How the FBI Used Twitter to Lie to You

The FBI we know is a creation of Hollywood. From the beginning, J. Edgar Hoover sought to insert the bureau into movies and TV shows, to portray the agency as grounded in American values, and special agents as righteous competence personified. Even on the far-out “X-Files,” with its hinting at nefarious government activities, Agent Mulder’s one flaw was idealism bordering on naivete. For over a century, Hollywood has upheld the belief that a federal law enforcement/internal quasi-spy agency is necessary for the safety of a free society and its citizens.

This image of the FBI fails to highlight an important fact. The FBI is allowed to lie to you. They can lie to acquire information or encourage a confession. Unlike entertainment, agents don’t need a story to fill a certain screen time or a number of theater seats. They just need to convince a very small audience just dumb enough to reveal something incriminating to their new friends.

The Bureau had Hunter Biden’s laptop by December 2019, before Joe Biden was the Democrat candidate. Although Biden was such a ghost candidate that all his campaign events combined wouldn’t have filled a stadium washroom, trained, experienced FBI employees were desperate for the opposing candidate to lose, just as they’d opposed Candidate Trump in 2016.