Dozens of former intelligence officials who signed a letter warning that Hunter Biden’s infamous laptop “bears all the classic hallmarks of Russian disinformation” are refusing to retract or are intensifying their claims, even as the laptop has been introduced as evidence in the ongoing criminal trial.
Fox News Digital reached out to all 51 people who signed the October 2020 letter, which was released and heavily scrutinized just before the 2020 presidential election, to ask whether they regret signing it now that the laptop is being used by prosecutors who allege Hunter committed federal gun crimes.
“No,” James Clapper, the former director of national intelligence under Obama, simply replied, refusing to publicly remove his name from the letter or acknowledge that its signatories should have waited until more information was available.
Attorney Mark S. Zaid, who represents signatories Ronald Marks, Mark Polymeropoulos, Douglas Wise, Paul Kolbe, John Cypher, Emile Nakhley and Gerald O’Shea, sent a statement to Fox News Digital on his clients’ behalf highlighting the importance of the letter and claiming that signing it is “patriotic.”
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“There are still many who make calculated or terribly ignorant interpretations of the October 2020 letter by 51 former intelligence officials regarding Hunter Biden’s laptop,” Post online The statement said Trump’s election was “deeply frightening.”
“A careful and objective read of this document reveals that its contents remain accurate today. It is nothing more than a warning letter to us of what we have known for decades: that certain foreign governments, including Russia, continue to actively seek to interfere in our internal affairs and that we must remain vigilant. Any patriotic American should have signed this letter.”
Signatory Greg Treverton, a former chairman of the National Intelligence Council, defended the letter in a statement to Fox News Digital.
“This is very old news,” Treverton said. “What we said was true, we were inferring from our experience, and it looked like a Russian operation. Of course we didn’t say that, and we couldn’t say that. was It’s a Russian operation. Nothing more to say.”
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Director of National Intelligence James Clapper (left) and CIA Director John Brennan testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee on January 10, 2017. (Joe Raedl/Getty Images)
Former CIA Director Michael Hayden hung up the phone when contacted by Fox News Digital and did not respond to subsequent text messages and emails.
Former CIA chief of staff Larry Pfeiffer declined to comment, while former National Counterterrorism Center director Russ Travers said “these issues were resolved years ago.”
Two of the signatories, Patty Brandmeyer and Brett Davis, passed away in 2023.
“While we do not know whether the emails provided to the New York Post by President Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani are authentic, and we have no evidence of Russian involvement, our experience leads us to deeply suspect that the Russian government played a significant role in this incident,” the letter said, explaining several reasons why the laptop is “consistent with” Russian disinformation.
“Our view that Russia is involved in the Hunter Biden email affair is consistent with two other key pieces of data: The Washington Post, citing four sources, reports that ‘U.S. intelligence agencies warned the White House last year that Mr. Giuliani was the target of Russian intelligence influence operations.'”
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President Biden and Hunter Biden participate in the Easter Egg Roll on the South Lawn of the White House on April 1, 2024. (Michael Reynolds/EPA/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
“Furthermore, media reports suggest that the FBI has opened an investigation into Russian involvement in the incident. According to USA Today, “federal authorities are investigating whether documents provided by Rudy Giuliani to the New York Post are part of a smokescreen of Russian disinformation.”
“Dozens of former intelligence officials say Hunter Biden story is Russian disinformation,” said the original headline of a Politico article about the letter from 51 former officials.
When asked about the characteristics of the letter Politico wrote in its headline and the statement he had issued on his client’s behalf, and why his client did not respond publicly after it was published, Zaid told Fox News Digital that in journalism “sometimes even the writer of the story doesn’t decide what the headline is” and that “there were only two people who wrote the letter, and everyone else just signed it.”
“These are not people who pay much attention to details in the media. I don’t know if they even saw the Politico article. Many of them have spoken out since then and made their intentions very clear.”
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Hunter Biden leaves the federal courthouse in Wilmington, Delaware, Tuesday, June 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)
The contents of Hunter Biden’s laptop were first made public by the New York Post in 2020, but Democrats have long dismissed it as Russian disinformation, and news outlets across the country have seized on the letter from a former intelligence official as conclusive evidence that the laptop isn’t real.
Multiple members of the Biden campaign vehemently denied the laptop’s legitimacy ahead of the November election and appeared to coordinate the publication of the Politico article, which was published days before a debate between Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and President Trump, in which Biden claimed he had “50 former national intelligence officials who said the people he’s accusing me of are Russian spies.”
Former officials claim the laptop bore the hallmarks of Russian disinformation, but Fox News Digital reported that IRS whistleblowers involved in the investigation said federal investigators from the Department of Justice knew Hunter Biden’s laptop was “not manipulated in any way” and contained “credible evidence” in December 2019 but were “obstructed” from seeing all available information — nearly a year before former intelligence officials and Joe Biden declared it was part of a Russian disinformation campaign.
The laptop was introduced as evidence in a Delaware courtroom last week by U.S. Attorney Derek Hines and turned over to FBI agent Erica Jensen, who previously described how the FBI authenticated the laptop and extracted the data. Jensen testified at the gun trial about dozens of text messages, metadata, photos and short videos found on Biden’s phone and iCloud account.
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The full list of signatories is below: Former CIA Director and Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, former CIA Director Michael Hayden, former Director of National Intelligence Jim Clapper, former Chairman of the National Intelligence Council Thomas Finger, former Deputy Director of the National Security Agency Rick Leggett, former Acting CIA Director John McLaughlin, former Acting CIA Director Michael Morell, former Under Secretary of Defense Mike Vickers, former Deputy Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency Doug Wise, former Director of the National Terrorism Center Nick Rasmussen, and former Acting Director of the National Terrorism Center Russ Todd.Lubbers, former deputy director of the National Terrorism Center Andy Liepman, former CIA chief of staff John Moseman, former CIA chief of staff Larry Pfeiffer, former CIA chief of staff Jeremy Bash, former National Security Agency adviser Glenn Gerstell, former CIA chief of staff Rodney Snyder, former CIA analyst and manager David Preece, former deputy director of the CIA Office of Analysis Pam Persily, former CIA senior operations officer Mark Polymeropoulos, former CIA senior intelligence officerChris Savos, former CIA Senior Intelligence Officer John Tullius, former CIA Senior Intelligence Officer David A. Vannell, former CIA Senior Operations Officer Christine Wood, former CIA Inspector General David Buckley, former CIA analyst and targeting officer Nada Bakos, former CIA Senior Intelligence Officer Patty Brandmeier, former CIA Senior Intelligence Officer James B. Bruce, former CIA intelligence analyst David Kalliens, former CIA operational support officer Janice Kalliens, former CIA Senior Operations Officer Paul Kolbe, former CIA analyst Peter Cosell, former CIA Senior Intelligence Officer Brett Davis, former National Intelligence Officer Roger Zane George, former CIA Senior Intelligence Officer Steven L. Hall, former National Intelligence Officer Kent Harrington, former National Security Advisor Don Hepburn, former Dean of the CIA Kent School of Intelligence Analysis Timothy D. Kilburn, former CIA employee Ron Marks, former CIA technical operations officer Jonah Hiestand Mendez, former CIA Director of the Political Islam Strategic Analysis Program Emile Nakhreh, former CIA Senior Director of Operations Gerald A. O’Shea, former CIA Deputy Chief of Staff Nick Shapiro, former CIA Senior Director of Operations John Cypher, former National Security Council Senior Director for Intelligence Programs Steven Slick, former CIA Deputy Under Secretary for Global Affairs Cynthia Strand, former CIA Deputy Director of Operations Greg Tarbell, former Chairman of the National Intelligence Collection Committee David Terry, former Chairman of the National Intelligence Council Greg Treverton, and former CIA Director of Analysis Winston Wylie.
Fox News Digital’s Brooke Singman contributed to this report.
