Politico: Emails reveal signers of Hunter Biden laptop letter accepted ‘Russian disinformation.’

Hunter Biden Laptop Letter Signers Embraced “Russian Disinfo” Narrative

A group of 51 ex-intelligence officials signed a letter in October 2020, which aimed to give Joe Biden a “talking point” to use at the debate with President Donald Trump. The letter contributed to the baseless narrative that the Hunter Biden laptop stories were nothing but a product of Russian disinformation. The letter signers embraced Politico’s headline alleging the emails belonging to President Joe Biden’s son were “Russian disinfo” while the letter’s co-author and main organizer said the outlet did a “nice job” with its story.

Eleven Hunter Biden Laptop Letter Signers Visited Biden White House

The Politico report about the letter was published Oct. 19 and titled “Hunter Biden story is Russian disinfo, dozens of former intel officials say.” While several letter writers and signers have since tried to distinguish the nuance of their document from the headline that gave Biden a critical boost in shutting down questions about the salacious contents of his son’s abandoned laptop, a new report by the GOP-led Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government revealed that certain intelligence officials were content with adopting the narrative.

• The report added, “Notwithstanding these recent protestations, there is no evidence that the statement’s signers attempted to correct Politico’s misleading headline.”
• In a newly unearthed email, Thomas Fingar, a former deputy director of national intelligence for analysis who signed the letter, shared a link to the “Politico story” in an Oct. 20 email to his colleagues at Stanford University the day after it was published.
• Joe Biden pointed to the laptop letter during the Oct. 22 debate after Trump brought up the “laptop from hell.”

Former Obama acting CIA director Mike Morell, who co-authored the laptop letter with former senior CIA operations officer Marc Polymeropoulos, sent a newly unearthed email the day after the Politico story published, telling the letter signers he thought that “Politico did a nice job getting out the story of our letter.”

• Morell also testified to House Republicans that “the statement clearly says that we’re not saying this is disinformation.”
• Polymeropoulos testified to congressional investigators that Joe Biden had “mischaracterized” the laptop letter by calling “it disinformation.”

Another key letter signatory was Nick Shapiro, a former senior adviser to Brennan. Politico has said Shapiro provided them with the letter, and he was quoted in their article: “The real power here … is the number of former, working-level IC officers who want the American people to know that once again the Russians are interfering.”

• Morell told House investigators this year that getting the letter to the media “was entirely Nick Shapiro’s responsibility.”
• The ex-CIA chief also told Shapiro to tell reporters on background that Morell was “struck by the fact” that “all” of the intelligence officials he had spoken to “thought Russia is involved here.”

Another one of the letter signatories was Jeremy Bash, a former chief of staff at the CIA and the Pentagon, who was picked by Joe Biden to be part of the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board in August last year. The GOP report said that Bash’s “assertions about Hunter Biden’s laptop and emails were unambiguous and did not include nuanced caveats.”

• The new GOP report said, “If these intelligence officials were concerned about Politico’s misrepresentation of their public statement, there has been no contemporaneous indication of such a concern.”

The letter signers’ embrace of the “Russian disinfo” narrative contributed to the baseless claims that the Hunter Biden laptop stories were nothing but a product of Russian disinformation, a narrative happily seized upon by Biden’s 2020 campaign and spread by some of the laptop letter signers.