Judicial Watch, a conservative activist group, has filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the Justice Department (DOJ) for records of communication between the FBI and social media companies about foreign influence in elections, including the censorship of the Hunter Biden laptop story.
We obtained a copy of the complaint for you here.
Judicial Watch filed the lawsuit after the FBI refused to respond to a FOIA request sent in August 2022. The activist group wanted all communications between the FBI and social media companies about foreign actors allegedly spreading misinformation related to the election and all communications regarding Hunter Biden’s laptop.
In October 2020, the New York Post reported on the contents of a laptop Hunter Biden abandoned at a repair shop in Delaware. The laptop contained evidence to support the idea of the Biden family’s corruption. The story was censored by social media platforms.
After Elon Musk took over Twitter in October 2022, he began releasing internal documents, famously known as “Twitter Files,” which revealed how Twitter censored accounts and content, including the censorship of the Hunter Biden laptop story. The files also revealed how the FBI repeatedly pressured Twitter executives to remove certain accounts and posts.
It was also revealed that the FBI paid Twitter over $3 million as reimbursement for responding to its requests.
“The FBI was literally paying Twitter to censor Americans just before the 2020 election!” Tom Fitton, Judicial Watch’s president said in a statement. “The FBI seems to have interfered in the 2020 election to help Joe Biden by encouraging Big Tech to censor Americans about the Hunter Biden laptop and other debates. And to add to the scandal, they are now covering up their misconduct.”
Judicial Watch sent the FOIA request to the FBI hoping to uncover other incidents of censorship.
