Three weeks before the 2020 U.S. presidential election, the New York Post published a bombshell story alleging that Democratic nominee Joe Biden had engaged in corruption while serving as vice president in 2015. The story was based on emails retrieved from his son Hunter Biden’s laptop, which had been abandoned in a Delaware computer shop.
However, the story was immediately nixed by Big Tech in what the Guardian described as an “unprecedented step against a major news publication”. Twitter users were blocked from posting the link, and then-White House Press Secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, even had her account locked for doing so.
Five days later, an open letter signed by 51 former intelligence officials claimed that the emails’ arrival “has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation”. This prompted an article in Politico with the headline ‘Hunter Biden story is Russian disinfo, dozens of former intel officials say’.
When then-President Trump brought up the Post’s allegations in the final election debate, Joe Biden was able to respond, “Look, there are 50 former National Intelligence folks who said that what this, he’s accusing me of, is a Russian plan”.
Forensic analysis subsequently confirmed the authenticity of many of the emails, although this was long after the election. And in February of this year, Hunter Biden “all but admitted” the laptop belonged to him.
It’s impossible to know whether the election result would have been different had the former intelligence officials not signed the letter. (In all likelihood, it would have been the same.) Nonetheless, their intervention now looks remarkable given its timing and the fact that it was based on absolutely no evidence.
Following confirmation of the emails’ authenticity last year, Republicans on the House Judiciary and Intelligence Committee demanded that the former intelligence officials testify about their involvement. Their testimony is now coming out.
Yesterday, it was revealed that Michael Morell, a former Deputy Director of the CIA and one of the signatories, testified that his “intent to write the statement” had been “triggered” by a phone call from U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken – who was then senior advisor to the Biden campaign.
Morell explained that the Biden campaign had helped to strategize about the public release of the statement. And he stated that “there were two intents” behind the letter, one of which was to “help Vice President Biden” because “I wanted him to win the election”.
House Republicans have concluded from Morell’s testimony 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”.
Keep all this in mind the next time you hear something dismissed as Russian disinformation – especially if that thing happens to be inconvenient for Joe Biden or the Democrats.
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