A retired CIA leader coordinated a letter from former intelligence chiefs claiming that Hunter Biden‘s laptop was Russian disinformation because he wanted to help Joe Biden‘s presidential campaign.
Morell was a former acting CIA director, serving for two months in 2011 and four months from 2013-13: he retired from the CIA in September 2013.
The House Judiciary Committee, led by Jim Jordan, is currently investigating Hunter Biden’s laptop, as well as the Biden family businesses.
Morell ‘recently’ conducted a transcribed interview with Jordan’s team, and was asked about the Biden campaign’s response to the laptop.
Mike Morell was acting CIA director for several months in 2011 and again in 2012-13. He was asked by the Biden campaign in October 2020 to help recruit other former intelligence chiefs to discredit reporting on the contents of Hunter Biden’s laptop
Hunter Biden is seen with his father Joe and aunt Valerie in Dublin on April 14
Jim Jordan, chair of the House Judiciary Committee, is investigating Hunter Biden’s laptop
The laptop, which had been left in a Delaware repair store, was touted by Rudy Giuliani, Donald Trump’s lawyer, as providing evidence of supposed corruption among the Biden family.
The Biden campaign said the efforts to publicize the contents of the laptop bore the hallmarks of a Russian disinformation campaign.
The laptop included explicit photos of the troubled Hunter Biden naked, with prostitutes, and taking drugs, as well as multiple emails and texts between Hunter and his father.
Morell said that he was asked by Blinken to rally former intelligence chiefs to agree that the laptop looked like a smear campaign.
Morell said he did ‘a little bit of my own research,’ and then reached out to retired CIA senior operations officer Marc Polymeropoulos for assistance in compiling the letter.
The letter was ultimately signed by from 51 former intelligence officials, including himself and four other former CIA directors, including John Brennan and Leon Panetta.
The letter was published by Politico five days after The New York Post first reported on the contents of the laptop.
The headline for Politico’s story, on October 19, 2020, was: ‘Hunter Biden story is Russian disinfo, dozens of former officials say.’
The letter alleged that The New York Post story ‘has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.’
Several media outlets, including DailyMail.com, have since confirmed the contents of the laptop and that it belonged to Hunter Biden.
Photo of a laptop owned by Hunter Biden that was left with a computer repair shop
A photo found on the laptop abandoned by Hunter Biden. Jordan and other House Republicans feel the claims from the letter signed by Morell were a ‘concerted effort’ to discredit the damning information found on Hunter’s laptop
Hunter Biden is pictured on July 7, 2022 inside the White House
Joe Biden used the letter during the October 22 debate against Donald Trump, saying he thought the reporting around his son’s abandoned computer was the work of Russia.
Morell was thanked for his work in coordinating the letter, with Steve Ricchetti, chairman of the Biden campaign, telephoning him after the debate to say thank you.
Morell was then said to be in consideration for the role of CIA director – a job that ultimately went to William Burns.
Morell, who has been a consultant, strategist, lecturer and author since his resignation almost a decade ago, said he was never formally in talks for the role.
On Thursday, Jordan and Michael Turner, the chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence, wrote to Blinken requesting his communications with Morell around the laptop.
They issued a statement accusing Morell and the other intel chiefs of ‘concerted effort to minimize and suppress’ information harmful to the Biden campaign.
‘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,’ they wrote.
‘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.’
