First appeared on FOX: The former senior intelligence official gave a one-word response when asked whether he would retract a letter he signed with 51 other former officials warning that Hunter Biden’s infamous “Laptop from Hell” was Russian disinformation.
James Clapper, who served as director of national intelligence in the Obama administration, signed the highly scrutinized letter just weeks before the 2020 presidential election, claiming that the laptop had “all the hallmarks” of Russia trying to influence the vote.
Asked by Fox News Digital if he regretted signing the document, even though the laptop is now being used by prosecutors who are accusing Hunter of committing federal gun crimes, Hunter simply replied, “No.”
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Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper (left) and Hunter Biden (right) (Getty Images)
Clapper also refused to publicly remove his name from the letter despite evidence proving the device and its contents were legitimate, and refused to acknowledge that he and the other former intelligence officials who signed it should have waited longer to speak out.
A laptop filled with videos and photos of drug use, sex acts and sensitive business interactions was shown to jurors on Tuesday in an effort to prove that the president’s son lied about drug use on an application to buy a gun.
After it was revealed that the laptop would be introduced into evidence, critics slammed Clapper and others on social media.
“No one is above the law, except for James Clapper, who lied to Congress and has not been charged with anything.” “I’m not a racist,” political science professor Nicholas Giordano wrote in a post on X, a reference to Clapper’s previous perjury charges when he testified before Congress that the Obama administration did not “knowingly” collect the phone records of Americans.
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Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism, May 8, 2017, at the Senator Hart Office Building on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. (Eric Thayer/Getty Images)
“This is an intelligence coup,” wrote another X user, suggesting the timing of the letter was intended to influence the 2020 election.
The laptop has since been confirmed as authentic by various news outlets, but when it was first reported by the New York Post a few weeks before the 2020 election, its legitimacy was strongly denied and dismissed by officials, including those in Joe Biden’s campaign.
But the campaign appears to be orchestrating the release of a letter signed by Clapper, released just days before the Biden-Trump debate, in which Biden claims he has “50 former national intelligence officials who say the people he’s accusing me of are Russian agents.”
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Former officials have alleged that the laptop bore the hallmarks of Russian disinformation. Fox News Digital reported. Federal investigators from the Department of Justice knew in December 2019 that Hunter Biden’s laptop had “not been manipulated in any way” and contained “credible evidence.”
But an IRS whistleblower involved in the investigation said they were “blocked” from seeing all the information available to them nearly a year before former intelligence officials and Joe Biden declared this was part of a Russian disinformation campaign.
Fox News’ Brian Flood and Brooke Singman contributed to this report.
