A former senior intelligence community official under President Barack Obama reported concerns earlier this year that the Hunter Biden laptop letter signed by 51 former intelligence officials in 2020 bore characteristics “consistent with coordinated intelligence deception operations,” according to a memo the ex-official submitted to the intelligence community inspector general.

The concerns have now been referred to the Justice Department, a remarkable turnabout for a letter that was used six years ago to censor factually based concerns about Biden family corruption.  

The October 2020 open letter–released as voters were making final decisions about whether to reelect Trump or elect Democrat Joe Biden–was signed by ex-intelligence officials including former National Intelligence Director James Clapper, former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and former CIA Director John Brennan. 

Thomas Kuhns, the former official who submitted the memo recently to the Intelligence Community Inspector General, was a Senior Intelligence Officer and former advisor to the Deputy Director of National Intelligence during the Obama administration.

Kuhns told the inspector general that most of his career in government centered on maintaining the Intelligence Community’s analytic and integrity standards. 

"Not a political statement"

“​​This assessment is not a political statement. It is based on the research and analysis of testified behavior, language choices, omissions, coordination, and effects attributable to intelligence tradecraft,” Kuhns wrote in a memo to the ICIG hotline, which was obtained by Just the News.

You can read the memo below: 

Pro-Biden advocates warned that the public reporting on the contents of Hunter Biden’s personal laptop bore the “hallmarks of a Russian information operation.” Then-candidate Joe Biden used the letter to fend off public criticism about his son’s overseas business dealings, drug use, and alleged influence peddling.  

“This analysis is grounded in my expertise applying analytic integrity standards and intelligence tradecraft to evaluate raw and finished intelligence assessments/judgements. Those standards provide a framework to identify politicization, bias, and analytic weaknesses, as well as to identify whether intelligence tradecraft itself has been misapplied or misused,” he continued. 

Inspector General referred the complaint to the Department of Justice   

Ultimately, by “applying this framework,” Kuhns concluded that “the planning, drafting, and dissemination” of the Hunter Biden laptop letter signed by 51 former intelligence officials “exhibit characteristics consistent with coordinated intelligence deception operations and tradecraft [...]" according to the memo. 

According to a notification sent to Kuhns on Thursday, the Intelligence Community Inspector General (ICIG) referred the complaint to the Department of Justice's Inspector General.

The office of the Intelligence Community Inspector General declined to directly address Kuhns' case, citing whistleblower protections. But it told Just the News it sometimes refers matters to other agencies for investigation when legitimate concerns are raised.

"IC OIG routinely receives information concerning matters that may implicate multiple Intelligence Community elements, other federal departments or agencies, or potential law enforcement interests," it said. "Consistent with our deconfliction requirements and ordinary practice, IC OIG may share, coordinate, or refer information to appropriate oversight and law enforcement partners for their review, awareness, or action, as warranted.

"The receipt, assessment, sharing, or referral of information should not be understood to confirm that IC OIG has opened, is conducting, or will conduct any particular investigation," it added. "IC OIG may conduct oversight or investigative activity independently, jointly, in coordination with other authorized entities, or not at all, at any time, depending on the facts, jurisdiction, equities, and applicable legal requirements."

Kuhns submitted his concerns to the ICIG in February, arguing the matter “warrants a standards-based review to assess whether the conduct constituted a deception operation involving trained US intelligence professionals targeting the American People.” 

According to the memo, Kuhns conducted a line-by-line analysis of the open letter, which he says revealed “heavy use of deception tradecraft” including the signatories status as trained intelligence actors, the apparent extensive coordination ahead of publication, relying on selective information and omission of facts, and invoking their personal authority. 

One of the biggest concerns Kuhns identified with the process of drafting the letter is that none of the officials who signed on appeared to seek confirmation from the FBI, despite the fact that the laptop had been in the agency’s possession since 2019. 

Several authors held active security clearances at the time and chose not to seek confirmation. All the authors have a large social and professional network that includes former and current FBI professionals; no one asked,” Kuhns wrote. “The primary author, former Director of CIA Analysis Michael Morell, did not request classified or unclassified confirmation from the responsible authority.” 

Morell and his associates were previously interviewed by the House Judiciary Committee in 2024 for his role as the primary author of the letter. 

The transcripts, which include interviews with Morell, one of his key former deputies Marc Polymeropoulos, and former CIA Director John Brennan, showed that the letter drafters were motivated by politics while freely admitting they had no hard evidence for the claims, Just the News previously reported. 

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.” 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. 

“You wanted to help the Vice President. Why?” House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, asked the ex-director. 

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

Morell had also testified the prior year that a phone call from then-Biden campaign official Antony Blinken triggered the effort to draft it, suggesting the Biden campaign was intimately involved with spurring the letter the candidate would later use to fend off attacks. 

Letter created in wake of Biden/Burisma reporting

The effort to craft the letter closely followed the blockbuster report from The New York Post in October 2020 showing how Hunter Biden introduced his father to his Ukrainian business partner, a senior executive at Burisma Holdings. Joe Biden was vice president at the time. 

Hunter Biden’s tenure at Burisma has come under scrutiny for years from the media and Congress over allegations that he used his influence with his father to assist Burisma in escaping a corruption investigation in Ukraine. 

For example, Hunter Biden’s U.S. law firm drafted a 58-page plan in 2014 to extricate the controversial energy company from an ongoing criminal investigation in Ukraine that relied heavily on trying to influence Hunter Biden’s father and the Obama administration in Washington, Just the News previously reported. 

Biden’s efforts to exploit his father’s position in Washington to help Burisma have been extensively documented by Just the News and other media. There is even reporting that then-Vice President Biden “called an audible” and changed official U.S. government policy on firing the lead Ukrainian prosecutor that was investigating Burisma, where his son served on the board.