Elon Musk may reveal what happened behind the scenes of Twitter's pre-election censorship of the Hunter Biden laptop story



Elon Musk suggested on Thanksgiving that he might soon reveal what had gone on behind the scenes at Twitter in 2020 when the company censored the New York Post's Hunter Biden laptop story.

Extra to atoning for what has been called "election interference," the insights Musk has teased may also show to what extent governmental and private forces colluded to affect the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.

Hope of transparency

Turning Point USA ambassador Alex Lorusso tweeted on Wednesday, "Raise your hand if you think @ElonMusk should make public all internal discussions about the decision to censor the @NYPost's story on Hunter Biden's laptop before the 2020 Election in the interest of Transparency."

Musk replied, "This is necessary to restore public trust."

\u201c@alx @nypost This is necessary to restore public trust\u201d
— ALX \ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\uddf8 #BringThemBack \uea00 (@ALX \ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\uddf8 #BringThemBack \uea00) 1669259868

The Twitter CEO's response was retweeted nearly 16,000 times and received just under 200,000 likes.

Musk had previously indicated that he regarded Twitter's conduct ahead of the 2020 election as questionable.

On April 26, Saagar Enjeti, co-host of The Hill's web show "Rising," tweeted, "Vijaya Gadde, the top censorship advocate at Twitter who famously gaslit the world on Joe Rogan's podcast and censored the Hunter Biden laptop story, is very upset about the @elonmusk takeover."

Musk responded, "Suspending the Twitter account of a major news organization for publishing a truthful story was obviously incredibly inappropriate."

\u201c@esaagar Suspending the Twitter account of a major news organization for publishing a truthful story was obviously incredibly inappropriate\u201d
— Saagar Enjeti (@Saagar Enjeti) 1651005135

Rep. Claudia Tenney (R-N.Y.) told Fox news on Friday that she thinks it is "great that Elon Musk is going to expose this. Probably nothing interfered more with the 2020 election than the suppression of the evidence that was in Hunter Biden's laptop."

Tenney added that it is important that Musk "reveals the conversations as to why we're suppressing evidence" concerning the president, his son, and their connections with "corrupt organizations."

"It could have changed the election," said Tenney. "The 2020 election was decided in the swing states by 42,000 votes. ... This is the difference in the election."

Yoel Roth, the Twitter executive who had led the effort to censor the Hunter Biden laptop story, resigned on Nov. 10.

Roth had previously likened members of the Trump administration to "actual Nazis" and former Trump spokesman Kellyanne Conway to Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels.

The laptop

In April 2019, Hunter Biden, whom President Joe Biden claimed was the "smartest guy" he knows, dropped off at least one computer to Wilmington resident John Paul Mac Isaac's Mac Shop in Delaware. Biden reportedly failed both to pick up the device[s] and to pay for the repair costs — despite multiple attempts by the shop owner to get in touch with him.

One of the devices, a MacBook laptop, was full of what may ultimately prove to be incriminating evidence of various improprieties, including 459 alleged crimes.

Mac Isaac reportedly turned the laptop over to the FBI in December 2019 and then later to a lawyer for former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

Mac Isaac told reporters that, with certain theories about the fate of former DNC staffer Seth Rich in mind, he made a copy of the hard drive "because I was pretty vocal about not wanting to get murdered."

The computer store owner provided files from the device to the New York Post in October 2020.

The New York Post began reporting on the contents on Oct. 14, 2020.

The establishment censorship campaign

TheBlaze indicated that the Post took incredible heat from the Democratic Party, the left, and big tech for daring to hold the powerful to account.

CNN and MSNBC spent months dismissing the Hunter Biden laptop story, calling it "Russian disinformation."

CNN's Wolf Blitzer said on Oct. 16, 2020, "Serious questions tonight about whether the Russians are using Rudy Giuliani to interfere in the U.S. presidential election … There are fears that what Giuliani is now pushing here in the United States could actually be part of Russia's latest and very massive disinformation campaign in the U.S. presidential election."

Back when Brian Stelter still had a show on CNN, he claimed that the Post story was a "classic example of the right-wing media machine."

MSNBC's Joe Scarborough said the Post's article was "false." Joy Reid, also o the left-leaning network, downplayed critiques of Hunter Biden as "nefarious conspiracy theories."

NBC News, NPR, CBS News, and a host of print media publications were similarly guilty of downplaying the Post's reports about the Bidens, ostensibly working in lockstep with the intelligence community.

On Oct. 19, 2019, Leon Panetta, former head of the CIA; John Brennan, former head of the CIA; Michael Hayden, former head of the National Security Agency; Jim Clapper, former director of national intelligence; Nick Rasmussen, former director of the National Counterterrorism Center; Mike Vickers, former under secretary of defense for intelligence; and dozens of others penned a letter entitled, "Public Statement on the Hunter Biden Emails."

The email declared that the Hunter Biden laptop story and the evidence it discussed was likely all an utter fabrication — that it had "all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation."

Despite admitting in the letter to not knowing whether the Hunter Biden emails provided to the New York Post were "genuine" and having no "evidence of Russian involvement," the intelligence community authors suggested a "laptop op" aimed "designed to discredit Biden ... would be consistent with some of the key methods Russia has used in its now multi-year operation to interfere in our democracy."

Twitter censorship

Twitter censored posts about the story and locked the Post — the very publication founded by Founding Father Alexander Hamilton — out of its Twitter account, demanding that the outlet remove its story.

Twitter claimed that "hacked materials" had been used in the Post's exposé about Hunter Biden's emails — despite the Bidens not having expressly claimed they had been hacked.

Twitter told the Post, "In line with our Hacked Materials Policy, as well as our approach to blocking URLs, we are taking action to block any links to or images of the material in question on Twitter."

Not only had the Post been prohibited from posting about a story relevant to the 2020 election, but users were similarly blocked from sharing links to the article about Hunter Biden's party with his father and a rep from the Ukrainian gas company paying his bills.

Users who had clicked on the link were hit with a warning that said, "The link you are trying to access has been identified by Twitter or our partners as being potentially spammy or unsafe."

Only after the election took place did then-CEO Jack Dorsey admit to Congress that Twitter had made a "total mistake" by shutting down the Hunter Biden laptop story. Dorsey also claimed that the tech giant had locked the Post out of its account due to a "process error."

Republican lawmakers call on NIH and NSF to stop funding 'reckless' EcoHealth Alliance, closely linked to communist Chinese Wuhan lab and gain-of-function research



On October 7, over 30 House and Senate Republicans sent letters to Lawrence A. Tabak, the director of the National Institutes of Health, as well as to Sethuraman Panchanathan, director of the National Science Foundation. Both letters called for the suspension of federal funding to EcoHealth Alliance.

The lawmakers stressed the urgency of ending the American agencies' "grant relationship with EcoHealth to protect taxpayer funding and end dangerous experiments that jeopardize public health."

Mixed signals

On September 21, one month after the NIH notified EcoHealth that its sub-award was terminated for "material non-compliance with terms and conditions of the award," the NIH's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, run by Anthony Fauci, awarded a grant to EcoHealth valued at $653,392 for 2022.

\u201cUNBELIEVABLE: Fauci in his waning months as head of NIAID just greenlit a 600k grant to Peter Dzask and the Ecohealth Alliance for "bat coronavirus" research. The same organization that funded the Wuhan lab and research that plausibly lead to the entire COVID19 pandemic\u201d
— Saagar Enjeti (@Saagar Enjeti) 1664733444

Eight days later, Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) introduced a bill to prohibit federal funding to the organization.

Ernst told the Daily Caller that "[g]iving taxpayer money to EcoHealth to study pandemic prevention is like paying a suspected arsonist to conduct fire safety inspections."

In the meantime, Republican lawmakers have sought to preclude federal agencies from giving additional funds to EcoHealth, delineating their reasons in two strongly-worded letters, the first of which was to the NIH.

\u201cEcoHealth Alliance has funded dangerous and potentially deadly research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, a lab run by the Chinese Communist Party.\n\nI led bicameral letters to the Biden Administration demanding the NIH and NSF terminate their grant relationships with EcoHealth.\u201d
— Rep. Guy Reschenthaler (@Rep. Guy Reschenthaler) 1665439530

The letter to the NIH

Republicans highlighted EcoHealth's "lengthy history of reporting failures and collaboration with the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV)," noting that the WIV "is a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) laboratory and the likely origin of the COVID-19 pandemic."

Although the lawmakers indicated that EcoHealth's transmission of American tax dollars to the WIV for projects involved in gain-of-function research was itself problematic, they found its obstructionism and aversion to transparency even more troubling.

The letter referenced how, in 2020, Peter Daszak, president of EcoHealth, called NIH requests that U.S. federal officials inspect the WIV "heinous," and derided suggestions that the virus might have leaked from the WIV — to which his organization had directed a significant amount of taxpayer funds — as "conspiracy theories."

The authors of the letter did not hold back in their characterization of EcoHealth as undeserving of funding, suggesting the organization was dishonest, failure-prone, collaborative with the CCP, and exhibitive of a "reckless disregard for federal laws and U.S. taxpayers."

They recommended that the NIH turn off the spigot and end funding to the organization.

The letter to the NSF

Republican lawmakers called into question the NSF's recent decision to award a $1 million grant for a project that would include EcoHealth. Although EcoHealth is not the primary recipient, it is allegedly set to receive $90,000. The letter indicated that in addition to this sum, the NSF was planning also to give $263,801 to the controversial organization.

Unlike the letter to the NIH, which does not mention Peter Daszak by name except in a footnote, the letter to the NSF calls out Daszak for leading "an unsubstantiated, coordinated effort to deflect blame from the WIV and EcoHealth."

Republican lawmakers referenced an NIH letter condemning EcoHealth, suggesting its "inability or unwillingness to provide ... documentation to us upon request raises questions about the quality and rigor of EcoHealth's record-keeping."

The lawmakers added another excerpt from the NIH's letter, which stated, "EcoHealth has demonstrated a history of failure to comply with several elements of the terms and conditions of grant awards."

The lab

Much of Daszak's defensiveness and EcoHealth's spotty record is centered around its relationship with communist China's sometimes-bioweapons lab.

The U.S. State Department previously stated that, prior to the first identified case of the COVID-19 outbreak, "several researchers inside the WIV became sick in autumn 2019 ... with symptoms consistent" with the virus, raising doubts about the "the credibility of WIV senior researcher Shi Zhengli's public claim that there was 'zero infection' among the WIV's staff and students of SARS-CoV-2 or SARS-related viruses."

Suspicions were heightened after the CCP prevented independent journalists, investigators, and global authorities from interviewing researchers at the WIV, including those who first took ill in the fall of 2019.

Although there are myriad of reasons to suspect that the WIV was ground zero for COVID-19, the House Foreign Affairs Committee Minority Staff Report on the origins of the COVID-19 global pandemic emphasized several, including:

  • "The CCP's refusal to allow the WIV to share samples of the virus";
  • "The history of gain-of-function research on coronaviruses at the facility";
  • "Shi's self-described anxiety that her lab may have been the source of the outbreak";
  • "The CCP's refusal to allow international investigators access to the WIV";
  • "Concerns from the French government regarding the secretive relationship between the lab and the PRC's military"; and
  • "The general lack of transparency and CCP cover-up of the origins of the COVID-19 global pandemic."

Spotify deletes 70 episodes of 'The Joe Rogan Experience' as new racial slur controversy forces podcast host to issue apology: 'The most regretful and shameful thing I’ve ever had to talk about publicly'



Spotify quietly removed 70 episodes of "The Joe Rogan Experience" podcast recently, according to a new report. The news was reported by JRE Missing – a website that automatically detects episodes of Rogan's podcast that have been purged from Spotify.

The deleted episodes feature a wide variety of guests such as progressive political commentator Kyle Kulinski, LGBT community activist Dan Savage, Vice Media founder Shane Smith, liberal podcaster Marc Maron, psychologist Stanley Krippner, MMA fighter Sam Sheridan, lifestyle guru Tim Ferriss, Tool singer Maynard James Keenan, ufologist Giorgio A. Tsoukalos, wellness company CEO Aubrey Marcus, director Kevin Smith, and actor Andy Dick.

There were also numerous episodes starring comedians that were taken down, including shows with Russell Peters, Theo Von, Bert Kreischer, Tom Segura, Christina Pazsitzky, Moshe Kasher, Pete Holmes, Amy Schumer, Dave Attell, Jim Norton, and Bill Burr.

Upon finding out that one of his episodes was deleted, Gad Saad – who is a professor, evolutionary behavioral scientist, Psychology Today writer, and author – wrote on Twitter, "WTF?!"

Author and podcaster Michael Malice – who was a "The Joe Rogan Experience" guest six times – noted that Spotify deleted two episodes he appeared in. During a YouTube broadcast, Malice said he wasn't exactly sure why the shows were purged and that they both were recorded before the COVID-19 pandemic.

both of the episodes are pre-covidpic.twitter.com/h1WQ178kQh
— Michael Malice (@Michael Malice) 1644016213

A possible reason for the mass deletion of pre-pandemic episodes could stem from a new controversy involving Rogan. This week, a compilation video went viral of Rogan saying the n-word in past podcasts. Rogan used the racial slur 24 times in the 23 resurfaced clips in episodes recorded years ago, well before his deal with Spotify.

Rogan issued an apology on Saturday morning for using the racial slur, calling it "the most regretful and shameful thing I’ve ever had to talk about publicly."

Rogan said the clips were taken "out of context" from "12 years of conversations." He explained that he was quoting other people in several instances of using the n-word.

“I know that to most people, there is no context where a white person is ever allowed to say that word, nevermind publicly on a podcast, and I agree with that now," Rogan said in an Instagram video. "I haven’t said it in years. Instead of saying ‘the n-word,’ I would just say the word. I thought as long as it was in context, people would understand what I was doing."

"It looks f***ing horrible. Even to me," he said.

"It’s a very unusual word, but it’s not my word to use," the comedian continued. "I never used it to be racist, because I’m not racist, but whenever you’re in a situation where you have to say ‘I’m not racist,’ you’ve f***ed up, and I clearly have f***ed up."

"I do hope that if anything this can be a teachable moment," Rogan added. "I never thought it would be taken out of context and put in a video like that. Now that it is, holy s**t does it look bad."


"Breaking Points" host Saagar Enjeti – who has been a guest on "The Joe Rogan Experience – declared, "The effort to smear Joe Rogan as a racist is one of the most despicable efforts I’ve ever seen in my lifetime. They don’t actually care, they’re just trying to destroy him. We either live in a society where context matters or we don’t."

Enjeti compared Rogan using the racial slur out of context to President Joe Biden quoting the n-word from a 1985 hearing.

"By their standard Joe Biden is a racist," Enjeti said.

The effort to smear Joe Rogan as a racist is one of the most despicable efforts I\u2019ve ever seen in my lifetime. They don\u2019t actually care, they\u2019re just trying to destroy him. We either live in a society where context matters or we don\u2019t. By their standard Joe Biden is a racistpic.twitter.com/7wUI8aeL3P
— Saagar Enjeti (@Saagar Enjeti) 1644076496

In April, Spotify deleted roughly 40 episodes of Rogan's podcast. JRE Missing reported that a total of 113 episodes have been deleted since Joe Rogan signed a reported $100 million contract with the streaming giant.

Regarding certain episodes, Rogan said in March, "There were a few episodes they didn't want on their platform, and I was like 'Okay, I don't care.'"

Previously, Rogan said Spotify's management "haven't given me a hard time at all," and they "don't give a f***" about the content and guests on his podcast.

Rogan and Spotify have faced heavy criticism in the past two weeks over claims of COVID-19 misinformation. The situation elevated when musicians threatened to remove their music libraries from Spotify, including Neil Young, David Crosby, Stephen Stills, Graham Nash, Joni Mitchell, India Arie, and Nils Lofgren.

CBS News reporter says he 'felt safer' in North Korea than he does at the White House amid outbreak



CBS News White House correspondent Ben Tracy declared on social media Monday that he "felt safer" reporting from the communist regime of North Korea than he does currently covering the White House after President Donald Trump and several administration staffers tested positive for COVID-19.

What are the details?

"I felt safer reporting in North Korea than I currently do reporting at The White House," Tracy tweeted, adding, "This is just crazy."

The journalist was lambasted by conservatives for the comment. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) replied, "That's because you were supporting the regime."

Tracy later clarified amid backlash, "For context folks, this is in reference to the COVID-19 outbreak at The White House."

For context folks, this is in reference to the COVID-19 outbreak at The White House.
— Ben Tracy (@Ben Tracy)1601931122.0

One person wrote, "I'm pretty sure you'd rather run the risk getting COVID in the USA before getting it in the [Democratic People's Republic of Korea]...from what I hear a bullet is the only treatment option there." They attached an AFP article from last month citing U.S. intelligence that North Korea has "issued shoot-to-kill orders to prevent the coronavirus entering the country from China."

Republican attorney and frequent Fox News guest Harmeet Dhillon tweeted to Tracy, "Yes the White House is just like North Korea, other than the beatings, starvation, lack of electricity, organ harvesting, punishment of your parents, your children, your extended family on the basis of your network's reporting. You are a clown."

Yes the White House is just like North Korea, other than the beatings, starvation, lack of electricity, organ harve… https://t.co/CA10uC1fwl
— Harmeet K. Dhillon (@Harmeet K. Dhillon)1601916221.0

Saagar Enjeti, co-host of The Hill's "Rising with Krystal and Saagar" added, "Otto Warmbier was unavailable for comment."

Otto Warmbier was unavailable for comment https://t.co/DxoeQFNszD
— Saagar Enjeti (@Saagar Enjeti)1601918282.0

As TheBlaze previously reported:

[American college student] Otto Warmbier was arrested in 2016 and sentenced to 15 years hard labor in North Korea after being accused of stealing a propaganda poster while visiting the country on a guided tour. He was released after 17 months, but when he arrived in the US, he was in a coma and never regained consciousness — dying six days after his return home.

His parents said that when Otto arrived, he was making "inhuman noises" like "howling" and "jerking violently." They also contend that he was blind, deaf, and that it looked like someone had "taken a pair of pliers and rearranged his bottom teeth."

Anything else?

Tracy is not the first White House correspondent to say that covering President Trump during the coronavirus pandemic is one of the most dangerous jobs on earth.

A few weeks ago, ABC News White House correspondent Jon Karl described covering an indoor rally for the president as such: "This is not like embedding with the Marines in Fallujah. It is like you are taking your family with you to Fallujah."