Mike Morell, the former acting director of the CIA, has testified before the House Judiciary Committee, stating that he organized a letter with the signatures of 50 intelligence community colleagues in October 2020 claiming that emails from Hunter Biden’s laptop were Russian disinformation.
Morell stated that he did this after being contacted by Joe Biden’s presidential campaign, according to a report from The New York Post.
Antony Blinken, who now serves as U.S. Secretary of State, was the campaign official who reached out to him.
During his testimony, Morell revealed that Blinken contacted him “on or before” Oct 17, 2020, just a few days after The New York Post published an email from Hunter Biden’s laptop.
That report appeared to show Hunter introducing his father, then-Vice President Joe Biden, to a Ukrainian business partner.
Morell said he organized the letter to “help” the VP “because I wanted him to win the election.”
The former CIA head indicated he did not have plans to write a statement for Biden until he received the call from Blinken, and agreed that the conversation with Blinken initiated his intent to create the letter.
House Judiciary Committee Chair Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) and Rep. Michael Turner (R-OH), chair of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, wrote a letter to Blinken, explaining the committee was “examining the origins of the infamous public statement signed by 51 former intelligence officials that falsely discredited a New York Post story regarding Hunter Biden’s laptop as supposed Russian disinformation.”
The Republican congressmen went on to say that “[i]t is apparent 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.”
Meanwhile, federal prosecutors are weighing charging Hunter Biden with “three tax crimes and a charge related to a gun purchase, said two sources familiar with the matter,” NBC News reports.
The potential charges include two misdemeanor counts for failing to file taxes, one felony count for tax evasion related to a business expense for a single year of taxes, as well as a potential felony charge for the gun-related offense.
