Both FBI officials who briefed Facebook before the social media giant opted to censor The Post’s initial reporting on Hunter Biden’s infamous laptop made small-dollar donations to Democrats during the 2020 election cycle, according to campaign finance records and court filings.
An amended complaint released Monday by Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt’s office says Laura Dehmlow, the section chief of the bureau’s Foreign Influence Task Force, and Elvis Chan, who manages the cyber branch of the FBI’s San Francisco field office, were “involved in the communications between the FBI and Meta that led to Facebook’s suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story.”
Federal Election Commission records show that Dehmlow and Chan donated a total of $160 to Democrats in 2020. Chan contributed $50 each to Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock for their Georgia Senate runoff campaigns in November of that year, while Dehmlow gave the Democratic National Committee $60 in $10 increments between March 30 and August 30.
The court filing and donation records were first reported by the Washington Free Beacon.
The amended complaint was filed last week as part of an extensive lawsuit against the Biden administration by Schmitt and Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry. The top prosecutors have accused the Biden administration of leaning on big tech companies to censor so-called “misinformation” about a variety of topics, including the COVID-19 pandemic and the 2020 presidential election.
Dehmlow and Chan’s interactions with Facebook were not detailed in the court filings released Monday. However, the documents state that Chan “has openly boasted about his official role on behalf of the FBI in coordinating with social-media companies.”
The filings note comments made by Chan in a recent podcast where he states that the FBI San Francisco field office was “very involved in helping to protect the US elections in 2020 … working in conjunction with the private sector, as well as with election officials from every single state and protectorate, we were really able to do it.”
After The Post broke the story on Oct. 14, 2020 that Hunter Biden had introduced his father to an executive at Ukrainian energy company Burisma, Facebook spokesperson Andy Stone — a former Democratic flak — announced the company was limiting the story’s reach.
At the same time, Twitter locked The Post’s primary account, claiming articles about the messages obtained from Hunter Biden’s laptop broke the social network’s rules against “distribution of hacked material.”
In August, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg said on the The Joe Rogan Experience podcast that his company restricted the reporting due to a vague FBI warning about possible “Russian propaganda” meant to discredit the Bidens leading up to the 2020 election.
“Basically, the background here is the FBI, I think, basically came to us — some folks on our team — and was like, ‘Hey, just so you know, like, you should be on high alert,'” Zuckerberg told Rogan .
Federal prosecutors are reportedly weighing charges against Hunter Biden after a years-long FBI investigation into the president’s son — with agents believing there is ample evidence to charge Hunter Biden with tax crimes.
Facebook and the FBI did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
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