Newly obtained internal FBI chat logs are sending waves through Washington, as they reveal the bureau actively suppressed information about the Hunter Biden laptop story on the very day the New York Post broke the bombshell report in October 2020. The House Judiciary Committee released the documents Tuesday, exposing what appears to be a coordinated effort by senior FBI officials to stifle discussion of the laptop’s contents — even as one FBI analyst tried to confirm its authenticity to the social media platform then known as Twitter before it became X.

“Please do not discuss Biden matter,” reads one message from October 14, 2020, in an FBI internal chat log now made public. On the same day, the FBI, which had been in possession of the laptop confirmed its authenticity — but informed social media companies otherwise, leading Big Tech to censor the story as purported Russian disinformation.

In testimony to Congress, Laura Dehmlow, then the China unit chief of the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force, recalled that “somebody from Twitter essentially asked whether the laptop was real. And one of the FBI folks… did confirm that, yes, it was — before another participant jumped in and said no further comment.”