Ron Johnson Demands Senate Democrat Retract ‘Russian Disinformation’ Claim, Given Authenticity of Biden Laptop

Senator Ron Johnson (R., Wis.) called on Gary Peters (D., Mich.) on Wednesday to retract his claim that Johnson’s 2020 investigation into Hunter Biden’s foreign business affairs was “a partisan, political report . . . rooted in Russian disinformation,” given the revelations that have emerged from the younger Biden’s abandoned laptop.

“Do you want to retract that false allegation now? Now that we know that the Hunter Biden laptop is accurate?” Johnson asked Peters, the chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, during a meeting on social media’s impact on national security.

“There’s not been one scintilla of information in [the report] that’s ever been refuted. It was 100 percent accurate,” Johnson added.

The report alleged a conflict of interest in which the younger Biden accepted millions from foreign nationals in exchange for access to his father, Joe Biden, who was then serving as vice president. A number of CCP-linked Chinese businessmen, the widow of the former mayor of Moscow Elena Baturina, and executives on the board of the Ukrainian energy giant Burisma were all implicated in the report.

Documents from the Biden’s laptop, which was allegedly abandoned in a Delaware computer repair shop in 2019, have shown that the first son brokered meetings between his foreign business associates and his father, despite the president saying he had never spoken to his son about his business dealings.

Peters refused to acknowledge Johnson’s request to retract the allegations of “Russian disinformation,” saying, “let’s just focus on” the topic at hand.

“Well I am focusing on this because this is exactly the type of harm we can do to our political process when you have these Big Tech companies engaging in political debates, censoring one side of the political spectrum, and amplifying the false allegations of another side,” Johnson interjected, seemingly alluding to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s admission that the company suppressed stories about Biden’s laptop before the 2020 election.

Facebook suppressed stories about the laptop for “five or seven” days after the FBI warned the tech giant that the Kremlin would likely try to replicate the interference it exercised during the 2016 election.

In August, Johnson claimed a whistleblower told him FBI officials instructed agents not to investigate the laptop before the 2020 presidential election, saying the bureau was “not going to change the outcome of the election again.”

More from National Review

• Ron Johnson’s Subpoena in Biden-Burisma Probe Approved by Party-Line Vote

• Senator Grassley Alleges FBI ‘Scheme’ to Silence Negative Hunter Biden Information

• Russia Bans U.S. from Checking Its Nuclear Arsenals, Violating START Treaty