Recently declassified congressional testimony reveals that Secretary of State Antony Blinken contacted a former CIA agent, Mike Morell, to gather signatures from influential American intelligence figures to refute the story about Hunter Biden’s laptop just days after the New York Post first reported it. At the time, Blinken was a senior official on Joe Biden’s campaign.
Morell reportedly testified under oath before the House Judiciary Committee that Blinken personally contacted him to fabricate the letter on the eve of the 2020 presidential election in an effort to discredit the Post’s reporting. Although Blinken disguised his outreach as merely seeking Morell’s reply to the Post piece, according to Morell, it actually started the chain of events that resulted in the release of the public statement.
Representative Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, wrote to Blinken on Thursday requesting more information regarding the public statement signed by 51 top intelligence officials dismissing the Hunter Biden laptop allegation as likely “Russian disinformation.” Jordan stated that they are investigating the origins of the public letter, which wrongly attacked the New York Post report as alleged Russian disinformation.
When questioned about the letter’s purpose, Morell said he had two goals: “One intent was to share our concern with the American people that the Russians were playing on this issue, and two, it was [to] help Vice President Biden.” Morell went on to say that a number of other Biden representatives, including Steve Ricchetti, the campaign chairman, and Andrew Bates, the Democratic candidate’s director of fast response, were aware of the interaction.
Major national security figures like former CIA directors John Brennan and Leon Panetta signed the letter. The letter’s signatories admitted they lacked concrete proof that Hunter’s laptop was a Russian fabrication, but they nonetheless asserted that the Post story had “all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.” The letter achieved the desired outcome since it allowed then-candidate Biden to refute the accusations of Hunter’s misconduct during a debate with then-President Trump in October.
According to Jordan, “it is clear that the Biden campaign actively participated in the origins of the public statement, which had the effect of contributing to the suppression of the Hunter Biden story and preventing American citizens from making a fully informed decision during the 2020 presidential election.”
