Facebook Suspends Account of Ukrainian Politician Andrii Derkach over Alleged ‘Influence Operation’

Facebook suspended the account of Uktrainian politician Andrii Derkach, alleging that he was engaged in an “election-focused influence operation.”

Derkach was sanctioned by the Department of the Treasury over alleged election meddling earlier this year, but Facebook did not take action against his account at the time, instead waiting until after the New York Post broke a bombshell story about the Biden family’s links to the Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma.

Facebook has not made any suggestion that Derkach is linked to the Post’s story, but mainstream journalists are already trying to connect the dots, with both the Daily Beast and Axios noting that Derkach has had contact with Rudy Giuliani.

As Breitbart News reported earlier today, the U.S. Director of National Intelligence, John Ratcliffe, has debunked claims that the New York Post’s story is part of a “Russian disinformation campaign.”

And, unfortunately, in this case, it is Adam Schiff, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, who, as you pointed out, said on Friday the intelligence community believes that Hunter Biden’s laptop and the emails on it are part of some Russian disinformation campaign. Let me be clear: The intelligence community doesn’t believe that because there is no intelligence that supports that. We have shared no intelligence with chairman Adam Schiff or any other member of Congress that Hunter Biden’s laptop is part of some Russian disinformation campaign.

And this is exactly what I said I would stop when I became the director of National Intelligence, and that’s people using the intelligence community to leverage some political narrative. And in this case, apparently, chairman Schiff wants anything against his preferred political candidate to be deemed as “not real” and as using the intelligence community or attempting to use the intelligence community to say there’s nothing to see here. Don’t drag the intelligence community into this. Hunter Biden’s laptop is not part of some Russian disinformation campaign, and I think it’s clear that the American people know that.

Breitbart News has reached out to Facebook for comment.

Allum Bokhari is the senior technology correspondent at Breitbart News. His new book, #DELETED: Big Tech’s Battle to Erase the Trump Movement and Steal The Election, which contains exclusive interviews with sources inside Google, Facebook, and other tech companies, is currently available for purchase.