Hunter Biden's Laptop Controversy Not About His 'Privates': Lee Zeldin

Representative Lee Zeldin, a New York Republican, on Sunday accused the "left" of "spinning" the narrative related to the Hunter Biden laptop story after independent journalist Matt Taibbi published the "Twitter Files" on Friday, which revealed conversations related to the social media platform's decision to censor the story during the run-up to the 2020 presidential election.

"First, the left lied that the contents of Hunter Biden's laptop was about Russian disinformation. Now, the left is spinning the contents of the laptop as being about Hunter's privates. The truth has always been about the Big Guy's cut and their illegal international $$$ scheme," Zeldin tweeted.

Zeldin was making an apparent reference to President Joe Biden when he used the term the "Big Guy." The Republican lawmaker was referring to a line email written by a Hunter Biden business associate, which used the term. Many have contended that this was a reference to the president, although that has not been confirmed.

Zeldin's Sunday tweet came in an apparent reference to an op-ed written in The Bulwark by author Tim Miller, an outspoken Republican critic of former President Donald Trump. Miller also served as communications director for Jeb Bush's 2016 presidential campaign.

In his Saturday op-ed, Miller said that censoring the publication of the files on Hunter's laptop doesn't violate a constitutional right, which is something that Taibbi mentioned as he revealed a 2020 email exchange between Representative Ro Khanna, a California Democrat, and Vijaya Gadde, a former top Twitter lawyer.

"Now if you are one of the normals—someone who would never think about posting another person's penis on your social media account; has no desire to see politicians' kids' penises when scrolling social media; doesn't understand why there are other people out there who care one way or another about the moderation policies surrounding stolen penis photos; or can't even figure out what it is that I'm talking about—then this might seem like a gratuitous matter for an article. Sadly, it is not," Miller wrote.

He continued: "Because among Republican members of Congress, leading conservative media commentators, contrarian substackers, conservative tech bros, and friends of Donald Trump, the ability to post Hunter Biden's c*** shots on Twitter is the number-one issue in America this weekend. They believe that if they are not allowed to post porno, our constitutional republic may be in jeopardy."

Twitter user @DarkBrandon2020 pushed back against the Zeldin's Sunday comment, saying, "FACTS: There is no proof that 'Big Guy' is Joe Biden. If it was it doesn't matter because 1) the business deal never took place, 2) if it had, Joe Biden was a private citizen at the time, and 3) the deal was not illegal in any way. What's the illegal scheme? NOTHING."

In his Friday Twitter thread, Taibbi posted a screenshot of an email that appears to show the Biden campaign asking Twitter in 2020 to remove specific tweets that are reportedly related to Hunter, Joe Biden's son.

However, Miller explained that the tweets ordered to be removed contained content related to Hunter's private life.

"The offending material that Taibbi revealed was removed by Twitter at the Biden campaign's request turns out to have been a bunch of links to Hunter Biden in the buff," Miller wrote. "There was a tweet from a Chinese account featuring a naked woman on top of Hunter Biden, as well as a family photo. Two pictures of Hunter Biden's penis, one with another woman in the background. Taibbi's next list of material was removed by Twitter after being flagged by the Democratic National Committee. They include a picture of Hunter Biden smoking crack and getting his feet rubbed and a link to a Hunter Biden sex tape."

The Twitter files, which Taibbi said he worked on after agreeing "to certain conditions," were meant to reveal the controversy behind Twitter's decision to suppress an article about the laptop from the New York Post.

The newspaper reported that the laptop allegedly contained a 2015 email from Vadym Pozharskyi, an adviser to the board of Ukrainian energy company Burisma, who was seeking a meeting with Hunter's father, who was then serving as vice president under President Barack Obama at the time.

Twitter blocked users in October 2020 from sharing the Post's report that alleged Joe Biden, who was running for president at the time, had used his former position as vice president to benefit the business interests of his son. However, the censorship move was heavily criticized by Republicans and the Trump administration at the time.

Newsweek reached out to Zeldin's press office for comment.