A new report further reveals the details of former CIA Director Michael Morell’s efforts to gather together dozens of former intelligence officials to sign onto a letter denouncing the story about Hunter Biden’s laptop in 2020.
According to Fox News, a report published on Sunday in the New York Post revealed that Morell lied to the 51 signers of the letter by telling them that he would “clear the statement with the Publication Review Board at CIA.” In an email Morell sent to all of the signatories on October 18th, 2020, he said that he “drafted the attached because we believe the Russians were involved in some way in the Hunter Biden email issue and because we think Trump will attack Biden on the issue at this week’s debate and we want to give the VP a talking point to use in response.”
He then said that he would get the CIA’s approval to publish the letter “tomorrow,” which would have been October 19th. But the letter was published by Politico anyway, without being cleared first by the CIA. Furthermore, the letter did not include a disclaimer that made clear the views of the letter’s signers were independent from the views of the agency itself.
The letter was drafted by Morell and former CIA agent Marc Polymeropoulos, after then-campaign adviser Antony Blinken reached out to Morell and requested that he put together the letter to combat the negative reporting on Hunter’s laptop, which threatened to sink his father’s campaign for the presidency. The revelation last month of Blinken’s involvement has brought renewed scrutiny to the letter, its origins, and its consequences, with some speculating that Blinken was subsequently given his current position of Secretary of State as a reward for his efforts.
Despite managing to avoid media scrutiny at the time, Biden’s son is now facing multiple scandals and possible criminal charges as the result of several different investigations at once. Reports have suggested that Hunter could be indicted for tax-related crimes in the coming days, on top of an illegal gun purchase incident, GOP-led congressional investigations into his foreign business deals, and an ongoing child support case in Arkansas over an out-of-wedlock child he had with a former stripper, both of whom he refuses to acknowledge.