A congressional report on Tuesday said the CIA conspired with the Biden campaign to interfere in the 2020 election by discrediting rumors about Hunter Biden’s laptop.
“It is inappropriate for serving staff or contract officers to be involved in the political process,” former CIA Deputy Director Michael Morell acknowledged to Congress during the investigation into the incident.
WATCH — Karine Jean-Pierre dodges question about whether the president lied about Hunter Biden:
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In the run-up to the 2020 election, 51 former spies signed an infamous letter calling the Hunter laptop story “Russian disinformation” and alleging that current Secretary of State Antony Blinken had orchestrated the story for political purposes.
CNN reporter Natasha Bertrand wrote the infamous, and now discredited, article. POLITICO The article used “dozens of former intelligence officials” to spread a false and misleading narrative about the origins of Hunter’s laptop.
President Joe Biden cited the story during a presidential debate with President Trump and denied the authenticity of the laptop’s contents.
WATCH — Vance: Investigate “collusion” among media outlets, big tech companies and national security agencies regarding Hunter Biden:
Monday’s House Judiciary Committee report asserted three key facts about the CIA’s involvement in the 2020 election.
• Senior CIA officials, including then-CIA Director Gina Haspel, were aware of Hunter Biden’s statement before it was approved and made public. Because the statement was signed by several former senior intelligence officials, the PCRB reportedly sent a draft statement to then-CIA Chief Operating Officer Andrew Makridis, who then notified then-Director Haspel or Deputy Director Vaughn Frederick Bishop that the statement was imminent. At the time, senior CIA officials had the opportunity to delay the CIA’s publication submission review process to ensure such an unusual statement was properly vetted.
• Some of the signatories to the statement, including Michael Morell, had active contracts with the CIA at the time the Hunter Biden statement was released. Throughout the course of the Committee’s investigation, the signatories maintained that they did not have access to any classified information when they asserted that the allegations surrounding Hunter Biden’s laptop had “all the hallmarks” of Russian disinformation. However, at the time of the statement’s release, at least two signatories, Morell and former CIA Inspector General David Buckley, were on the CIA payroll as contractors. Due to operational concerns, the CIA declined to declassify all of the contractor signatories. Additionally, some of the signatories of the Hunter Biden statement had special “green card” access to the CIA at the time of the statement’s release, allowing them entry to secure CIA facilities.
• After Hunter Biden’s statement was released, CIA officials expressed concern internally about the political content of the statement and acknowledged that it was “not beneficial to the CIA in the long term.” At least one employee is[i]”It will be interesting to see what gets submitted and approved,” he said in discussing media talking points submitted in connection with the statement by former senior intelligence official Mark Polymeropoulos, a co-author of the statement. In discussing Polymeropoulos’ talking points, another CIA official said, ” [Polymeropoulos] “Mr. Polymeropoulos is actively involved in the campaign for Biden and may have divulged classified information in the course of his activities,” the CIA’s internal review board, the Prepublication Classification Review Board (PCRB), determined that Mr. Polymeropoulos’ statements contained classified information that must be removed before publication.
The full report is here.
A TIPP Insights poll found in 2022 that 71% of Americans believe Hunter’s accurate reporting of the “Laptop from Hell” could have changed the 2020 presidential election.
