Elizabeth Stauffer: Did the Spies Who Covered for Hunter Biden’s Laptop Interfere in the 2020 Election?
Former Twitter Executives to be Grilled by House Republicans Over Alleged Cooperation with FBI
Representative James Comer, a Republican from Kentucky and chairman of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, left, speaks during a hearing in Washington, DC, US, on Wednesday, Feb. 8, 2023. House Republicans plan to grill former Twitter executives over their alleged cooperation with the FBI to squelch the story of Hunter Biden’s laptop, the opening salvo in their probe into the Biden family finances. Photographer: Anna Rose Layden/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Election interference comes in many forms. It can be as blatant as a raid on the leader of the opposition party’s home or as subtle as a letter signed by former government officials dismissing a shocking story about a presidential candidate and his family’s alleged influence peddling as foreign disinformation.
Recently, it was revealed that Secretary of State Antony Blinken, then a top adviser to the Biden campaign, allegedly served as the “impetus” behind a letter signed by 51 prominent former intelligence community leaders ahead of the 2020 presidential election. The signers claimed that the New York Post’s story about Hunter Biden’s laptop had “all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.”
This letter arguably saved Biden’s candidacy, as the leftist media picked up their narrative and ran with it. Just days after the letter was released, then-candidate Joe Biden used it to shut down questions from then-President Donald Trump about the Biden family’s alleged overseas influence-peddling operations in a critical debate.
House Republicans have now revealed Blinken’s role in the scheme, saying they have it on record from former CIA Deputy Director Michael Morell and Nick Shapiro, a former adviser to ex-CIA Director John Brennan, that Blinken was the one who raised the idea of the letter in the first place. Morell testified that Blinken’s call triggered his intent to write the statement.
While acknowledging that “the statement’s signatories have an unquestioned right to free speech and free association,” Republicans argue that the spies’ “reference to their national security credentials lent weight to the story and suggested access to specialized information unavailable to other Americans. This concerted effort to minimize and suppress public dissemination of the serious allegations about the Biden family was a grave disservice to all American citizens’ informed participation in our democracy.”
It should be noted that both Blinken and Morell had strong personal interests in a Biden victory. Blinken had his eye on the secretary of state position in a possible Biden administration, and Morell was hoping to become the next CIA director.
By coordinating this letter to blunt the effects of the New York Post’s accurate report, the former national security officials abused their power to carry out a manipulation of profound proportions, which arguably swayed the outcome of a presidential election. Their strategy worked out precisely as they had hoped.
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Elizabeth Stauffer is a contributor to the Washington Examiner, Power Line, the Western Journal, and AFNN and a past contributor to RedState, Newsmax, and Bongino.com. Her articles have appeared on many sites, including RealClearPolitics, MSN, and the Federalist. Please follow Elizabeth on Twitter or LinkedIn.
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