by Jerry Dunleavy, Justice Department Reporter, April 20, 2023
A former top CIA official who helped write and sign the infamous October 2020 Hunter Biden laptop letter baselessly claiming Russian involvement has testified a phone call with now-Secretary of State Antony Blinken “triggered” its creation.
Mike Morell, a former acting CIA director under President Barack Obama, said in a recent transcribed interview with congressional investigators that, before his Oct. 17 phone call with Blinken, he had no intention to write the Oct. 19 Hunter Biden laptop letter. He testified “yes” and “absolutely” when asked if the call with Blinken, who was then a top adviser for Joe Biden’s 2020 campaign, was what “triggered that intent in you.”
Morell also testified that one of the two reasons he helped put the letter together was to help Joe Biden defeat former President Donald Trump.
These revelations came in a letter obtained by the Washington Examiner that was sent to Blinken on Thursday by Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, and Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.
The news comes one day after an IRS agent alleged that the Justice Department investigation into Hunter Biden has been infected by “politics” and “preferential treatment.”
The October 2020 laptop letter contributed to the baseless narrative that the Hunter Biden laptop stories were nothing but a product of Russian disinformation. This line was happily seized upon by Joe Biden’s 2020 campaign and spread by some of the laptop letter signers. Hunter Biden himself later tried to falsely claim the intelligence community concluded his laptop was some sort of Kremlin smear campaign.
Jordan and Turner told Blinken that Morell revealed the secretary of state had “played a role in the inception of this statement while serving as a Biden campaign advisor” and that “according to Morell, although your outreach was couched as simply gathering Morell’s reaction to the New York Post story, it set in motion the events that led to the issuance of the public statement.”
The congressmen wrote that, the same day of the Blinken-Morell call, Blinken “also emailed Morell an article” published in USA Today the same day that alleged the FBI was examining whether the Hunter Biden laptop was part of a “disinformation campaign.” Jordan and Turner told Blinken that “the very bottom of the email you sent to Morell included the signature block of Andrew Bates, then-director of rapid response for the Biden campaign.” Bates is now a deputy press secretary in the Biden White House.
oe Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign quickly dismissed the laptop story as a Russian disinformation operation. After the New York Post published emails belonging to his son, Joe Biden called the story “garbage” and part of a “Russian plan” during an October 2020 debate with Trump.
Former senior CIA operations officer Marc Polymeropoulos said in 2020 that he and Morell helped put the letter together.
The congressional letter said Morell received a call from then-Biden campaign chairman Steve Ricchetti after the Oct. 22 presidential debate to thank him for writing the statement. Richetti is now a counselor to Joe Biden. Morell said, “Steve thanked me for putting the statement out.”
The phone call to Morell had come from Jeremy Bash, another Hunter Biden laptop letter signer, who then got Richetti on the line. Bash, a former chief of staff at the CIA and Pentagon, was picked by Joe Biden to be part of the president’s Intelligence Advisory Board last year. Bash himself had suggested on TV in October 2020 that the laptop story was “Russian disinformation.”
Joe Biden said during the October 2020 debate with Trump, “There are 50 former national intelligence folks who said that what he’s accusing me of is a Russian plan. They have said this is, has all the — four, five former heads of the CIA. Both parties say what he’s saying is a bunch of garbage.”
He was referring to a Politico report about the letter in an article titled “Hunter Biden story is Russian disinfo, dozens of former intel officials say.” The title was a bit misleading because the letter never directly called the story Russian “disinformation.”
Although the October 2020 letter hedged a bit at various times, it did repeatedly contend there was Russian involvement with the laptop stories, arguing that “if we are right, this is Russia trying to influence how Americans vote in this election” and expressing “our view that the Russians are involved in the Hunter Biden email issue.” The letter claimed the laptop saga “has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation” and that “our experience makes us deeply suspicious that the Russian government played a significant role in this case.”
Another key letter signatory was Nick Shapiro, a former deputy chief of staff and senior adviser to Obama CIA Director John Brennan, who also signed the letter. Politico has said Shapiro provided them with the letter, and Shapiro said at the time, “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.”
Jordan and Turner said Morell "also explained that the Biden campaign helped to strategize about the public release of the statement.” Morell “testified that he sent an email telling Nick Shapiro … that the Biden campaign wanted the statement to go to a particular reporter at the Washington Post first and that he should send the statement to the campaign when he sent the letter to the reporter.”
Jordan originally sent letters to many of the 51 former intelligence officials in April last year, but those requests were largely ignored. He followed up with demands for information from a dozen of the ex-spy officials in February and March of this year.
Jordan and Turner told the signatories this year that the letter “falsely implied the New York Post’s reporting about Hunter Biden was the product of Russian disinformation.”
Morell also testified that there were “two intents” behind writing the laptop letter.
“One intent was to share our concern with the American people that the Russians were playing on this issue,” Morell said. “And, two, it was to help Vice President Biden.”
Jordan asked Morell, “You wanted to help the vice president why?” Morell replied, “Because I wanted him to win the election.”
Morell had hosted his Intelligence Matters podcast with CBS News since May 2018. The most recent episode is listed as March 29 this year. A source familiar said Morell’s House interview was on April 4. CBS News senior investigative correspondent Catherine Herridge tweeted Thursday that Morell no longer works for the outlet.
Konstantinos "Gus" Dimitrelos, a cyber forensics expert and former Secret Service agent, conducted an examination of the laptop for the Washington Examiner last year, concluding that “there is a 100% certainty that Robert Hunter Biden was the only person responsible for the activity on this hard drive and all of its stored data” and that “the hard drive is authentic.”
Feel free to tell me, precisely, what part of that DOESN'T qualify as evidence of election fraud.
And plently more evidence and witnesses, over the last 2 years.
