Hunter Laptop Letter Looks Like Biden Campaign Op – Was the letter signed by 51 former U.S. intelligence officials describing the New York Post article about Hunter Biden’s laptop as “Russian disinformation” an operation organized by the Biden campaign with some sort of strange connection with the CIA? Congressional Republicans are looking into it.
“There are a number of factors that make us suspicious of Russian involvement,” the letter said. “A “laptop op” fits the bill, as the publication of the emails is designed to discredit Biden.”
What We Know
At the time, mainstream media outlets ran stories taking the former intelligence officers at their word without any hint that they were politically motivated. The Washington Post admitted the veracity of the laptop’s contents in March 2022.
Former Acting CIA Director Mike Morell testified last month before the House Judiciary Committee Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of Government that Secretary of State Antony Blinken played a key role in organizing the letter. Blinken, then a key Biden campaign adviser, contacted Morrell to discuss the New York Post report. Morrell drafted the letter after being contacted by the Biden campaign.
“We want to give the VP a talking point to use in response,” Morrell wrote in an email sent to intelligence officials.
Joe Biden then indeed used the letter as a talking point to blunt an attack by former President Donald Trump about the laptop.
Morrell stated he drafted the letter to “help Vice President Biden … because I wanted him to win the election.”
Former CIA Director John Brennan admitted in four hours of testimony to congressional investigators with the House Judiciary Committee last week that the letter “was political.”
It Gets Even Stranger…
The Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government received testimony from former CIA analyst David Cariens, a letter signatory, saying he had been contacted by the CIA’s Prepublication Classification Review Board (PCRB). According to reporting in The Hill, “a publications review board employee, in a phone call while approving one of his books, told him about the letter and asked if he wanted to sign.”
“A current employee of the CIA was actively soliciting people to sign onto this letter,” House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan told Fox News.
To make matters worse, Fred Fleitz, a former CIA analyst and current vice chair at the America First Policy Institute (AFPI), questioned why the letter approving Morrell’s draft lacked a disclaimer.
“Really? The PCRB told me this in an email last October in clearing a book I have coming out next year: “Additional, the PCRB requires you to include the following UNCLASSIFIED disclaimer in your book: “All statements of fact, opinion, or analysis expressed are those of the authors and do not reflect the official positions or views of the U.S. Government. Nothing in the contents should be construed as asserting or implying U.S. Government authentication of information or endorsement of the authors’ views.” Care to amend your statement?” Fleitz tweeted.
Signatories Donated to the Biden Campaign
The Washington Examiner notes that several of the signatories donated thousands of dollars to the Biden campaign based on Federal Election Commission (FEC) reports.
“The 12 laptop letter signers spent an average of roughly $3,300 total supporting Biden in 2020, a sum that takes into account how Jeremy Bash, an ex-chief of staff for both former President Barack Obama’s CIA and Defense Department and now the managing director at the Washington, D.C.-based consulting firm Beacon Global Strategies, contributed $18,900 to Biden for President and the Biden Victory Fund,” The Washington Examiner said.
Bash appeared on MSNBC before the 2020 election to claim that the New York Post report “looks like Russian intelligence.”
“This effort by Rudy Giuliani and the New York Post and Steve Bannon to cook up supposed dirt on Joe Biden looks like a classic Russian playbook disinformation campaign,” Bash said.
Obama CIA Director and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta donated $5,000 to the Biden campaign. Rodney Snyder, an ex-CIA chief of staff under Obama, donated $2,800 to the Biden Victory Fund. James Clapper, Obama’s Director of National Intelligence (DNI), gave $750 to the Biden victory fund.
Letter signer Peter Corsell gave a total of $15,600 to the Biden campaign and Biden Victory Fund.
Mike Howell, director of the Oversight Project at the Heritage Foundation, told The Washington Examiner these donations further underscored the political nature of the letter.
“It was a lie,” Howell said. “They knew what they were saying, and they knew exactly how propaganda regime legacy media would run with it and how Biden would spin it.”
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Now an opinion writer for 19FortyFive, John Rossomando was a senior analyst for Defense Policy and served as Senior Analyst for Counterterrorism at The Investigative Project on Terrorism for eight years. His work has been featured in numerous publications such as The American Thinker, The National Interest, National Review Online, Daily Wire, Red Alert Politics, CNSNews.com, The Daily Caller, Human Events, Newsmax, The American Spectator, TownHall.com, and Crisis Magazine. He also served as senior managing editor of The Bulletin, a 100,000-circulation daily newspaper in Philadelphia, and received the Pennsylvania Associated Press Managing Editors first-place award for his reporting.
