The CIA admitted Thursday that it lied to Congress about a “lying spy” who claimed incriminating documents found on Hunter Biden’s laptop were Russian disinformation.
In a surprising development that heightens Congressional doubts about the impartiality and reliability of America’s top intelligence agency, the CIA said in a letter obtained by The Washington Post that former acting CIA director Michael Morell was not a contract employee at the time he compiled the October 2020 laptop statement.
This contradicted the department’s previous testimony to Congress that he was under contract.
“This error resulted from a misreading of the contract document,” Robert Dugas, the CIA’s deputy general counsel for litigation and investigations, said in a letter to Morell’s lawyers on Wednesday.
“The CIA regrets its errors in initially providing information on this matter.”
The retraction angered House Republicans, who provided the CIA with a copy of the committee’s report, which included information provided by the agency, before it was released last month.
“The revelations after the fact mean that you can’t trust anything the CIA says,” said Russell Dye, a spokesman for the House Judiciary Committee.
“The CIA confirmed this information to the committee multiple times, only changing its story after Michael Morell filed a complaint.”
“They are now trying to have us believe that Morell was contracted around the time of Hunter Biden’s statement, but miraculously not at the time of the statement, but are refusing to provide details,” Dye added.
“This new revelation only leaves further questions and concerns about the CIA’s honesty with Congress.”
Dugas’ letter says Morell had outstanding contracts for several years before and after the laptop deposition — although previous documents filed with Congress show three were under contract — but doesn’t say whether the CIA misidentified the other signatories of the letter.
“Contrary to our April 25, 2024 filing, Mr. Morell was not under contract with the CIA as of October 19, 2020,” Dugas’ letter said.
“Mr Morrell had two non-paid contracts with the Authority, one which began and ended in 2019 and the other which began and ended in 2021.”
Dugas added: “The agency did not pay Mr. Morell compensation under either contract, and as you know, Mr. Morell, like many former chiefs and acting chiefs, retains permission and authority to enter agency premises.”
He previously signed an April 25 letter to the House Judiciary Committee identifying Morell as a contractor at the time of his 2020 statements and casting doubt on documents linking then-Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and his son Hunter and brother James Biden to business dealings with China and Ukraine.
According to previous CIA communications with Congress, three other signatories also held contractor “green badges” at the time, including former CIA Inspector General David Buckley, former CIA Chief of Staff Jeremy Bash and former Deputy Director of the National Security Agency Richard Leggett.
Morell told Congress he had 50 former intelligence officials sign a statement saying Hunter Biden’s laptop bore the “classic hallmarks” of Russian disinformation designed to give Joe Biden a “talking point” ahead of a debate with then-President Donald Trump.
Biden used the statement during the second and final 2020 presidential debate with Trump to falsely claim that a Washington Post report about his role in his family’s international business dealings was a “Russian agent” and “bullshit.”
“Fifty former national intelligence officials have accused Trump of being a Russian agent,” Biden said of Trump. “Five former CIA directors from both parties say what he’s saying is bullshit. No one believes him except his good friend Rudy Giuliani.”
The FBI seized the laptop in 2019 before a copy of the hard drive was provided to The Washington Post in 2020, and said on Twitter on the day the explosive reports first broke that the laptop was authentic, but the FBI’s position was not widely known until well after the election.
A CIA spokesperson told The Washington Post: “The second interim joint staff report of the House Select Committee on Intelligence and the House Judiciary Committee, released on June 25, revealed an error in the information we provided in April. In response to this error, we began a review of our records and sent letters to both committees correcting and clarifying certain information we provided regarding contract-related data.”
“Contrary to our initial submissions, we have determined that former Acting Director Michael Morell was not under contract with the CIA as of October 19, 2020,” the agency said in a statement. “We regret the error, based on a misreading of the contract documents, and have also corrected the contractor badge expiration dates listed for several other ‘Green Badges’.”
