ANALYSIS – Some of the same group of Democrat intelligence experts (aka partisan hacks) that spewed disinformation about the Hunter Biden laptop being a Russian intelligence operation, are now paid shills for the leftist Democrat disinformation industry known as Big Tech.
As I wrote about then, by falsely claiming the Hunter laptop was Russian disinformation, “over 50 former senior former U.S. intelligence officials played a disgraceful part in this partisan disinformation charade to deliberately misinform the American public prior to the 2020 election.”
In their latest foray, compromised and discredited former U.S. intelligence officials such as Leon Panetta, James Clapper and Mike Morrell, all Obama appointees, have now signed a letter distributed on Capitol Hill by groups funded by the likes of Google, Meta, Amazon and other tech firms desperately trying to quash attempts to regulate them on antitrust grounds.
Their latest argument to defend the indefensible is that limiting U.S. tech firms could “enhance our adversaries’ capabilities” when it comes to “Russia’s and China’s growing digital authoritarianism.”
But as the New York Post reports:
Outspoken critics of Big Tech, including Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.), note that Clapper, Panetta and several other of the letter’s signatories neglected to mention that they work for groups funded by tech companies, including Google, Meta and Amazon.
“These signers are keen to have Big Tech censor so-called misinformation, yet these letters themselves are full of it,” Grassley told The Post. “They wanted to control the narrative then like they want to control it now: by removing all competition for Big Tech monopolists and censors.”
Buck, who’s pushing a bipartisan bill that would break up Google’s ad business, likewise said observers should follow the money when “formerly important people” defend powerful interests.
“I’m not going to question the integrity of anyone specifically,” Buck said. “But you have to look at funding and how that provides motivation.”
“There is a cottage industry of formerly important people who receive money to take positions on important issues,” he added.
Garrett Ventry, a former aide to Grassley added: “Any attempt for these companies to act like they are concerned about national security while attempting to do business with China is utterly laughable.”
This is especially valid since Google has worked with the Chinese military, Apple stored data on Chinese servers and both Apple and Facebook have shared customer data with the Chinese government. The Post also reports that in a study published Friday, Google, YouTube and Microsoft’s Bing highly rank Chinese propaganda outlets in search results.
As the Post’s Editorial Board concluded: “the hostile testimony from these “intel veterans” amounts to strong evidence that Grassley and other anti-trust warriors are on the right track.” ALD
This article originally appeared in American Liberty News. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of The Republican Standard. Republished with permission.