Two committee chairmen in the House of Representatives have threatened to issue subpoenas to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) if it does not hand over documents relating to the letter by over 50 former “intelligence experts” denouncing Hunter Biden’s laptop as “Russian disinformation.”
According to The Hill, Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) of the House Judiciary Committee and Chairman Mike Turner (R-Ohio) of the House Intelligence Committee wrote a letter on Wednesday to CIA Director William Burns, giving him a deadline of May 30th to hand over the necessary documents.
“If the CIA does not produce all responsive documents,” the letter reads in part, “the Committees may resort to compulsory process.”
In response, a CIA spokesman simply said: “We remain committed to working with our Congressional oversight committees and providing them the information they need to do their work.”
The exchange is focused on the controversial letter, signed by 51 former members of the various intelligence agencies in October of 2020, declaring that any stories about Hunter Biden’s laptop, which exposed numerous examples of his corruption, foreign business deals, and influence-peddling, were all fake and the result of “Russian disinformation” that was attempting to harm Joe Biden’s campaign in 2020.
The signatories of the letter have since acknowledged that they never had proof that the story was the result of Russian disinformation, and the contents of the laptop have since been verified by all major media outlets as authentic. Furthermore, it has been revealed that the letter was organized by the Biden campaign, with then-campaign advisor Antony Blinken reaching out to former CIA Director Michael Morrell and asking him to gather together a group of intelligence officials who would sign on. The letter was then published without the CIA’s approval, and Blinken was later appointed as Biden’s Secretary of State, in what some have declared to be his reward for orchestrating the affair.
Now, congressional Republicans are investigating whether or not active CIA employees may have also played a role in organizing the letter. David Cariens, a former CIA employee, wrote in 2023 that a CIA employee with the publications review board told him about the letter in a phone call at the time, asking if he wanted to sign on.
“If accurate, this information raises fundamental concerns about the role of the CIA in helping to falsely discredit allegations about the Biden family in the weeks before the 2020 presidential election,” the letter from Jordan and Turner declares.