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A former CIA director has come forward with information that has shaken the White House with another scandal.
In private sworn testimony, former Acting CIA Director Mike Morell said that now Secretary of State Antony Blinken messaged him “on or before” Oct. 17, 2020, in regards to a story published by The New York Post about Hunter Biden’s laptop, the New York Post reported.
After his call with Blinken, he said he decided to organize a letter, to be signed by 50 other former intelligence heads, to say that they believed The Post’s story had the “earmarks” of “Russian disinformation” because Morell wanted to “help Vice President Biden … because I wanted him to win the election.”
He said that before he spoke to Blinken he had no intention of penning such a letter but that the phone call “triggered” him to do it.
The Post reported:
At 10:53 p.m. the night of the call, Blinken emailed Morell a USA Today article claiming that the FBI was examining whether Hunter’s laptop was part of a “disinformation campaign.”
At the bottom of Blinken’s email was the signature block of Andrew Bates, then-director of rapid response for the Biden campaign. Morell said he did “a little bit of my own research,” then reached out to retired CIA senior operations officer Marc Polymeropoulos for assistance in compiling the letter discrediting The Post’s reporting. Over the next two days, Morell gathered signatures from 51 former intelligence officials, including himself and four other former CIA directors, including John Brennan and Leon Panetta.
The House Judiciary Committee issued a press release explaining the testimony.
“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. The article reported on several emails found on a laptop belonging to Hunter Biden that he had abandoned in a Delaware computer shop. The contents of the emails cast doubt on President Biden’s previous denials of speaking to his son about his international business dealings,” the press release said.
“Within five days of the article, on October 19, 2020, 51 former intelligence officials released a public statement attempting to discredit the contents of the New York Post’s reporting about Hunter Biden, stating that the story ‘has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.’ News publications immediately ran with the statement, with Politico publishing a story with the conclusive headline, ‘Hunter Biden story is Russian disinfo, dozens of former officials say.’ During the final presidential debate on October 22, then-Vice President Biden cited the public statement to rebut President Trump’s criticism of the Biden family business dealings,” it said.
“The Committees recently conducted a transcribed interview with Michael Morell, a former Deputy Director of the CIA and one of the 51 signatories of the public statement. In his transcribed interview, Morell testified that on or around October 17, 2020, Blinken served as a senior advisor to the Biden campaign and reached out to him to discuss the Hunter Biden laptop story. According to Morell, although your outreach was couched as simply gathering Morell’s reaction to the Post story, it set in motion the events that led to the issuance of the public statement,” The Judiciary Committee said.
“That same day, October 17, Blinken also emailed Morell an article published in USA Today alleging that the FBI was examining whether the Hunter Biden laptop was part of a ‘disinformation campaign.’ The very bottom of the email he sent to Morell included the signature block of Andrew Bates, then-director of rapid response for the Biden campaign,” it said.
“Morell testified that his communication with Blinken was one of a few communications he had with the Biden campaign, explaining that he also received a call from Steve Ricchetti, Chairman of the Biden campaign, following the October 22 debate to thank him for writing the statement. Morell also explained that the Biden campaign helped to strategize about the public release of the statement. Morell further explained that one of his two goals in releasing the statement was to help then-Vice President Biden in the debate and to assist him in winning the election,” the committee said.
“Based on Morell’s testimony, it is apparent that the Biden campaign played an active role in the origins of the public statement, which had the effect of helping to suppress the Hunter Biden story and preventing American citizens from making a fully informed decision during the 2020 presidential election. Although the statement’s signatories have an unquestioned right to free speech and free association—which we do not dispute—their 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 said.
