Gaetz, the FBI, and the elusive laptop
One of the many odd things about the Hunter Biden laptop is the fact that, around when the story first broke in the NY Post – and was almost instantaneously suppressed by the rest of the press plus social media giants – it also came out that the FBI had had possession of the laptop beginning in December of 2019.
Note that was prior to Joe Biden being chosen as the Democratic presidential nominee. And it’s about ten months before the Post’s story on the laptop. And yet we’d not heard a previous word about any investigation or even the existence of the laptop, until the NY Post’s revelations came out.
Not that I’d expect the FBI to give an official report on what was supposedly or at least theoretically an ongoing investigation. But you’d better believe that, had the laptop been from one of the Trump offspring, the FBI would have leaked like a sieve. But for Hunter Biden and Joe, nothing.
Now we have this exchange in Congress between Matt Gaetz and FBI Assistant Director for the Cyber Division Bryan Vorndran. The latter certainly should know about the laptop, right? But apparently not, to hear him tell it [emphasis mine]:
Who has it?” Gaetz asked. “I don’t know who has it,” the witness responded to surprise.
Next, Gaetz entered into the committee record the contents of Hunter’s Biden’s Laptop and a receipt from Mac’s Computer Repair evidencing the FBI taking possession of the Laptop in December 2019. Still, the FBI Cyber Assistant Director testified that after three years in possession of the Laptop, no assessment had been made.
Apparently they had more important things to tend to, like chasing down parents who object at school board meetings to CRT or are upset by sexual attacks on their children in schools.
More:
“How are Americans supposed to trust that you can protect us from the next Colonial pipeline if it seems you can’t locate a laptop that was given to you three years ago from the First Family, potentially creating vulnerabilities for our country?,” Gaetz asked…
the FBI Cyber Assistant Director said Hunter’s Laptop was not in his “purview.”
It seems pretty clear to me that the FBI sat on the laptop and never had any intention of doing anything about it. As for Vorndran, I doubt he’s the fool he makes himself out to be. He just thinks the American public consists of fools – or perhaps just powerless peons who can’t do much about it even if they’re angry at the FBI. The FBI not only holds the laptop, it holds the cards.
Gaetz had another trick up his sleeve, though. He had a copy of the laptop’s hard drive and entered it into the Congressional record. Where I assume it will languish.
Trickle, trickle…,
Bless Mac Isaac for making copies of the hard drive. These are rare and precious opportunities to peek behind the curtain. I think I’m talking myself into reading Miranda Devine’s book.
I hear that now both CNN and Washington Post are now admitting the laptop and the information contained therein is in fact real and very, very bad.
It sure seems like the Democrat-Media-Complex is prepping the battlespace for an eventual removal of Joe Biden. Maybe the powers that be figure Kamala Harris will be more stable and pliable, even though she’s not particularly well liked?
What we learn with these exchanges is which components of the FBI are weapons to be used by the Democratic Party and should be shut down. The divisions Andrew McCabe and Peter Sztrok worked in are among them and the division this bum works in would be another.
Saying often, the FBI is 2 – 0 in taking down Republican Presidents.
When the bureaucracy wants Joe gone. This all will suddenly be very important. I would not be surprised if they have been using this as leverage against him since it came into their “purview”
The press does not care. Unless they are either told to. Or the writing on the wall is in gigantic rainbow letters with sparkles so they cant miss it.
entered it into the Congressional record. Where I assume it will languish.
Shouldn’t it be subject to the Open Records Act, or whatever it’s called?
I’m reading Devine’s book, The LapTop From Hell.
Joe is in this up to his eyeballs.
What the FBI is doing is downright traitorous
To paraphrase; traitors to the left of us, collaborating seditionists on the right.
Stuck in the middle with you…
Well at least one unit in the FBI had time while they ignored USA Women’s gymnastics team members complaint of being molested by USOC doctor.
As a practical matter, what does it mean that the laptop’s contents were entered into the Congressional Record?
Does this mean that its (presumably) gigabytes of actual content are now publicly available online? Or will it just be a list of filenames?
Or not even anything online?
Probably in the same aisle as the Ark of the Covenant.
“EXCLUSIVE: Hunter Biden DID help secure millions in funding for US contractor in Ukraine specializing in deadly pathogen research, laptop emails reveal”
“Moscow’s claim that Hunter Biden helped finance a US military ‘bioweapons’ research program in Ukraine is at least partially true, according to new emails obtained exclusively by DailyMail.com.”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10652127/Hunter-Biden-helped-secure-millions-funding-military-biotech-research-program-Ukraine.html
We need a Church-committee style investigation of the FBI. The agency appears to be massively corrupt at all levels.
I think at least some of the time Matt Gaetz is a show-boating putz. I think this might well be one of those cases, where a Congressman decides to make the news cycle, but the words spoken have little meaning or impact.
As I understand it, the testifying witness from the FBI, Vorndran, is in their computer hacking / cyber crime division, and was there to testify / provide information on that subject.
And since Hunter Biden is not a hacker, nor is he accused of hacking or cyber-criminal activity, nor is his laptop the subject of a cyber-crime investigation, then it wouldn’t fall within Vorndran’s area of expertise. He wouldn’t necessarily know much about it, because the crimes and information deriving from the laptop and Hunter Biden are a different type of investigation in a different department.
If this is true, then Gaetz was just being a putz. Please bear in mind, I think the FBI needs a top-to-bottom house cleaning – as does all of Washington. That whole cesspit is long overdue for some retributional fear.
Aggie:
But wasn’t “hacking” the reason Twitter and Facebook et al gave for blocking the laptop information? Wouldn’t the FBI supposedly have had to investigate whether hacking was involved?
I realize the idea was absurd, but it was treated as though it was very serious and likely true.
I concluded some time ago that the FBI was a corrupt entity. Well, some will say, “Hello Mr Obvious”. But, we have been told for the past few years that never mind Tomey, et al; the rank and file were solid.
I do not agree. Who broke down doors in the predawn hours and marched white crime suspects before the cameras in their night clothes? Who set Martha Stewart, Scooter Libby, and General Flynn up for bogus charges of lying to the FBI? Who were the fit, young clowns, with regulation hair cuts, and conspicuously casual outfits milling around on 1/6 agitating the crowd? Just a few examples of outrage carried out by “front line” agents, while doing the dirty work for the politicized hierarchy. The beat goes on. I think the “just taking orders” defense was rejected shortly after 1945.
One difference between our national police and the notorious services of some other countries, is that ours do not use rubber hoses. So far as we know.
hi Neo:
What Twitter and Facebook experts have averred while the laptop was a Hot Button issue really isn’t relevant to this, though. These are just noodle brains clamoring to be paid attention to for whatever they think is most important.
If you were in, I dunno, the Research Chemistry department at Proctor and Gamble and Matt Gaetz asked you to tell him the exact whereabouts of the Financial Ledger from the Accounts Receivable department, to get to the bottom of the Big Soap scandal, you wouldn’t likely be able to answer the question. If Gaetz knew a little about your place in the organization but still asked you the question for cheap ‘creds’ in front of the cameras, he would still be a putz. It’s in the same class of stunt that Newt Gingrich pulled when he gave a barn-burner speech from the Floor of Congress that was played on the evening news, and later was found to have been given to an empty chamber.
The fbi is still busy investigating the Ashley biden diary
Aggie. Asking the unanswerable–not in the witness’ purview–is not restricted to Gaetz But he also asked who should be “in the chair” to answer the questions. Given the organizational position of the witness, one would think he’d know.