The emerging details on how a senior advisor to the Biden presidential campaign – now serving as Secretary of State – orchestrated the effort to discredit the Hunter Biden laptop story as Russian disinformation are providing a rare glimpse into the way embarrassing problems are addressed at the highest levels of our government. The key word is: deniability.
In October 2020, several weeks before the presidential elections, the New York Post published an article asserting that Hunter Biden used the position of his father as vice president for personal gain, with the alleged awareness of his father. The article was based upon several emails found on a laptop ostensibly belonging to Hunter Biden. The emails also suggested to some that the senior Biden may have personally profited from his son’s schemes as well.
Several days after the Post article appeared, however, 51 former intelligence officials released a letter they had all signed stating that the story “has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.”
Since then, the notion that it was based on Russian disinformation has been thoroughly debunked. For their part, the former intelligence officials defend their letter with the argument that they didn’t flat out claim that the Post story actually was the work product of Russian intelligence, only that it looked like it might be one.
In the interim, however, most of the media took the bait and reported that the Post’s Hunter Biden story was based upon Russian disinformation, and social media companies followed with sharply restricting access to it. In fact, during the final presidential debate on October 22, 2020, candidate Joe Biden cited the public statement to rebut President Trump’s criticism of the Biden family business dealings. “Look,” he said, “there are 50 former national security folks who said that what [President Trump is] accusing me of is a Russian plan. They have said this has all the characteristics – four-five former heads of the CIA, both parties, say what he’s saying is a bunch of garbage. Nobody believes it except him and his friend Rudy Giuliani.”
But the real story here is how the band of 51 came together to issue their letter. One of the signatories, Michael Morell – a former Deputy Director of the CIA – spilled the beans in recent sworn Congressional testimony.
Back in 2020, at a time when he was being talked about as a possible Biden administration CIA director, Morell received a call from Antony Blinken, he testified. It was soon after the Post story hit the press; Blinken, then a senior adviser to the Biden campaign, wanted to know what Morell thought about it. Later that day, he sent Morell a copy of a USA Today article alleging that the FBI was examining whether the Hunter Biden laptop story was part of a Russian “disinformation campaign.”
Morell testified that he had no intention of making a public statement until he heard from Blinken. After, however, Morell was off to the races, drafting the aforementioned letter and coordinating the involvement the other officials. He also strategized with the Biden campaign about the release of the letter to the public.
Morell testified that writing the letter was ultimately his own personal decision and he did not recall Blinken asking him specifically to write the letter. “My memory is that he did not,” Morell said. “My memory is that he asked me what I thought.”
Despite the at least tacit collusion between the intelligence community and the Biden presidential campaign, no one is being held responsible for something as significant as the willful suppression of information necessary for American citizens to make a fully informed choice for president. How convenient.
