Former FBI Agent Reveals Massive Election Interference in 'Bombshell' Court Testimony
"The way the FBI works is FBI field offices are responsible for maintaining day-to-day relationships with the companies that are headquartered in their area of responsibility"...
A Big Tech lawsuit has uncovered one of the most disturbing revelations yet about social media companies' collusion with law enforcement agencies to police speech on the Internet. A former FBI agent, Elvis Chan, revealed during the court hearings that the bureau held weekly meetings with major social media companies prior to the 2020 and 2022 elections.
On Wednesday, the court transcript of former FBI agent Elvis Chan's testimony was released and corroborated earlier reports.
"Mr. Chan, or Agent Chan, who do you recall on the social media platform side participating in these — in these working group meetings that you have been testifying about from 2020 and 2022?"
"The companies that I remember attending the meetings are Facebook; Microsoft; Google; Twitter; Yahoo!, which have been known as Verizon Media at the time; Wikimedia Foundation and Reddit," Agent Chan said.
Chan was then asked why the FBI was participating in these meetings.
"And why are you included in particular?"
"The reason that I attend these meetings is because the way the FBI works is FBI field offices are responsible for maintaining day-to-day relationships with the companies that are headquartered in their area of responsibility, which I may occasionally abbreviate AOR," Chan responded. "And all of the companies that have been listed, with the exception of Microsoft, are all headquartered in San Francisco's territory."
Chan also testified that he was in regular contact with Facebook's Steven Siegel and Twitter's Yoel Roth, as reported by Lee Fang.
Yoel Roth, formerly Twitter's Head of Trust and Safety, was recently terminated by Elon Musk, as was Twitter's General Counsel Jim Baker, who was formerly the FBI's General Counsel.
Chan also related the the U.S. government is in regular correspondence with major social media platforms regarding elections; namely, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency (or CISA).
Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt, one of the attorneys general that filed the lawsuit, earlier disclosed an overview of FBI agent Elvis Chan's testimony on 'weekly meetings' about censoring Internet posts ahead of the 2020 election.
"In our deposition of FBI agent Elvis Chan on Tuesday, we found that the FBI plays a big role in working with social media companies to censor speech - from weekly meetings with social media companies ahead of the 2020 election to asks for account takedowns," Schmitt wrote in a Twitter thread.
"Chan, the FBI's FITF, and senior CISA officials had meetings with social media companies in the lead-up to the 2020 election, in which Chan personally told the social media companies that there could potentially be a Russian 'hack and leak' operation shortly before the election," he continued. "Those meetings were initially quarterly, then monthly, then weekly heading into the 2020 election."
"Chan stated that the FBI regularly sent social media companies lists of URLs and social media accounts that should be taken down because they were disinformation from 'malign foreign influence operations'," Schmitt went on. "The FBI then inquired whether the platforms have taken down the content. On many occasions, the platforms took down the accounts flagged by the FBI."
Chan testified because of the agent's extensive knowledge of the FBI's interaction with social media companies, the judge in the case stated.
"Chan had authority over cybersecurity issues for the FBI in the San Francisco, California region which includes the headquarters of major social-media platforms and played a critical role for the FBI in coordinating with social-media platforms related to censorship," Judge Terry A. Doughty wrote in his court order.
"Even if Chan played no role in the Hunter Biden laptop communication issue, he may have knowledge of who did, and his deposition is nonetheless warranted," the judge aded. "If Chan played no role in the suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story, then such information will be made clear in his deposition."
Last Friday night, Twitter released a trove of internal documentation about the social media platform's coordination with Biden campaign staff and DNC officials ahead of the 2020 election. But one thing was missing, as pointed out by New York Post columnist Miranda Devine.
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