Some of the ex-intelligence officials who signed the infamous letter casting doubt on the authenticity of the Hunter Biden laptop archive were active contractors with the CIA at the time, according to a newly released House report.
At least four of the letter’s signatories, former deputy CIA director Michael Morell, former CIA senior Inspector General David Buckley, CIA official Jeremy Bash and former National Security Agency official Richard Ledgett were CIA contractors at the time. Some of the signatories also had access to CIA facilities at the time, a privilege given to individuals who are actively employed by the agency.
“I also love that at least a few of the random signatories belong to individuals currently working here on contracts,” one CIA official said on an email chain discussing the letter.
The agency would not disclose to congressional investigators the entire list of contractors for security reasons. The report was written by staffers on the Judiciary Committee, Weaponization Subcommittee, and the Intelligence Committee based on testimony and internal CIA emails.
“The infamous Hunter Biden statement had all the hallmarks of an intelligence community influence operation. But rather than carrying it out against our adversaries on foreign soil, this operation was directed at the American people and our democratic processes,” the report asserts.
Morell testified before the House Judiciary Committee last year and admitted the letter signed by 51 ex-intel officials suggesting the Hunter Biden laptop story was Russian disinformation came about because of correspondence with Joe Biden’s Democratic presidential campaign.
Joe Biden cited the intelligence officials during a 2020 presidential debate against former president Donald Trump when he brought up the contents of the New York Post’s reporting on the Hunter Biden laptop. The laptop emails reported by the Post appeared to show Hunter Biden’s efforts to use his father’s position to secure lucrative positions with Ukrainian energy firm Burisma Holdings and Chinese conglomerate CEFC.
Senior CIA officials, including then-director Gina Haspel would have been made aware of the letter because of a review process Haspel implemented for submissions from current or former top officials. The CIA’s Prepublication Classification Review Board (PCRB) typically reviews publications by intelligence officials, and Haspel required the panel to flag publications by agency officials.
Then-CIA chief operating officer Andrew Makridis testified that the COO’s office knew of the Hunter Biden laptop letter and said he would have brought it to either the director or deputy director. Makridis, a 37-year veteran of the agency, admitted he had never seen anything like the Hunter Biden statement over the course of his career.
Morell was a key figure in crafting the Hunter Biden laptop letter and urged the PCRB to process it as quickly as possible. The PCRB acknowledged receiving Morell’s statement in less than 4o minutes. A couple hours later, Makridis’s assistant told the PCRB it could notify Morell he was allowed to publish the statement, reflecting the rapid speed at which the Hunter Biden letter was processed.
Morell and Makridis both testified that it was inappropriate for an active CIA contractor to insert themselves into the political process. It’s unclear if the PCRB considered the fact that Morell and other signatories were active contractors when they submitted the Hunter Biden statement.
Morell testified about the political reasons why they signed the letter, bluntly stating one of its purposes was to help Biden defeat Trump.
Former senior CIA official Marc Polymeropoulos, another key signatory, was accused by another CIA official of potentially using classified information to help the Biden campaign. In his talking points to the PCRB, Polymeropoulos claimed Fox News and Republicans were susceptible to Russian disinformation.
“This frustrates me. I don’t think it is helpful to the Agency in the long run. Sigh,” a CIA official said on the internal email chain, with a link to the infamous Politico article on the statement.
Makridis expressed similar sentiments when he testified, saying the letter was a political document and for that reason he would not have signed it.
At Hunter Biden’s gun trial earlier this month, federal prosecutors introduced the physical laptop and exhibits from the laptop’s data as evidence against him. FBI special agent Erica Jensen, a 20-year veteran of the bureau, gave detailed testimony on how federal investigators verified the laptop data by cross referencing the computer’s serial number to Hunter Biden’s iCloud backup server.
Her testimony during the trial strongly resembled IRS whistleblower Gary Shapley’s testimony last year on the process used to authenticate the laptop.
The laptop data will likely be featured again at Hunter Biden’s upcoming tax trial.