OPINION:
The lies told to protect President Biden go beyond the recent “cheap fake” whoppers about his mental fitness. Four years ago, a far more consequential campaign of deceit was orchestrated by those on the CIA’s payroll who helped wrest the keys to the White House from then-President Donald Trump so the Bidens could move in.
The House Judiciary Committee released documents last week confirming Michael Morell, the agency’s former acting chief, and David Buckley, the ex-inspector general, were active CIA contractors when they signed the infamous letter from “51 former intelligence officials” falsely claiming that Hunter Biden’s laptop was Russian disinformation.
Russian President Vladimir Putin had nothing to do with Hunter’s laptop. The device and its evidence of influence peddling and other criminal conduct became public after the first son abandoned it in a computer repair shop while in a drug-induced haze.
Mr. Morell was the primary author of the “51 intelligence officials” letter whose purpose was, as he told a House committee, “to help Vice President Biden.” It was released on the eve of the 2020 debate to supply Mr. Biden a talking point to counter Mr. Trump when he brought up the “laptop from Hell.”
Then CIA-Director Gina Haspel and her top staff fast-tracked approval of the mendacious missive, ensuring it was ready in time for the debate. Polls have shown many of Mr. Biden’s voters would have chosen someone else had they known the truth about the emails showing “the Big Guy” was skimming 10% off the top of his son’s shady foreign transactions.
As Mr. Morell acknowledged in past testimony, “It’s inappropriate for a currently serving staff officer or contractor to be involved in the political process.” That’s why he’s now insisting he wasn’t an active contractor when he signed the letter.
Either Mr. Morell is lying, or the CIA itself is lying. Figuring out which is which is beside the point. Everything ever said by the signatories of the deceitful dispatch — particularly with respect to Russia — must be called into question.
This includes the dubious claim that Russia interfered in the 2016 election to put Mr. Trump in office. The primary evidence of this has been a few dopey Facebook ads that “originated in Russia” and cost around $200,000.
The other bit of proof backing the Russian interference narrative is a redacted report from a Democratic technology firm, CrowdStrike, that claimed “Russians” hacked the Democratic National Committee. Otherwise, we have seen the claim asserted only by the same intelligence community officials who have just been established as unreliable partisans willing to say anything to advance their preferred candidate.
These are the operatives who embraced the Steele dossier, which was Hillary Clinton’s operation to smear Mr. Trump as if he were secretly working under Russian influence. The delusional tract had zero credibility from the start, but the intelligence community used it as an excuse to undermine Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign and subsequent administration.
As the Judiciary Committee concluded in its report last week: “The infamous Hunter Biden statement had all the hallmarks of an intelligence community influence operation. But rather than carrying it out against our adversaries on foreign soil, this operation was directed at the American people and our democratic processes.”
As the CIA is specifically prohibited from “interfering with the domestic political process,” Congress has an obligation to use its oversight and funding powers to hold the agency accountable.
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