the public dissemination of serious allegations against the Biden family. It was a grave injustice to the informed participation of all American citizens in our democracy.
