Now we know that the CIA conspired with former acting director Mike Morell and the Biden campaign to produce a letter falsely claiming that emails from Hunter Biden’s laptop were Russian disinformation — and solicited signatures from at least one former intelligence official.
But there is much more to come from the House Intelligence and Judiciary committees on the origins of that “Dirty 51” letter cooked up by five former CIA directors and 46 fellow spooks to discredit The Post’s reporting on the laptop.
John Brennan, the Obama-era CIA chief, admitted to House investigators in a four-hour closed-door deposition last week that the letter was “political.”
James Clapper, the former director of national intelligence, is slated to appear next week.
Brennan and Clapper also were involved in the Hillary Clinton campaign’s Russia hoax against Donald Trump and have lied to Congress previously without sanction, but it is unlikely the new breed of Republicans conducting these investigations will be as lenient as their predecessors.
Why does the letter matter? Because it was crucial to saving Biden’s skin to deny that he had met with his son Hunter’s Ukrainian paymaster Vadym Pozharskyi while he was VP, as The Post reported on Oct. 14, 2020, citing evidence from the laptop.
The Biden campaign knew that the laptop was a serious political liability.
Despite their best efforts, with the help of the FBI, Big Tech and a complicit media, to bury it, here was The Post with the story on its front page three weeks before the election.
The letter was a domestic disinformation operation by the CIA to deceive the American people and help Joe Biden win the 2020 election.
No surprise that last week, Democrats on the committees ran interference for the 51 deceitful spooks, issuing a dissenting statement to combat the majority report.
Every sentence is false or misleading so here goes a partial fact-check:
- Dems: Former CIA director Michael Morell drafted the letter because he had serious concerns about the Russians apparently once again interfering in our elections. NOPE. Morell testified to the committees that he had no intention of drafting the statement until then-Biden campaign adviser Antony Blinken, now secretary of state, called him on Oct. 17, 2020, to discuss The Post’s story and later emailed him a USA Today article alleging the FBI was “potentially” investigating if it was Russian disinformation. Morell testified that Blinken’s call “absolutely” triggered his decision to draft the letter. Former CIA officer Marc Polymeropoulos, who helped concoct the letter, testified to the committees: “Morell said that to me, that someone from kind of the Biden world had asked for” the letter. Morell admitted the letter was designed to “help Vice President Biden” in the upcoming presidential debate by giving him a “talking point to push back on [President] Trump on this issue.” Why did he want to give candidate Biden a talking point? “Because I wanted him to win the election.” Morell was hoping to be chosen by Biden as CIA director.
- Dems: Morell testified that he was the sole person in contact with the CIA’s Prepublication Classification Review Board (PCRB) about getting the letter approved. If others working on the letter had contacted the PCRB, he would have known. RED HERRING. Nobody said “others working on the letter” had contacted the PCRB. Former CIA analyst David Cariens told the committees that a CIA employee from the PCRB had contacted him about his own memoir and, during the call, had solicited his signature for Morell’s letter. Former CIA Director Mike Pompeo said last week that “If there was one [active duty CIA employee involved], there are likely to be others too . . . That’s politics inside the intelligence community in the most indecent, irresponsible way, and is really dangerous for our democracy.”
- Dems: Cariens says he heard about the letter via a phone call with the PCRB. But there is substantial reason to question Cariens’ recollection of what happened. For example, Polymeropoulos testified that, based on his “70 or 80” interactions with the PCRB, he has never known them to communicate anything via phone. DECEPTIVE: Cariens has not withdrawn his testimony, and there is no reason to question his recollection. “When the person in charge of reviewing the book called to say it was approved with no changes, I was told about the draft letter,” he told the committees. “The person asked me if I would be willing to sign.” Polymeropoulos was Morell’s willing accomplice, so he is not impartial.
- Dems: Former CIA officer Kristin Wood produced the email in which Cariens agreed to join the letter. Cariens received the same email as every other signatory and signed on eight minutes later. His response says nothing about the PCRB. IRRELEVANT: Even if Cariens also was approached by others to sign the letter, that does not negate the fact that a serving CIA employee asked him to sign it first. Morell also told Wood, who was helping garner signatures: “The more former intelligence officers the better. Campaign will be thrilled.”
Every one of those 51 intelligence officials knew the laptop was real and was not Russian disinformation.
Brennan and others in the CIA must also have known about Hunter’s risky behavior overseas while his father was VP.
They surely knew the FBI had had his laptop since December 2019.
Joe Biden knew, too
Not just the 51, but Joe Biden knew he was lying to the American public. He knew it was his son’s laptop and he knew The Post was reporting the truth.
That’s why he went into hiding the day we published and sent out his campaign spokespeople to lie on his behalf.
On the morning of Oct. 19, 2020, while Morell was gathering signatures, and while the CIA was vetting the letter, then-Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe made a public declaration that The Post’s story was not Russian disinformation.
He rebuked Adam Schiff, then- chair of the House Intelligence Committee, who had been all over the media for days claiming that the intelligence community believes that Hunter Biden’s laptop is a Kremlin plot.
“Let me be clear,” Ratcliffe said. “The intelligence community doesn’t believe that because there’s no intelligence that supports that.”
Within 24 hours the Department of Justice and the FBI confirmed his declaration.
The next day Morell wrote an email to his co-signatories to congratulate them for successfully getting the letter published.
“I just want to thank everyone for signing the letter on the Hunter Biden emails,” he wrote. “I think this is the most important election since 1860 and 1864 when the very existence of the country was on the ballot. Now, it is our democracy and the Constitution that are on the ballot. We all, of course, took an oath to ‘preserve, protect, and defend’ the Constitution. I think all of you did that yesterday by signing this letter.”
This was the most dangerous delusion of all.
This story originally appeared on NYPost
