The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), while releasing a brazen response to Monday’s “Twitter Files” tranche, refused to address the central claim made in the reporting: that the bureau cultivated and guided employees of companies to censor the New York Post report on Hunter Biden’s “laptop from hell” series before the 2020 election.

The FBI claimed that Elon Musk’s authentic emails “show not more” than the normal operations of the agency and that the FBI released the correspondences to “conspiracy theories” to spread misinformation. It also did not explain what the materials were.

The complete statement is:

“The FBI’s correspondence with Twitter is nothing but an example of our long-standing, ongoing federal government and private sector engagements. These include many companies from multiple industries and sectors. The correspondence shows that the FBI gives critical information to private sector companies in order to help them protect their customers and themselves. Every day, the FBI men and women work to protect America’s citizens. It is sad that conspiracy theorists, and others, feed the American public misinformation in an attempt to discredit the FBI.

Musk released emails this week and Michael Shellenberger reported on them. They revealed that the FBI in collaboration with Twitter orchestrated the censorship by the Post of its reporting on the Biden family-business scheme. Shellenberger’s reporting showed that federal agents “discredited factual info about Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings both before and after* The New York Post published the contents of his laptop October 14, 2020” — working together with Twitter’s top management to censor and discredit the Post’s reporting. Shellenberger’s reporting revealed that the FBI created the narrative that 2020 Post reporting was part in an alleged hack-and-leak attack by Russia. This narrative was also used by legacy media to justify their refusal of broadcasting the story.

According to a federal subpoena published by the Post, even though the FBI claimed the “laptop from Hell” report was based upon “hacked” files and that the FBI had possession of the exact materials since December 2019, the FBI also had the exact same materials it received from the original source as the Post.

Shellenberger stated that, “during all 2020, the FBI and the other law enforcement agencies repeatedly primed Yoel Roth [to dismiss reports of Hunter Biden’s laptop as a Russian “hack and leak operation]” — referring to the Head for Trust and Safety and one among Twitter’s chief editors. This was despite the fact the FBI having the Biden scion’s laptop since 2019. It was also amid Roth allegedly claiming that “Twitter executives *repeatedly* report very little Russian activity

Shellenberger reported that Jim Baker, former FBI senior member and Twitter deputy counsel, reached out after the election to thank the FBI’s efforts to discredit and censor the New York Post’s reporting.

“In the end the FBI’s influence campaign against executives at news media, Twitter & other social media companies was successful: they discredit the Hunter Biden laptop story. Shellenberger wrote that Baker and his coworkers had even written a thank you note to the FBI by Dec. 2020.

The FBI’s response did not address the allegations in the Twitter Files report. It only claimed that the reporting represents “examples our traditional, longstanding, and ongoing federal government engagements.”