William Steinmeier, Jefferson City
Dear Editor,
I recently wrote about the fact that millions of Americans, not just Donald Trump, entertain serious and legitimate questions about the results of the 2020 presidential election. While Missouri's election system gets high marks for its integrity from national observers, those in some other jurisdictions do not. Some 2020 election results were not released until days after election day, leaving plenty of time for irregularities to occur that could affect the outcome.
While the Associated Press dismisses President Trump's allegations of 2020 election irregularities as "The Big Lie," those election results may actually be the Big Lie. My previous letter explained why so many Americans entertain serious questions about them.
It must also be noted that Big Tech and America's intelligence community may have contributed to the questionable outcome in 2020. We now know from the Twitter files (seriously underreported by the AP) and other sources that the federal government put pressure on social media companies to block publication of information that government insiders found politically damaging.
A prime example is the story of Hunter Biden's laptop. In October 2020, the New York Post, the nation's fifth largest newspaper, ran a story about some of the contents of that computer, including information clearly indicating Hunter was being paid richly by various foreign entities for access to his father, Joe Biden. Emails on that laptop clearly suggested some of the millions of dollars being "earned" by Hunter were being paid to his father.
Under pressure from the government, social media censored that story so that millions of Americans did not see it. The AP, the News Tribune and most major news outlets never reported Hunter's laptop story. Fifty current and former intelligence officials signed a letter declaring that the story appeared to be typical Russian disinformation. Joe Biden relied on that letter in the presidential debate with Trump to deflect allegations of misconduct. However, there is now no question that the N.Y. Post story about Hunter's laptop was accurate.
Polls show that at least 13 percent of voters who voted for Joe Biden in 2020 would not have done so if they had known about the Hunter Biden laptop. That would have changed the outcome of the election. The AP and other so-called news outlets would serve the nation better by doing actual investigative work and fair reporting rather than parroting DNC punchlines about the "Big Lie."