Hunter Biden's Laptop and 'Twitter Files'—What We Do Know, What We Don't

The recent release of a trove of emails sent by Twitter employees, related to the Hunter Biden laptop scandal, has fueled narratives that allege conspiratorial ties between the social media platform and the government in the run-up to the 2020 presidential election.

Teased by Elon Musk several days ahead of their release on Friday, December 2, the "Twitter files" (shared by former Rolling Stone journalist Matt Taibbi) showed that Twitter engaged with politicians over the content on its platform, as well as the social media network's efforts to suppress the story about the president's son.

The messages pointed to uncertainty among the platform's leadership about the provenance of the laptop story. The leadership opted early on to suppress the story in its recommendation algorithms and then blocked links to it—saying that this was under the company's policy on hacked materials.

What do the "Twitter Files" say?

According to Taibbi's thread, the decision to block the article was made with Vijaya Gadde, former head of legal, public policy & trust and safety at Twitter, playing a key role.

But in one screenshot, former U.S. policy communication manager Trenton Kennedy wrote that he was "struggling to understand the policy basis for marking this as unsafe."

The decision was said to have been based on what several of Taibbi's sources called a "general warning from federal law enforcement" about the possibility of the Post article stemming from foreign interference. The story was originally dismissed by several Democrats in 2020 as a "Russian disinformation operation," but as Newsweek previously reported, there has so far been no evidence to support these claims.

Taibbi's thread also showed screenshots of Biden's campaign team requesting that the company "review" specific tweets in 2020. The report says that such requests from outside sources, whether celebrities or political organizations, became "routine" as Twitter attempted to combat issues like misinformation on its site.

Taibbi also noted that both Republicans and Democrats "had access to these tools," further claiming that "the system wasn't balanced," and that there were "more channels open to the left."

A second and additional sets of "Twitter files" have since been released in collaboration with journalist Bari Weiss. However, these files (unlike Taibbi's edition) were focused on content moderation and historical decisions to limit the reach of certain accounts, including Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk and the anti-trans group Libs of TikTok.

Weiss teased the release of further information by Taibbi, but with no release date or details about the content. In any case, the new set of files, released December 9, 2022 and over the following days, do not speak directly or tangentially to the Hunter Biden laptop story.

A number of media outlets described Taibbi's first thread of files in underwhelming terms. A Poynter Institute opinion piece about the story was headlined "Deal or no deal? File 'Twitter Files' under M for meh".

Taibbi's former employer, Rolling Stone, characterized the revelations as a "Snoozefest" while a parody article about the release by the satirical website The Onion included the subheading "Sometimes Secret Stuff Is Actually Really Boring."

Right-wing commentators criticized the reveal too. Sebastian Gorka, a former advisor to President, Donald Trump, said he was "deeply underwhelmed" by Taibbi's thread.

It has nonetheless incensed some conservatives.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) said it demonstrated that "Democrats were fully in on weaponizing Big Tech!" Former Republican candidate Shukri Abdirahman caused controversy when she called for "bullets" and not "ballots" to fight "tyranny" in response to Taibbi's thread.

Other journalists argued that its release played well in conspiratorial communities. As covered by Wired, one message by a QAnon influencer, seen on Telegram by more than 131,000 users, stated: "The #TwitterFiles lay out a paper trail that confirms there was malevolent coordination from these entities to carry out operations that assist the DNC in elections. The Twitter Files confirm Q's entire main narrative."

A media cover-up?

Many (including Musk) also poured scorn on the New York Times in particular for a lack of coverage, heightening the idea that "liberal" media was attempting to cover up the story, including the Taibbi revelations.

But the cover-up narrative itself lacks important context; while some media outlets indeed delayed the publication of the story, there were other factors beyond suspicion that may have informed that hesitancy.

Those include the challenges of verifying the leaked information independently, or potential legal repercussions (especially in light of criticism aimed at mainstream media for the coverage of Hillary Clinton emails leak in 2016, or the Steele Dossier in 2017).

The Washington Post said they had repeatedly asked Trump's former lawyer Rudy Giuliani and ex-White House chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon for a copy of the data to review before the 2020 election which, reportedly, they were denied.

It wasn't just left-leaning organizations that had concerns about the laptop either. Indeed, according to The New York Times, staff at the New York Post expressed doubts about the story.

The article claimed Post reporters withheld their bylines and that according to sources at the tabloid: "Many Post staff members questioned whether the paper had done enough to verify the authenticity of the hard drive's contents."

A spokesman for the Post responded: "The story was vetted and The Post stands by its reporting."

Another article by Mediaite also claimed that sources close to Fox News had told it that the Murdoch-owned broadcaster had passed on the story too, citing "the lack of authentication of Hunter Biden's alleged laptop, combined with established concerns about Giuliani as a reliable source and his desire for unvetted publication."

Mediaite also noted how former Fox anchor Chris Wallace and current anchor Bret Baier had voiced their initial skepticism publicly.

As it stands, the "Twitter files" have been seen by many on the left and some on the right as a somewhat anticlimactic second act in the broader threads surrounding Hunter Biden's private communications and data, which have variously focused on business dealings of the Biden family with Ukrainian businessmen and Chinese firms, along with more sordid glimpses into Hunter's personal life.

The conversation surrounding the release of these emails was talked up, particularly by Musk, who sent a series of tweets in the lead up, receiving hundreds of thousands of engagements.

One message by Musk read: "What really happened with the Hunter Biden story suppression by Twitter will be published on Twitter at 5pm ET!" followed by "This will be awesome." He added a popcorn emoji.

However, upon release of the files, their impact was arguably limited, and their contents less revelatory than anticipated.

It showed both Democrats and Republicans had access to Twitter's reviewal tools, Taibbi stating that: "By 2020, requests from connected actors to delete tweets were routine. One executive would write to another: 'More to review from the Biden team.' The reply would come back: 'Handled.'"

Although the release also showed Twitter's internal engagement with the Hunter Biden laptop story, and Taibbi claims there was evidence of left-wing bias, the response in the company was not uniformly in favor of suppression.

As was previously mentioned, an alleged email regarding the New York Post's story attributed to former Twitter communications official Trenton Kennedy, stated: "I'm struggling to understand the policy basis for marking this unsafe, and I think the best explainability argument for this externally would be that we're waiting to understand if this story is the result of hacked material.

"We'll face hard questions on this if we don't have some kind of solid reasoning for marking the link unsafe."

However one assesses their significance and impact, the "Twitter files" provide additional context and detail to the Hunter Biden laptop story, a chronicle that has lasted more than two years and may yet threaten to further undermine Joe Biden's White House and his presidential legacy.

With that in mind, Newsweek explored the circumstances leading up to the most recent data dumps and what it means for the future of this story.

The story so far

The story began in October 2020, after a laptop, delivered to a hardware shop in Delaware by a man who identified himself as Hunter Biden, came into the possession of the New York Post.

A copy of the laptop's content was saved by the store's owner before the laptop was passed onto the FBI.

By then a copy of the information was passed on to Robert Costello, Rudy Giuliani's attorney, and he in turn forwarded to the New York Post, which ran a number of stories about its contents.

Speaking to The New York Times, Giuliani said the documents were handed over to the Post because "either nobody else would take it, or if they took it, they would spend all the time they could to try to contradict it before they put it out."

Costello told Newsweek in an email that he has "always had the original copy of Hunter Biden's hard drive in [his] possession."

"I obtained the original hard drive directly from John Paul Mac Issac in late August 2020. I provided the copies to Mayor Giuliani.

"The New York Post was given a copy as an "exclusive," which is why the hard drive wasn't shared initially with other media outlets."

The Post published what it claimed were emails showing that an adviser to Ukrainian energy firm Burisma, Vadym Pozharskyi, emailed Hunter in May 2014 asking Hunter for "advice on how you could use your influence" to aid the company. At the time, Burisma's president was under investigation by Ukraine's then-prosecutor general Viktor Shokin.

Although the 2014 email is not specifically referenced in its investigation, two computer security experts, asked to verify the contents of the laptop for The Washington Post, confirmed the veracity of "a batch of messages from Vadym Pozharskyi" in a portable hard drive said to have originated from Hunter Biden's laptop.

On April 17, 2015, Pozharskyi emailed Hunter to thank him for connecting him with his father, then-Vice President Joe Biden.

"Dear Hunter, thank you for inviting me to DC and giving an opportunity to meet your father and spent [sic] some time together. It's realty [sic] an honor and pleasure," the email read.

About eight months after the email, during Joe Biden's December 2015 trip to Kyiv, the then-vice president pressured Ukraine's president and prime minister to fire Viktor Shokin.

During a 2018 interview with the Council on Foreign Affairs, Joe Biden recalled telling Ukrainian leadership that the U.S. would withhold $1 billion in loan guarantees until Shokin was removed.

"I said, I'm telling you, you're not getting the billion dollars. I said, you're not getting the billion," he said.

"I'm going to be leaving here in, I think it was about six hours. I looked at them and said: I'm leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you're not getting the money. Well, son of a bitch. He got fired. And they put in place someone who was solid at the time."

As other reporting at the time and since has indicated, there have been far-reaching and lingering concerns about Shokin's apparent failure to pursue corruption in Ukraine that predated the Hunter affair, with his eventual departure welcomed by America's European allies.

Shokin was accused by opponents of blocking probes into his allies, accusations he denied, and he was removed from his post after a parliament vote in 2016.

As previously mentioned, while the laptop story was picked up by right-leaning media outlets, other journalists claimed they were not given copies of the data, only examining it after it was passed to them separately, at which point they undertook their own verification efforts.

Twitter blocked users from sharing the New York Post article, containing information whose veracity was still under scrutiny by some outlets, saying it violated its company's private information rules and Hacked Materials Policy.

It also froze the New York Post's Twitter account after the story was published, removing its restrictions on October 30, 2020.

The block on sharing the article only lasted two days. Former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey went on to tweet that his company's "communications around our actions on the @nypost article was not great. And blocking URL sharing via tweet or DM with zero context as to why we're blocking: unacceptable."

While The Washington Post claimed it was not given the data upon request initially, both the New York Times and the Washington Post were later given access to data.

Costello told Newsweek that while Giuliani himself did not communicate with the Washington Post, he (Costello) spoke to Tom Hamburger (a WaPo reporter) himself numerous times.

According to the newspaper, they were eventually provided a copy in June 2021 by Jack Maxey, "an activist who received a copy from Giuliani in 2020, at a time when Maxey was working with Bannon and his 'War Room' podcast," an account that was partially corroborated by Giuliani's lawyer.

"Hamburger and Washington Post received an alleged copy of the Hunter hard drive from Jack Maxey. I cannot verify whatever Maxey provided," Costello said.

"Maxey obtained his copy from Steve Bannon's office - how exactly I do not know."

Newsweek has contacted representatives of Steve Bannon for comment.

However, the Washington Post said at the time it was only able to verify a fraction of the emails which were reportedly found on the computer, and also said that "others had accessed the data to examine its contents and make copies of files," which undermined the authenticators' attempts to "determine the authenticity of most of the drive's contents."

The newspaper said its analysis authenticated some of the email communications (including the emails to Hunter Biden from Pozharskyi about the meeting with Joe Biden).

The New York Times said separately, the week after the New York Post story, that it, alongside The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal, had "not been able to independently verify the authenticity of the evidence cited by The Post."

In March 2022, the Times acknowledged the authenticity of some of the contents of the laptop in an article about the federal investigation into Hunter Biden's tax affairs, stating "emails were obtained by the New York Times from a cache of files that appears to have come from a laptop abandoned by Mr. Biden in a Delaware repair shop."

The Times added: "The email and others in the cache were authenticated by people familiar with them and with the investigation."

Some of those emails, the Times said, included communications with business partner Devon Archer about Burisma.

Newsweek has reached out to Chris Clark—a lawyer for Hunter Biden—and Burisma for comment.

The Biden Administration continues to say that Joe Biden never spoke to his son about overseas business dealings.

What happened to the laptop?'

Further claims have been advanced that the FBI otherwise came out "lying" that the laptop was linked to Russian disinformation efforts.

One tweet, sent by Congressman Jim Jordan (R-OH) on July 27, 2022, stated the FBI had been "lying" about the laptop's content being disinformation. In a segment for his "Tucker Carlson Originals" series, Fox News host Tucker Carlson also said the FBI "lied" to Twitter, Facebook, and Google by "telling them the Hunter Biden laptop was Russian disinformation."

But this overstates what the available evidence currently shows. In evidence sent by Facebook to a Senate Judiciary Committee in December 2020, the social media company said that "the FBI also privately warned tech companies to be on high alert for the potential of hack-and-leak operations carried out by foreign actors" in the weeks leading up to the 2020 presidential election.

Although this ultimately led to Facebook's decision to slow the spread of the laptop allegations, the social media company did not say it was warned explicitly about that story; the warning was general.

Asked by Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) at the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing whether FBI made contact about the Hunter Biden story, Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg said "not about that story specifically."

The laptop had by this point been in the FBI's possession for nearly a year, but, beyond the timing, which plays into suspicions, Newsweek could find no evidence made public that supports claims the FBI's communications with social media companies were deliberately aimed at directing attention away from the story specifically.

A Public Service Announcement published by the FBI on September 22, 2020, titled "Foreign Actors and Cybercriminals Likely to Spread Disinformation Regarding 2020 Election Results," warned about a range of potential threats beyond the spread of "false information" on social media.

"Foreign actors and cybercriminals could create new websites, change existing websites, and create or share corresponding social media content to spread false information in an attempt to discredit the electoral process and undermine confidence in U.S. democratic institutions," the warning stated.

"Foreign actors and cybercriminals could exploit the time required to certify and announce elections' results by disseminating disinformation that includes reports of voter suppression, cyberattacks targeting election infrastructure, voter or ballot fraud, and other problems intended to convince the public of the elections' illegitimacy."

Furthermore, the aforementioned co-signed letter from 50 intelligence experts and directors stated that while there was concern that the laptop had the potential to be linked to Russian disinformation efforts, it did not say that the existence or (at least some) contents of the laptop were not genuine.

"We want to emphasize that we do not know if the emails, provided to the New York Post by President Trump's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, are genuine or not, and that we do not have evidence of Russian involvement—just that our experience makes us deeply suspicious that the Russian government played a significant role in this case," the letter said.

The letter also stated that if the laptop reveal were part of a Russian disinformation effort it would be "consistent with Russian objectives...to create political chaos in the United States and to deepen political divisions here but also to undermine the candidacy of former Vice President Biden and thereby help the candidacy of President Trump."

This was key to the story's popularity: The notion that the laptop's contents were sufficiently credible to open the path to a second presidential term for Trump. Therefore, efforts to suppress its contents were presented as evidence of collusion between liberal media, politicians, and intelligence agencies.

But further analysis has raised doubts over suggestions by Trump supporters that the laptop story may have been enough to end Biden's bid for the White House.

Reports, including by the Washington Post, have stated that exit polling in 2020 showed that the central motivator for Biden voters was their opposition to Trump.

Based on two national surveys by Pew Research Center of 12,751 adults, 56 percent of Biden supporters cited their opposition to Trump as the reason they supported him. For comparison, the second most-mentioned reason ("Leadership/performance") was recognized as a motivation by only 19 percent of that group. Unlike the exit polls, however, this research was published before the laptop story came out.

Members of the Trump family, too, have helped to propel some misleading claims surrounding the laptop's investigation. In April 2022, Donald Trump Jr. said that the FBI had lost the device, based on an exchange between Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) and FBI official Bryan Vorndran.

In a video, Trump Jr. said: "Oh my god, guys, you've got to watch this exchange. The head of FBI cyber has no idea where the Hunter Biden laptop is."

The claim was a misrepresentation of that conversation. An analysis by fact checkers Politifact said the exchange was not proof that the "FBI lost or misplaced the computer" adding that Vorndran said that he didn't personally know where the laptop was, not the agency had misplaced it.

In a March 2022 report detailing its verification of the laptop's contents, The Washington Post said the laptop was "in the hands of the FBI." There appears to be no other additional evidence supporting the claim that the Bureau lost it either.

What is already under investigation?

More recently, federal investigators have announced evidence that suggests Hunter Biden may have broken the law.

In October 2022, The Washington Post exclusively reported that investigators concluded that they had evidence of Hunter Biden's tax crimes as well as false statements he made while attempting to purchase a gun, citing sources familiar with the case, which Newsweek is unable to independently corroborate.

The Post added that it "could not be determined for this article whether the laptop and its contents were useful in the Justice Department investigation."

Newsweek has contacted the Department of Justice for comment.

In response, Chris Clark said: "It is a federal felony for a federal agent to leak information about a Grand Jury investigation such as this one.

"Any agent you cite as a source in your article apparently has committed such a felony. We expect the Department of Justice will diligently investigate and prosecute such bad actors.

"As is proper and legally required, we believe the prosecutors in this case are diligently and thoroughly weighing not just evidence provided by agents, but also all the other witnesses in this case, including witnesses for the defense. That is the job of the prosecutors.

"They should not be pressured, rushed, or criticized for doing their job."

Will Republican-led Congress investigate further?

House Republicans have said, since taking back Congress' lower chamber in the November midterms, that they are planning to open an investigation that will tie Joe Biden with the alleged finances and business dealings of his son.

During a press conference on November 17, 2022, Rep. James Comer (R-KY) spoke about "suspicious activity reports," or "SARs," and said that they are documents a bank must file with the Treasury Department when a transaction is "suspected to be related to money laundering or fraud, or other types of criminal activity."

In a statement sent to Newsweek, the White House Counsel Office labeled these efforts as "politically-motivated attacks chock full of long-debunked conspiracy theories."

Though the formal investigation cannot begin until Republicans take charge of House committees when the new Congress meets in January, scrutiny of the Bidens' finances is likely to be intense.

'Nothingburger' or trouble for the Bidens?

Speaking to Newsweek, Dr. Julie Norman, co-director of the University College London Centre on US Politics (CUSP), said the investigation's launch was almost certain.

"Joe Biden has managed to mostly deflect the story up until now," Norman said.

"But that could change, not necessarily because of any big reveals about the business dealings per se, but more so if Republicans can show that Biden—or anyone in his administration—attempted to suppress the story."

Dr. Thomas Gift, founding director of CUSP, told Newsweek that it would be difficult to argue that House Republicans did not have "legitimate" grounds for an investigation.

"Republicans will measure success by whether they can embarrass Joe Biden, pure and simple. They don't actually need to find evidence of legal wrongdoing, so much as they need to make the case for the appearance of impropriety," Gift said.

"While there's still much we don't know about Hunter Biden's laptop, his overseas ventures, and any alleged connection to his father, it's hard to make the case that the investigation lacks a legitimate basis. Even if any finding doesn't rise to the level of one of Trump's many scandals, that doesn't mean 'there's no there there.'

"Make no mistake: This is a political problem for the White House, and however it turns out, the media's failing to cover it as such to this point does raise questions about bias."

Gift added that coverage of the Hunter Biden laptop scandal (or lack thereof) among left-leaning media organizations had additionally fomented distrust between media and the public.

"It's certainly true that conservative venues like Fox News and Newsmax have given over-the-top coverage to the Hunter Biden story. But the main failings are among the 'legacy' media outlets that lean to the left," he said.

"Much to their discredit, all refused to cover the story immediately preceding the 2020 election, and there's been very little effort to acknowledge that mistake. Even now, the story is only barely making headlines at places like the New York Times, and is often framed in a way that downplays the severity of the allegations or spins them as right-wing talking points.

"Trump's scandals are on an order of magnitude larger than anything potentially involving Hunter Biden. But that doesn't make these charges any less serious. And if the media wants to understand why so many Republican voters are skeptical of their coverage more broadly, it's due at least in part to this kind of partiality."

Jordan Cohen, Executive Director for Communications at The New York Times, told Newsweek in an emailed response:

"Dating back years, and as recently as last month, The New York Times has reported consistently and fairly on Hunter Biden and his personal and financial entanglements. We will continue to pursue this story and any newsworthy developments aggressively."

What's next for the 'Twitter Files'?

Elsewhere, new allegations that Twitter Deputy General Counsel and former FBI general counsel Jim Baker was involved in vetting the "Twitter files" posted last week were also shared by Taibbi.

Taibbi said on December 6, 2022, that Baker vetted the first batch of files "without knowledge of new management."

Elon Musk announced on Twitter the same day that "In light of concerns about Baker's possible role in suppression of information important to the public dialogue, he was exited from Twitter today."

Newsweek has contacted Jim Baker for comment.

The authenticity of these claims or what Baker "vetted" has not been independently verified and it remains to be seen what other information Taibbi may publish following Bari Weiss' earlier thread.

More Twitter threads have since been published, including one by Weiss (focussed on Twitter's removal of the Trump account, with no updates on the laptop saga), one by Matt Taibbi and another by author Michael Shellenberger.

Shellenberger's tweets, published December 10, 2022 only mentions Hunter Biden's laptop in reference to the previous "Twitter files" releases.

In Matt Taibbi's thread, published December 9, 2022, which is primarily about moderation policies surrounding Donald Trump and the January 6 riots, there are two brief references to Hunter Biden.

There, Taibbi claims that former head of Twitter's Trust & Safety Division Yoel Roth said in a post "about the Hunter Biden laptop situation...that Roth not only met weekly with the FBI and DHS but with the Office of the Director of National DNI).

It included a screengrab of said post, which refers in a "check-in" to blocking "the NYP story then we unblocked it (but said the opposite), then said we unblocked it.."

The screengrab also mentions: "Weekly sync with FBI/DHS/DNI re: election security. The meeting happened about 15 minutes after the aforementioned Hacked Materials implosion; the government declined to share anything useful when asked. - Monthly meeting with FBI FITF."

However, this exchange doesn't state what the interactions were with security officials, nor does it appear to be directly related to Hunter Biden other than the reference to the New York Post story. Newsweek has been unable to independently verify these messages.

Tweeting at Elon Musk directly on December 7, 2022, former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said that all the documents should be released publicly in any future disclosures.

"If the goal is transparency to build trust, why not just release everything without filter and let people judge for themselves?" he tweeted.

"Including all discussions around current and future actions? Make everything public now. #TwitterFiles"

Whatever new information may come to light from Twitter, Musk, House Republicans, or others about the Hunter Biden laptop story, there doesn't seem to be an end in sight for this saga or the flurry of speculation around it.

Newsweek has contacted Twitter, the White House, Hunter Biden and the FBI for comment.