Trump Lawyers Demand Intelligence Agencies Punish Ex-Employees Who Claimed Russians Were Behind Hunter Biden Laptop

Hunter Biden, son of U.S. President Joe Biden, attends an event at the White House in Washington on April 18, 2022. Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Former employees at the CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies who claimed that stories about emails on a computer belonging to then-presidential candidate Joe Biden’s son were part of a Russian scheme should be punished, lawyers for former President Donald Trump said.

Top officials at the CIA, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), the National Security Agency (NSA), and the Department of Defense (DoD) were urged in letters on May 18 reviewed by The Epoch Times to take action against the former employees, with Trump lawyers saying the employees “changed the outcome of the election through knowingly flagrant misconduct.”

James Clapper, a former director of national intelligence; Mike Hayden, a former director of the CIA, and Nick Rasmussen, former director of the National Counterterrorism Center, were among those who signed the letter about Hunter Biden’s laptop, which was dated Oct. 19, 2020.

The missive was sent to Politico, which portrayed it as dozens of former intelligence officials calling stories about the emails on the computer “Russian disinformation,” although the letter itself used slightly different language, saying the release of the emails “has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.”

Because of the positions the letter signatories held, they had to seek prepublication review from the agencies they worked for, Timothy Parlatore, a lawyer representing Trump, told the agencies in the new letters.

“It is our belief, based in part on the speed and timeliness of publication and in part on the lack of the required disclaimer, that not one of these NSA employees complied with their legal obligations,” he told Gen. Paul Nakasone, head of the NSA, in one of the letters. “Yet, despite this grave interference in our American democratic process, it still appears that no investigative or corrective action was taken against any of them.”

Parlatore and his colleagues urged the agencies “to proceed immediately with legal action to enforce the interests of the United States of America in ensuring that such breaches of vital security provisions do not continue to go unchecked.”

The NSA declined to comment. The other agencies didn’t respond to requests by The Epoch Times for comment.

The letter to the CIA was first reported by Just the News.

While no evidence has emerged that supports the supposition that Russians were behind the release of the Hunter Biden emails, some of the former officials who signed the letter have defended their actions.

Russ Travers, a former National Counterterrorism Center acting director who signed the letter, told the New York Post that “we were concerned about Russian disinformation efforts” and “I considered the cautionary warning to be prudent.”

“I have not seen any information since then that would alter the decision behind signing the letter,” Emile Nakhleh, a former CIA official, added.

Parlatore pointed to polls that indicate a significant portion, as many as 17 percent, of Biden voters wouldn’t have voted for him if they knew about the emails when they voted.

John Sipher, a former senior operations officer at the CIA and another signatory, drew attention in March for saying he felt “pretty good” about influencing the election.