President Donald Trump revoked the security clearances of 51 former intelligence officials who signed a letter claiming Hunter Biden’s laptop was part of a “Russian information operation.”
“In the closing weeks of the 2020 Presidential campaign, at least 51 former intelligence officials coordinated with the Biden campaign to issue a letter discrediting the reporting that President Joseph R. Biden’s son had abandoned his laptop at a computer repair business,” the order explains. “Signatories of the letter falsely suggested that the news story was part of a Russian disinformation campaign.”
“The signatories willfully weaponized the gravitas of the Intelligence Community to manipulate the political process and undermine our democratic institutions. This fabrication of the imprimatur of the Intelligence Community to suppress information essential to the American people during a Presidential election is an egregious breach of trust reminiscent of a third world country,” it adds. “And now the faith of Americans in all other patriotic intelligence professionals who are sworn to protect the Nation has been imperiled.”
The order lists the names of those involved in the laptop letter.
“[W]e write to say that the arrival on the US political scene of emails purportedly belonging to Vice President Biden’s son Hunter, much of it related to his me serving on the Board of the Ukrainian gas company Burisma, has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation,” the 2020 letter says. “We want to emphasize that we do not know if the emails, provided to the New York Post by President Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, are genuine or not and that we do not have evidence of Russian involvement — just that our experience makes us deeply suspicious that the Russian government played a significant role in this case.”
Last year, a report from the House Judiciary Committee revealed that some of the letter’s signatories were actively involved in the CIA at the time of its publication. Two individuals, Michael Morell and former CIA Inspector General David Buckley, were “on the CIA’s payroll as contractors,” the report said.
