by General Paul E Vallely and Lt. General Thomas McInerney, America Outloud:
Federal authorities eventually confirmed that the laptop belonging to President Biden’s son was authentic, though the national security experts have said they stand by the 2020 letter they penned over their concerns about disinformation. Emails from the device, which was left at a Delaware computer shop, showed that the younger Biden introduced his father, then-Vice President Joe Biden, to a top executive at a Ukrainian energy firm where Hunter, 54, sat on the board.
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A copy of the hard drive was given to the New York Post, while the computer was handed over to the FBI by the computer shop’s owner in 2019. An IRS whistleblower told Congress in a 2023 deposition that the FBI also “verified” its authenticity in November 2019.
Following the bombshell reporting, a slew of former senior intelligence officers signed a letter alleging the lot of emails “has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation” without presenting any new evidence.
On October 14, 2020, the New York Post published a report detailing how Hunter Biden used the position and influence of his father, now-President Joe Biden, for personal gain with the apparent awareness of President Biden. Five days later, on October 19, 2020, 51 former intelligence officials signed on to a public statement that stated that the Hunter Biden laptop story had “all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation” in an attempt to discredit the New York Post’s reporting.
Since April 2022 and renewed in January 2023, when Republicans resumed control of the House of Representatives, the Committees have been conducting oversight into the origins of this statement. The Committees wrote to all 51 former officials requesting relevant documents and testimony.
The Committee’s first joint interim staff report revealed how the now-infamous and discredited Hunter Biden statement originated with a call from top Biden campaign official — and now Secretary of State Antony Blinken to former Deputy CIA Director Michael Morell to provide talking points and cover for the Biden campaign to discredit serious allegations about the Biden family’s influence peddling. Morell’s testimony also revealed that the statement’s goal was to aid President Biden in the final debate of the 2020 presidential campaign.
The highest officials within the CIA were aware of the statement prior to its publication. CIA’s Chief Operating Officer (COO), Andrew Makridis, testified that he informed Director Gina Haspel or Deputy Director Vaughn Frederick Bishop about its impending release. This sequence of events suggests that senior CIA leadership had ample opportunity to assess the validity of the statement’s claims. Furthermore, the COO’s office appeared to signal approval of the statement in a move that departed from standard Prepublication Classification Review Board (PCRB) protocols.
Additionally, some of the statement’s signatories were on active contract with the CIA at the time they issued the statement to discredit damaging allegations about Biden family influence peddling. Despite claiming they lacked access to classified information at the time, at least two signatories — Michael Morell and former CIA Inspector General David Buckley — were actively working for the CIA as contractors. This revelation raises concerns that these officials may have abused their positions to expedite the statement’s approval and may have been earning taxpayer dollars while they did it.
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