“Trying to give the campaign, particularly during the debate on Thursday, a talking point to push back on Trump on this issue,” Michael Morell, a former top official at the spy agency, wrote in one of the emails on Oct. 19, 2020.
Morell was writing to John Brennan, another former CIA director, to ask if Brennan would add his name to the letter.
“Add my name to the list. Good initiative. Thanks for asking me to sign on,” Brennan replied.
Morell began collecting signatures after messages from senior Biden campaign officials, including current Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Andrew Bates, the current White House deputy press secretary. Blinken’s call “triggered” the letter, Morell said in a transcribed interview. Bates sent a news article that cited Michael Carpenter, a former State Department official who heads the Penn Biden Center, as claiming that the Post story was “a Russian disinformation operation.”
Neither Carpenter nor the letter provided proof backing the claims. Morell said in one message to Marc Polymeropoulos, a retired CIA officer who drafted the letter, that it “kinda feels” like the Russians were involved.
John Paul Mac Isaac, a Delaware computer store owner, has said that Hunter Biden dropped the computer off at his shop and has released documents showing that the FBI sought the files as well as Hunter Biden’s signature on a paper. Many media outlets have said that they’ve authenticated the computer and its contents.
John Ratcliffe, director of national intelligence at the time, said publicly that “Hunter Biden’s laptop is not part of some Russian disinformation campaign.”
After Polymeropoulos drafted the letter, Morell edited it, the former CIA director said. Initial plans were to publish an op-ed, but it morphed into the letter, Polymeropoulos told House investigators.
“I don’t recall how it morphed from what I thought was an op-ed into a letter. He did mention to me that someone in the kind of Biden world had asked about doing this,” he said.
Morell told the House panel that he investigated the Post story by reading it and then carrying out some searches on the internet. He said he didn’t talk to any people as part of that investigation.
“There were two intentions here, right? One was to make clear to the American people that the Russians were interfering in the election, and the other was to help Vice President Biden in the debate,” he said.
“I wanted to help him win the election.”
In a different email, to former CIA officer Kristin Wood, Morell said he had “control of the document.”
“The more former intelligence officers the better,” Morell wrote. “Campaign will be thrilled.”
Trump brought up the “laptop from hell” during the debate in October 2020. Biden countered by referencing the letter.
“There are 50 former national intelligence folks who said ... five former heads of the CIA, both parties, say what he’s saying is a bunch of garbage,” Biden said.
He didn’t mention his campaign’s involvement.
“The CIA was using leverage over its former employees to coerce them into signing the very letter tech and media companies used to censor the corruption stories erupting from Hunter’s laptop,” Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), a member of the House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, which produced the new report, told The Epoch Times via email.
“The CIA wasn’t satisfied altering the outcomes of elections abroad. They brought that ambition home. They stole the 2020 election from Trump.”
The CIA hasn’t responded to requests for comment.
In addition to Morell, Shapiro, and Wood, a number of other former CIA officers signed onto the letter, including John Tullius, David Vanell, Peter Corsell, and David Cariens.
The officials were contacted by Morell, Polymeropoulos, and Wood.
Daniel Hoffman, a former CIA officer, was among those who were contacted but chose to not sign.
“There was no evidence,” Hoffman said on Fox News. “And I just felt like we needed to do the forensics.
Morell also communicated with Shapiro, who was tasked with getting the letter to the media.
In one message, Morell said it should be made clear that “we are not making a call on whether the materials are true or not, just that Moscow played a role in getting the information out.”
“We do not have evidence of Russian involvement—just that our experience makes us deeply suspicious that the Russian government played a significant role in this case,” the letter reads.
If reporters were wondering why Morell was involved, they were to be told that he was “struck by the fact that” in talking to people outside of the government “that all of them thought Russia is involved here.”
“Michael thought people should know that,” Morell wrote.
