Disinformation, but whose? Hunter's laptop letter signers politically motivated, transcripts show

Newly released transcripts of interviews with eight of the intelligence officials who were among 51 signatories of the infamous letter labeling reporting on the Hunter Biden laptop as a potential “Russian information operation” show the letter drafters were motivated by politics while freely admitting they had no hard evidence for the claims.

The transcripts, which include interviews with former CIA Director Michael Morell, one of his key former deputies Marc Polymeropoulos, and former CIA Director John Brennan, show the behind the scenes maneuverings to publish the infamous letter which then-candidate Joe Biden used to deflect accusations against him stemming from the material found on his son’s laptop.

“Look, there are 50 former national intelligence folks who said that what he’s accusing me of is a Russian plan. They have said that this has all the characteristics – four, five former heads of the CIA, both parties, say what he’s saying is a bunch of garbage,” Biden said during the final debate abasing then-President Donald Trump.

The immediate political benefits of the open letter were far from coincidental, according to testimony from several signatories. Marc Polymeropoulos, a deputy to Morell when he served as director, testified to congressional investigators that Morell told him “the Biden world had asked for this.”

The pair began to organize signatories by sending the following statement to their contacts: “Marc and I drafted the attached because we believe the Russians were involved in some way in the Hunter Biden email issue and because we think Trump will attack Biden on the issue at this week's debate and we want to give the VP a talking point to use in response.”

The Biden campaign’s hand in the letter has already come out publicly after Morell testified in 2023 that a phone call from then-Biden campaign official Antony Blinken triggered the effort to draft it. But, these new transcripts show the extent of the signatories’ political motivations in the days following the media coverage of Hunter Biden’s laptop so close to the election. The effort closely followed the New York Post’s first October 2020 story which included emails from the infamous laptop indicating that then-Vice President Biden met with one of his son’s foreign associates, a Burisma advisor.

The Biden campaign, finding itself on the defensive after the Post’s story, were looking for a way out. This is where the former intelligence officials came in. The signatories’ testimony clearly shows a primary purpose of the letter was to give then-candidate Joe Biden political cover, especially ahead of the final debate with President Donald Trump.

Morell, who drafted the letter, told the committee his purpose was twofold, to warn Americans about the danger of Russian influence in the elections and to help Joe Biden politically.

“I think of it as two motivations. You know, one, let the American people know about what we saw as a deep suspicion of Russian involvement; and then, two, helping the Vice President,” Morell told Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan.

“You wanted to help the Vice President why?” Jordan asked.

“Because I wanted him to win the election,” Morell answered.

Morell also told investigators that he had no direct evidence that Russia was involved in the release of Hunter Biden laptop materials.

"So you had no direct evidence that Russia was involved in this matter at all, did you,” Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., asked.

“I did not,” Morell replied.

Just the News previously reported the FBI authenticated the contents of the device months before the 51 former intelligence officials wrote the letter. Since the publication, the contents of the Hunter Biden laptop have been repeatedly verified and admitted as evidence in court, specifically that documents contained on it were used to build a tax case against the younger Biden in California. Faced with this reality, Morell conceded the letter would have to be written differently if he were organizing it again.

“Would you organize such a letter today knowing what you know now?” Gaetz asked Morell.

“I would have to write it differently because we now know the emails are authentic, right? So you couldn't say anymore we don't know whether it's information or disinformation. But I still have suspicions about a Russian role in these emails getting to the New York Post,” Morell answered.

Upon the public revelation of the laptop abandoned at a repair shop by a drug-addled Hunter Biden, Biden-supporting media such as The New York Times and Washington Post denied the existence of the computer, and only published stories about it 17 months after the election.

You can read Morell and Polymeropoulos’s interview transcripts below:

Neither Morell nor Polymeropoulos responded to requests for comment from Just the News.

Morell was also a subject in a separate report released by the Judiciary Committee earlier this week. In that new report the CIA admitted that Morell and one other former employee were contractors of the agency during the time period when the letter was drafted, adding a new dimension to the case. 

“We knew that the rushed statement from the 51 former intelligence officials was a political maneuver between the Biden campaign and the intelligence community. Now with this interim report, we reveal how officials at the highest levels of the CIA were aware of the statement and CIA employees knew that several of the so-called former officials were on active contract with the CIA. The report underscores the risks posed by a weaponized federal government," Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan said in a statement.

Morell’s work as a CIA contractor raises further questions about how officials at the agency were involved in or knew about the letter. "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,” the report reads. 

Additionally, the report concludes then-CIA Director Gina Haspel and other high-ranking CIA officials “were made aware of the Hunter Biden statement prior to its approval and publication.” The board responsible for reviewing a approving the publication, the Prepublication Classification Review Board, forwarded the letter to the CIA’s chief operating officer, who told Congress he informed either Haspel or her deputy directly, according to testimony from one former official.

The Republican report concludes that the 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.”

You can read that report below:

Notably, some signatories have refused to answer questions about the letter and have even propelled their fortunes based on the letter. Retired General Michael Hayden, former Director of the CIA, former Director of the National Security Agency, and former Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence sits on the board of NewsGuard, a for-profit entity that sells purported "disinformation data" to publishers and researchers. Hayden has not admitted any error or regret in signing the letter.

Some fellow signatories defended their signing of the letter, saying though their lawyer that "It served as nothing more than a warning letter of what we have known for decades: certain foreign governments – including Russia – continue to try and actively interfere in our domestic affairs and our guard must remain vigilant. Every patriotic American should have signed that letter."

Despite the careful parsing, then-White House spokesperson Jen Psaki republished the statement that the laptop was a product of Russian disinformation and refused to retract, explain or clarify her statement. 

Former Director Brennan, whose security clearance was revoked by President Donald Trump in 2018 and  became a paid senior national security and intelligence analyst for NBC News and MSNBC, echoed Morell’s testimony in his interview with the committee, confirming that the signatories had no evidence that release of damaging information on Biden and his son were a Russian operation.

“And I stand by the statement that said we had no evidence, but we are raising our concerns and the suspicions that, in fact, it might be part of Russian information operations, either in the amplification of accurate information, the propagation or dissemination or whatever. Russian information operations is not limited only to disinformation,” Brennan said.

You can read Brennan’s transcript here:

However unlike Morell, Brennan insisted that he was not motivated by politics. He said that, even if others were motivated to sign the letter to help the former vice president in the election, he only wanted to bring attention to the “potential” for Russian interference in the election.

“That may have been the intent of the drafters of that email, even the drafters of the statement itself,” Brennan said of Morell’s reasoning. “But my intent, as I mentioned, I wanted to bring attention to the potential for Russian interference in the Presidential election once again, because I had firsthand knowledge of their interference in the 2016 Presidential election,” he added.