In 2020, prior to the November presidential election, agencies of the federal government launched a coordinated effort to fight “disinformation.” This project quickly morphed into a campaign of social media censorship aimed overwhelmingly at Republicans and prominent conservatives. One group that entirely escaped reprimand for its own spreading of disinformation was the 51 former Intelligence Community officials who claimed, without evidence, that the now-infamous Hunter Biden laptop was almost certainly a Russian ruse.
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Now, the America First Legal Foundation (AFL) has filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission (FEC), claiming that “coordinated expenditures” relating to the letter signed by these 51 officials constituted in-kind campaign donations that were not disclosed by Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign and other associated entities.
Named in the complaint are the Biden campaign, the Democratic National Committee, and two joint fundraising committees, the Biden Victory Fund, and the Biden Action Fund. The AFL filing alleges:
“As detailed herein, the evidence suggests that the Respondents failed to disclose coordinated expenditures constituting in-kind donations with respect to the infamous ‘Letter of 51’ former intelligence officials claiming that the Hunter Biden laptop story had ‘all the classic earmarks’ of Russian disinformation.”
It further states, “There are reasons to believe that the public statement by 51 former intelligence officials was a coordinated political operation to help elect Vice President Biden in the 2020 presidential election…” There certainly is compelling – perhaps indisputable – evidence that this was indeed the case.
Working Together to Kill the Hunter Biden Laptop Story
Former CIA Deputy Director Michael Morell, who drafted the letter discrediting the Hunter Biden laptop story, testified before Congress that there were two intents behind the crafting of this joint statement. One intent was to make the American people understand that Russia was attempting to meddle in US elections. The other, to quote Morell verbatim, was “to help Vice President Biden.” When pressed on why he wished to help the man running against then-President Donald Trump, Morell responded, “Because I wanted him to win the election.”
How does this involve Joe Biden’s campaign for the White House? Secretary of State Antony Blinken was, at the time, a senior advisor to the Biden campaign. It was he who reached out to Morell about the Hunter Biden laptop after the New York Post first broke the story. Morell also testified that the Biden campaign “helped to strategize about the public release of the statement.” The statement referred to, here, is the letter drafted by Morell just days after Blinken approached him and signed by former officials from agencies such as CIA, NSA, and the Defense Intelligence Agency.
Further, the FEC complaint lists multiple communications between Morell and the Biden campaign as the left-wing establishment media sprang into action to discredit the New York Post article, which earned the paper a temporary Twitter ban.
Essentially, to borrow from the “letter of 51,” the entire coordinated operation to sideline the Hunter Biden laptop story bore all the classic earmarks of a Democratic Party information operation. The most prominent signatories to the letter are well known Trump-haters like Jim Clapper, who served as director of national intelligence in the Obama administration and resigned during the transition to the Trump administration. Another was John Brennan, who has been one of the most vocal and vicious Trump critics. Still another was former CIA Director Leon Panetta, a long-time Democratic operative who served as Bill Clinton’s chief of staff and Obama’s secretary of defense. He still has no regrets about putting his name on an unfounded statement irresponsibly foisted on the American people as if it were verified fact.
When, after the 2020 election, one left-wing media outlet after another verified the Hunter Biden laptop and its incriminating contents, most Americans polled on the issue believed that knowledge of the scandal would have changed the outcome of the White House contest. Ironic, then, that people within the federal government were concerned that “disinformation” spread by Republicans and conservatives might influence the election. In the end, it appears very likely that disinformation spread by former federal government officials and a Democrat candidate’s campaign really did influence the voters’ choice.
