June 25, 2024 – New information shows CIA contractors colluded with Biden campaign to discredit Biden laptop story

In Email/Dossier/Govt Corruption Investigations, Featured Timeline Entries by Katie Weddington

New information released by the House Judiciary Committee shows CIA contractors colluded with the Biden campaign to discredit the Hunter Biden laptop.

In October of 2020 – just days before the presidential election – 51 former intelligence officials signed and published a letter that baselessly decried the contents of Hunter’s ‘laptop from hell’ had “all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.”

This was a lie.  They all knew it was a lie. The fake news media ran with the story anyway.

High ranking CIA officials, up to and including then-CIA Director Gina Haspel, were made aware of the Hunter Biden statement prior to its approval and publication. Because several former senior intelligence officials signed the statement, the PCRB sent the draft statement to the CIA’s then-Chief Operating Officer (COO) Andrew Makridis, who said he subsequently informed then-Director Haspel or then Deputy Director Vaughn Frederick Bishop that the statement would be published soon. Senior CIA leadership had an opportunity at that time to slow down the CIA’s process for reviewing publication submissions and ensure that such an extraordinary statement was properly vetted.

Some of the statement’s signatories, including Michael Morell, were on active contract with the CIA at the time of the Hunter Biden statement’s publication. Throughout the course of the Committees’ investigation, the signatories claimed to not have had access to any classified information when asserting that the allegations surrounding Hunter Biden’s laptop had “all the hallmarks” of Russian disinformation. However, at the time of the statement’s publication, at least two signatories—Morell and former CIA Inspector General David Buckley—were on the CIA’s payroll as contractors. Due to purported operational concerns, the CIA declined to declassify the entire universe of signatories who were on active contract. In addition, some signatories to the Hunter Biden statement also had special “Green Card” access to the CIA at the time of the statement’s publication, allowing them to gain entry to secure CIA facilities.

After publication of the Hunter Biden statement, CIA employees internally expressed concern about the statement’s politicized content, acknowledging it was not “helpful to the Agency in the long run.” At least one employee found it “[i]nteresting to see what was submitted and approved” when discussing media talking points that the statement’s co author, former Senior Intelligence Service Officer Marc Polymeropoulos, submitted related to the statement. When discussing Polymeropoulos’s talking points, another CIA official stated, “It appears [Polymeropoulos] is actively involved in a pro-Biden campaign and may be disclosing classified information in his efforts.” The CIA’s internal review board, known as the Prepublication Classification Review Board (PCRB), determined that Polymeropoulos’s talking points contained classified information that had to be removed prior to publication.

“The new information included in this report, based on new testimony and declassified documents, shows the potential dangers of a politicized intelligence community. In the waning days before the 2020 presidential election, 51 intelligence community officials rushed to draft and release a statement using their official titles, presumably to convey access to specialized information unavailable to other Americans. The statement was conceived following a conversation with a senior Biden campaign official and designed explicitly to provide talking points to the Biden campaign to discredit politically damaging allegations. Some of the signatories of the statement were on the CIA payroll at the time as contractors and others had special access to CIA facilities. Even Michael Morell—before the Committees learned of his contract with the CIA—acknowledged, “It’s inappropriate for a currently serving staff officer or contractor to be involved in the political process,” the House Judiciary Committee said. (The Gateway Pundit, 6/25/2024)  (Archive)