FBI Director Christopher Wray gave a bombshell interview about the FBI’s role in asking Twitter to suppress certain stories… and one Fox News star called him out on what was called a “blatant lie.”
During the explosive interview, Fox News host Brett Baier asked, “Let’s talk about the FBI and what you told Big Tech — or some agents did — about the authenticity and provenance of Hunter Biden’s laptop.”
Wray replied, “The FBI does not — and is not in the business of — functioning as the truth police. We don’t tell social media companies to censor anything –”
“The Twitter files suggest something different.” Baier interrupted. “FBI San Francisco requests to ban certain accounts.”
Sure enough, one FBI agent, identified only as “Fred,” told Twitter in an email:
Hello Twitter contacts, FBI San Francisco is notifying you of the below accounts which may potentially constitute violations of Twitter’s Terms of Service for any action deemed appropriate within Twitter policy. @jonathan1wade @fromMA @madandpissedoff @mault_thomas
Baier made Wray squirm over the implications.
“It is appropriate to flag social media accounts, on Twitter or elsewhere?” Baier asked, rhetorically. “Is it appropriate in any way? You’re saying that it doesn’t happen, but there’s evidence that it had?”
Wray said, “We don’t tell social media companies to ban accounts.
“But you suggest,” Baier hit back.
“What we do is tell social media companies about information that we have about foreign disinformation campaigns by foreign actors by foreign intelligence services,” Wray said. “And those companies then make decisions.”
In this interview, Wray also addressed other contemporary issues, like the fentanyl crisis.
Take a look —
Chris Wray: "The FBI is not in the business of being the truth police. We don't tell social media companies to censor anything."
Bret Baier: "The Twitter files tell a different story. You're saying it doesn't happen but there's evidence it had." pic.twitter.com/HzYXE9Vdom
— Real Mac Report (@RealMacReport) March 1, 2023
Wray was nominated by former President Donald Trump, but he’s since alienated some conservatives.
New York Rep. Elise Stefanik, the third-ranked House Republican, accused Wray of telling a “blatant lie” during the interview.
Still, Wray has distanced himself from Twitter in other ways. Under Wray’s leadership, the FBI lent some support to the “lab leak theory,” a hypothesis about the origins of coronavirus.
Wray reportedly told Fox News that the FBI “has for quite some time now assessed that the origins of the pandemic are most likely a potential lab incident in Wuhan.”
Social media companies dismissed and censored the lab leak hypothesis as a conspiracy theory. In 2020, Twitter was suspending user accounts for asking about this theory.
Turns out, they were probably right.
The Horn editorial team