Did the FBI admit to accidentally destroying the laptop said to have belonged to Hunter Biden? No, that's not true: This is a satirical claim published by a website that trolls conservatives with outrageous false claims. The laptop in question has become infamous after the New York Post published emails that were allegedly found on the computer purportedly owned by Joe Biden's son.
The claim originated from an article (archived here) where it was published by americaslastlineofdefense.com on November 11, 2020, under the title "FBI Admits to 'Accidentally' Destroying Hunter's Laptop." It opened:
In what sounds for all the world like a slapstick display of coincidental incompetence designed for a satirical network of Trump supporter-enraging Facebook pages, the FBI this morning, admitted that through a series of unintended events, they have "accidentally" destroyed the laptop computer belonging to first son Hunter Biden.
Although this article is from November, it was being shared widely again in mid-December, 2020, possibly because Hunter Biden recently disclosed that some of his financials are under federal investigation.
The site is part of the "America's Last Line of Defense" network of satire websites run by self-professed liberal troll Christopher Blair from Maine along with a loose confederation of friends and allies. He runs several websites and Facebook pages with visible satire disclaimers everywhere. They mostly publish made-up stories with headlines specifically created to trigger Republicans, conservatives and evangelical Christians into angrily sharing or commenting on the story on Facebook without actually reading the full article, exposing them to mockery and ridicule by fans of the sites and pages.
Every site in the network has an about page that reads (in part):
About Satire
Before you complain and decide satire is synonymous with "comedy":sat·ire
ˈsaˌtī(ə)r
noun
The use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people's stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues.Everything on this website is fiction. It is not a lie and it is not fake news because it is not real. If you believe that it is real, you should have your head examined. Any similarities between this site's pure fantasy and actual people, places, and events are purely coincidental and all images should be considered altered and satirical. See above if you're still having an issue with that satire thing.
Articles from Blair's sites frequently get copied by "real" fake news sites who omit the satire disclaimer and other hints the stories are fake. One of the most persistent networks of such sites is run by a man from Pakistan named Kashif Shahzad Khokhar (aka "DashiKashi") who has spammed hundreds of such stolen stories into conservative and right-wing Facebook pages in order to profit from the ad revenue.
NewsGuard, a company that uses trained journalist to rank the reliability of websites, describes americaslastlineofdefense.com as:
A network of sites that publish false stories and hoaxes that are often mistaken for real news, run by hoax perpetrator Christopher Blair.
According to NewsGuard the site does not maintain basic standards of accuracy and accountability. Read their full assessment here.
