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Notes -
Is there any reason to think the FBI had reasonable doubts?
IMO yes, state actors really do try to fuck with our elections by spamming shit on social media, and until vetted and combed for irregularities i would be suspicious of a laptop with a bunch of questionable stuff just miraculously showing up in opposition hands. Like i said, hindsight makes the situation look worse than it was at the time- this thread is assuming that the FBI knew the provenance of the laptop from day 1, and thats a big assumption.
So, not a single shred of specific information to suggest that the laptop was anything other than what it appeared to be?
The laptop can be what it appeared to be and still also be a tool used by russians etc. and it seems like the FBI may have thought there was something going on. I'll happily admit that i don't have a lot of the info necessary to draw a solid conclusion, unlike the people who really want to make hay out of an embarrassing laptop
Did they? So far as I am aware, they had literally no reason to privilege that hypothesis beyond it being convenient for political narratives.
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