The 51 ex-Intelligence officials who signed a letter just before the final 2020 presidential debate strongly suggesting that a New York Post story exposing Hunter Biden’s discarded laptop was a “Russian [dis]information operation” not only have never been punished, they’ve never shown any remorse. A few have landed “plum jobs, including working with the federal government,” a leading Washington, D.C. news site reports.
By Peter LaBarbera, WND News Service. Used with permission.
OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author’s opinion.
Just the News reported Wednesday that Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has “announced the creation of the Homeland Intelligence Experts Group, which includes ‘private sector experts who will provide their unique perspectives on the federal government’s intelligence enterprise to DHS’s [Intelligence and Analysis] and the Office of the Counterterrorism Coordinator.’”
Three signers of the Oct. 19, 2020 “Public Statement on the Hunter Biden Emails” – which was created specifically to provide a debate talking-point for then-Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden to fend off critical discussion of a New York Post story on Biden’s son Hunter’s salacious, discarded laptop – are joining Mayorkas’ IEG group. They are: John Brennan, former CIA Director under Obama; James Clapper, former Director of National Intelligence; and Paul Kolbe, former Senior Operations Officer at the CIA.
“Brennan is a distinguished fellow at Fordham University School of Law and University of Texas at Austin, Clapper is currently a CNN national security analyst, and Kolbe is a senior fellow and former Director of the Intelligence Project for the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. Neither Clapper nor CNN have disclosed how much he is paid,” reported JTN.
Another signer, Trump-despising former CIA Director Michael Hayden, ironically has been hired as an advisor at a left-leaning anti-“misinformation” group.
‘If we are right, this is Russia trying to influence how Americans vote’
In the now notorious ex-Intel letter, the 51 Trump-opposing security officials (plus nine anonymous officials) signed on to this wording, suggesting ominously that the laptop story was planted by the Russians (italics are in the original document): “Perhaps most important, each of us believes deeply that American citizens should determine the outcome of elections, not foreign governments. All of us agree with the founding fathers’ concern about the damage that foreign interference in our politics can do to our democracy.”
The Oct. 19, 2020 letter continues: “It is for all these reasons that we write to say that the arrival on the U.S. political scene of emails purportedly belonging to Vice President Biden’s son Hunter, much of it related to his time serving on the Board of the Ukrainian gas company Burisma, has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.”
The letter was careful to state: “We want to emphasize that we do not know if the emails, provided to the New York Post by President Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, are genuine or not and that we do not have evidence of Russian involvement – just that our experience makes us deeply suspicious that the Russian government played a significant role in this case.”
Then it states, again in italics for special emphasis: “If we are right, this is Russia trying to influence how Americans vote in this election, and we believe strongly that Americans need to be aware of this.”
But of course they weren’t right. In fact, they were only providing the ultimate D.C. “gravitas” to the latest iteration of Hillary Clinton’s false “Russia” narrative-smear against Donald Trump by attaching the damning Hunter Biden “laptop from hell” – loaded with evidence of unsavory business dealings potentially involving his father (“the Big Guy”), as well as Hunter’s drug- and porn-infested, on-camera behavior – to sinister Russian forces.
The letter was made even more inaccurate by the Oct. 19, 2020 Politico headline (still on the site at press time) reporting it: “Hunter Biden story is Russian disinfo, dozens of former intel officials say.”
As Just the News reported Wednesday, the “Russian disinformation” letter was “‘triggered’ by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, then a Joe Biden campaign adviser, and its organizer, former Acting CIA Director Michael Morell, wanted to create a ‘talking point’ to help Biden win the last presidential debate of 2020 and beat Donald Trump in the election.”