A former director of national intelligence blaming Politico for the “distortion” of a letter that had baselessly claimed Russia’s involvement in Hunter Biden laptop stories has resulted in renewed scrutiny of the many falsehoods related to the Hunter Biden saga.
Ex-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, who served under President Barack Obama, sought to defend the October 2020 Hunter Biden laptop denier letter that was signed by more than 50 ex-intelligence officials, saying that a Politico report about the letter in an article, titled “Hunter Biden story is Russian disinfo, dozens of former intel officials say,” had “distorted” the letter’s meaning. The article title was at least a bit misleading because the letter never directly called the story Russian “disinformation.”
CLAPPER SAYS LETTER ABOUT RUSSIAN LINKS TO HUNTER BIDEN LAPTOP SAGA WAS ‘DISTORTED’
The Oct. 19, 2020, letter contributed to the baseless narrative that the Hunter Biden laptop stories were nothing but a product of Russian disinformation — a narrative happily seized upon by President Joe Biden’s 2020 campaign and spread by some of the laptop letter signers. Hunter Biden himself later tried to claim falsely the intelligence community concluded his laptop was some sort of Kremlin smear campaign.
“There was message distortion,” Clapper told the Washington Post this week. “All we were doing was raising a yellow flag that this could be Russian disinformation. Politico deliberately distorted what we said.” Clapper did not speak up about this during the 2020 election, and he implausibly claimed this week he was unaware of how Joe Biden described the letter during the 2020 debate.
“The intent of the letter was that this could be Russian disinformation — emphasis on could,” Clapper told the outlet.
Although the October 2020 letter hedged a bit at various times, it did repeatedly contend there was Russian involvement, arguing that “if we are right, this is Russia trying to influence how Americans vote in this election” and expressing “our view that the Russians are involved in the Hunter Biden email issue.” The letter claimed the laptop saga “has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation” and that “our experience makes us deeply suspicious that the Russian government played a significant role in this case.”
For its part, Politico defended its headline this week.
“The article fairly and accurately reported on — and summarized — the intelligence officials’ letter,” the outlet said. “More specifically, the headline is a fair summary of their allegations.”
Laptop denier letter signers mislead on TV
Despite Clapper’s new protestations, he immediately pointed to Russia when the New York Post stories broke.
“To me, this is classic textbook Soviet-Russian tradecraft,” Clapper told CNN on Oct. 16, 2020. “The emails could be contrived. … It’s all pretty curious.”
Another one of the letter signatories was Jeremy Bash, a former chief of staff at the CIA and the Pentagon, who was picked by Joe Biden to be part of the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board in August. Bash suggested on TV that the laptop story was “Russian disinformation.”
“This looks like Russian intelligence. This walks like Russian intelligence. This talks like Russian intelligence,” Bash claimed on MSNBC on Oct. 19, 2020. “This effort by Rudy Giuliani and the New York Post and Steve Bannon to cook up supposed dirt on Joe Biden looks like a classic Russian playbook disinformation campaign.”
Bash also called the emails “mysteriously created” and claimed they were “probably hacked through a Russian intelligence operation.” He called it “collusion in plain sight.”
“At a minimum, it’s conspiracy to engage in computer crimes and hacking in violation of criminal laws,” Bash told Rachel Maddow of the emergence of the laptop emails. “It’s also potentially conspiracy to engage in election interference.”
Another key signatory was Nick Shapiro, a former deputy chief of staff and senior adviser to Obama CIA Director John Brennan, who also signed the letter. Politico has said Shapiro provided them with the letter, and he said at the time: “The real power here … is the number of former, working-level IC officers who want the American people to know that once again the Russians are interfering.”
Konstantinos “Gus” Dimitrelos, a cyber forensics expert and former Secret Service agent, conducted an examination of the laptop for the Washington Examiner last year, concluding that “there is a 100% certainty that Robert Hunter Biden was the only person responsible for the activity on this hard drive” and that “the hard drive is authentic.”
Biden campaign touts Russian disinformation claims
Joe Biden’s campaign was more than happy to tout the baseless claims that the Hunter Biden laptop saga was all a bunch of Russian disinformation.
Jen Psaki, who went on to become White House press secretary, tweeted out the Politico article the day it came out, sharing the link and the headline. It was retweeted by longtime Biden ally Susan Rice, now the director of the Domestic Policy Council. Neera Tanden, now the staff secretary to Joe Biden, also shared the article that day.
The day of the Biden-Trump debate on Oct. 22, 2020, then-deputy campaign manager Kate Bedingfield, who went on to be the White House communications director, told reporters: “If we see tonight from Donald Trump these attacks on Vice President Biden’s family, I think we need to be very, very clear that what he’s doing here is amplifying Russian misinformation. … You also had 50 nonpartisan intelligence and security officers sign a letter saying this all has a classic hallmark of Russian disinformation.”
Andrew Bates, now White House deputy press secretary, tweeted the “Russian disinfo” article and headline out that night.
Joe Biden referenced the letter, and Politico’s framing of it, during the debate after Trump called it “the laptop from hell.”
“There are 50 former national intelligence folks who said that what he’s accusing me of is a Russian plan. They have said that this has all the characteristics — four, five former heads of the CIA, both parties, say what he’s saying is a bunch of garbage,” Joe Biden said.
Trump replied, “You mean the laptop is now another Russia, Russia, Russia hoax?” Joe Biden replied: “That’s exactly what we’re told.”
A few days later, Joe Biden made similar claims during a 60 Minutes interview when asked if he believed Hunter Biden’s laptop was part of a Russian disinformation campaign.
“Putin is trying very hard to spread disinformation about Joe Biden,” he said. “And so when you put the combination of Russia, Giuliani, the president together, it’s just what it is. It’s a smear campaign.”
It was reported in October 2020 the FBI was investigating Hunter Biden and that the FBI’s subpoena of the laptop was connected to a money laundering investigation, but the Biden campaign used that news once again to attempt to link the saga to Russian disinformation.
Biden campaign lawyer Richard Sauber claimed that “criminal investigations of Russian disinformation campaigns that include the witting participation of American citizens like Rudy Giuliani often involve investigation by the FBI of whether the American has received payment for these activities that would implicate the federal money laundering statutes.” Sauber is now working as Joe Biden’s White House lawyer.
Then-Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe responded in October 2020 that there was “no intelligence” to support that the laptop was part of a Russian disinformation campaign.
When asked in December 2020 whether he stood by his claims that the laptop story was Russian disinformation, then-President-elect Joe Biden replied: “Yes, yes, yes. God love you, man. You’re a one-horse pony, I tell you.”
Psaki was asked in September 2021 if the Biden White House was still calling the Hunter Biden laptop “Russian disinformation.” She replied, “I think it’s broadly known and widely known … that there was a broad range of Russian disinformation back in 2020.”
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Hunter Biden himself misleads about “Russian disinfo”
Hunter Biden went on a media blitz in 2021 to promote his memoir, during which he admitted the laptop dropped off for repairs at the Delaware repair shop could be his — or Russian intelligence could have been involved. He falsely claimed multiple times that a report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence assessed the laptop story was Russian disinformation.
Hunter Biden claimed in early April 2021 that the “only thing I do know is that the intelligence community just came out with a report that said the entire thing is Russian disinformation.” He claimed later that month that “there’s an intelligence report from all of our intelligence agencies that has come to the conclusion that this was a Russian operation from the get-go.”
That was not true. A report released by Joe Biden’s ODNI in March 2021 concluded that Russian state-run media “heavily amplified related content circulating in U.S. media, including stories centered on [Joe Biden’s] son.” But it did not reference the laptop story and reached no public conclusions on it.
