Former President Donald Trump wants a 2020 election do-over.
Alluding to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s revelation that Facebook throttled the Hunter Biden laptop story after receiving a warning from the FBI about Russian propaganda campaigns, Trump argued that the remedy is a new election or a declaration of “the rightful winner.”
TRUMP IS BIGGER FACTOR THAN EVER IN MIDTERMS. HOW DID THAT HAPPEN?
“FBI BURIED THE HUNTER BIDEN LAPTOP STORY BEFORE THE ELECTION,” Trump declared on his Truth Social platform. “REMEDY: Declare the rightful winner or, and this would be the minimal solution, declare the 2020 Election irreparably compromised and have a new Election, immediately!”
Trump has long contended that the 2020 election was “rigged” or “stolen” after President Joe Biden beat him with 306 votes to Trump’s 232 in the 2020 Electoral College. Oftentimes, Trump has raised disputed allegations of voter fraud to back his claims that the 2020 election was rigged. Election officials and the courts have roundly rejected such claims, and experts are quick to note there is no provision in the Constitution for an election do-over.
On Truth Social, Trump also contended that suppression of the laptop story amounted to “massive FRAUD & ELECTION INTERFERENCE at a level never seen before in our Country.” In an earlier post, he pondered when FBI employees would push back against the agency’s actions.
“When are the great Agents, and others, in the FBI going to say ‘we aren’t going to take it anymore,’ much as they did when James Comey read off a list of all of Crooked Hillary Clinton’s crimes, only to say that no reasonable prosecutor would prosecute,” he said.
Earlier Trump asked, “When are the great Agents, and others, in the FBI going to say “we aren’t going to take it anymore,” and went off on former FBI Director James Comey pic.twitter.com/dow5bMEjgC
— Daniel Chaitin (@danielchaitin7) August 29, 2022
Last week, Zuckerberg made headlines by recounting the FBI warning to podcast guru Joe Rogan. He also voiced regret for Facebook’s throttling of the New York Post’s story on the laptop in October 2020.
“The background here is the FBI basically came to us, some folks on our team, and was like, ‘Hey, just so you know, you should be on high alert … we thought there was a lot of Russian propaganda in the 2016 election. We have it on notice that basically, there’s about to be some kind of dump that’s similar to that. So just be vigilant,'” Zuckerberg told Rogan.
The bureau defended its actions. “The FBI routinely notifies U.S. private sector entities, including social media providers, of potential threat information, so that they can decide how to better defend against threats,” the FBI said in a statement. The FBI added that the bureau has “provided companies with foreign threat indicators to help them protect their platforms and customers from abuse by foreign malign influence actors.”
Meta, the parent company of Facebook, responded with a statement of its own, saying, “The FBI shared general warnings about foreign interference — nothing specific about Hunter Biden.”
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
On Sunday, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) revealed that he plans to press further into inquiries about Hunter Biden and try to push the FBI to root out political bias among its workers.
“I want you to know that I’m not going to give up on the Hunter Biden investigation,” Grassley said. “Every one of you in this room, and everybody that isn’t in this room, ought to have extraordinary confidence in the FBI. But today, we can’t have it.”
