While Big Tech giants like Twitter and Facebook twisted themselves into knots to censor news about unearthed contacts between the Biden’s and Ukraine, it’s notable they didn’t try to silence years of stories about Trump-Russia contacts.
Nope, they amplified them.
Several Trump associates were smeared as Russian agents for little more than handshakes and “cursory”encounters with Russia’s Ambassador Sergei Kislyak during the 2016 campaign and transition. Six of us were explicitly mocked for it during the opening skit of Saturday Night Live on March 4, 2017 with Kate McKinnon as then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions as Forrest Gump.
I encountered Kislyak twice during the GOP National Convention in Cleveland on July 18, 2016. As the Trump campaign Director of National Security, I was a guest speaker at the State Dept.-sponsored Global Partners in Diplomacy (GPD) program attended by over 50 foreign ambassadors. That fateful morning, I shook Kislyak’s hand in a group of ambassadors after leaving the stage. That night, we ate chicken satays with another group of ambassadors for a few minutes at the “Networking Reception.” I was doing my job, in other words.
Though it seemed like fun and games to be parodied on SNL, what followed was anything but. Senate and House hearings, Special Counsel testimonies, legal bills, libel and slander in the press and social media, cyber-stalkers and threats of violence became my new normal.
Sure, we were hunted for them in part because Team Trump spokespersons wrongly and absurdly denied any contacts with foreigners during the campaign. Thus each instance was proof of criminality to some. That included reports in 2017 that Mr. Trump also shook Kislyak’s hand in a receiving line at his foreign policy speech at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C.
Big Tech and media outlets kept an active log: all e-mails, phone calls, text messages, in person encounters, etc. added up to over 140 “contacts” by Trump and 18 associates. Nobody was charged over those contacts as they were all legal, even if grossly distorted on social media.
Which brings us to today’s controversy.
The New York Post, founded by Alexander Hamilton in 1801, launched investigative reports showing that in 2015 while Vice President Biden was in office, he reportedly had the “opportunity” to meet with Vadym Pozharskyi, a Ukrainian business partner of Hunter Biden at Burisma. Though unsavory considering Hunter’s alleged $50,000 per month retainer on the Board of Directors of a natural gas company in which he had no experience, there doesn’t appear to be anything illegal about it. Trouble is Joe Biden said in 2019 he never spoke to his son about overseas businesses dealings, only that he hopes he knows what he’s doing.
More troubling is the Biden campaign denial, saying the businessman didn’t appear on the “official schedule.” When the story didn’t go away, they reportedly acknowledged if there was such an encounter, it would have been “cursory.” And then blamed “Russian Disinformation,” with which they ought to be familiar since the discredited Steele Dossier that laid the groundwork for the Russiagate collusion hoax relied on it and was paid for by Democrats.
Biden-Ukraine contacts were more impactful than those of Trump-Russia which were a tempest in a teapot. Biden boasted in 2018 at the Council on Foreign Relations that while visiting Ukraine’s leaders the U.S. would withhold a billion dollar loan unless they fired their chief prosecutor who was investigating Burisma. “Well son-of-b…., he got fired,” Biden bragged.
So why are Big Tech companies helping Biden by blocking user accounts, like Twitter’s against the New York Post, and a Facebook executive’s proclamation about the initial story that “we are reducing its distribution on our platform,” while they didn’t help Trump? If they are so troubled about how the Hunter Biden material was discovered, i.e. through apparent abandonment of a laptop and hard drive at a Delaware computer repair shop, why weren’t they troubled about the way Trump’s tax returns were discovered? If so concerned with the release of “private and personal information” now, what about hundreds of criminal leaks against Trump and associates by Russiagate investigators which then spread globally?
Their political donations explain a lot. Between Facebook and Twitter employees, according to the FEC, over 90% go to Democrats. Sounds like the killer team of Special Counsel Robert Mueller. Even more bizarrely, as The Daily Caller News Foundation’s Chuck Ross reported, the FBI cited an Australian media report as part of its Steele Dossier analysis because it mentioned a tweet by Andrea Chalupa, sister of former DNC contractor Alexandra Chalupa, insinuating Trump had an orgy in Moscow. Such investigative quackery may seem like Inspector Clouseau of Pink Panther fame — comical buffoonery. Yet if only it wasn’t so tyrannical like Inspector Javert of Les Miserables.
So what can be done?
First, Congress can regulate Big Tech and break up monopolies. Shadow-banning and blocking conservatives, fomenting violence, coddling cyber-stalkers who target the “right” people, etc. must end.
Second, Americans can vote with their feet. Unhappy with Twitter and Facebook? Just delete and/or deactivate your accounts. I quit using both and have been happier ever since.
Third, support media and U.S. watchdog groups fighting to reform Big Tech. The battle can be won, it just needs far more attention.
The status quo just isn’t cutting it, time for decisive action.
J.D. Gordon is a former Senior National Security & Foreign Policy Advisor to Donald Trump. Previously, he served as a Pentagon spokesman during the George W. Bush Administration and is a retired Navy Commander.