Ohio Congressman and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan is dialing the heat up to 11 on the 51 U.S. intelligence “serivce” veterans who, during the final days of the 2020 election, signed a letter in which they suggested that the Hunter Biden laptop story was a Russian disinformation scheme. In that letter, they said:
It is for all these reasons that we write to say that the arrival on the US political scene of emails purportedly belonging to Vice President Biden’s son Hunter, much of it related to his time serving on the Board of the Ukrainian gas company Burisma, has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.
We want to emphasize that we do not know if the emails, provided to the New York Post by
President Trump’s personal aSorney Rudy Giuliani, are genuine or not and that 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.If we are right, this is Russia trying to influence how Americans vote in this elec8on, and we
believe strongly that Americans need to be aware of this.
Well, now Rep. Jordan is sending a letter of his own to those very people. He and House Intelligence Committee Chairman Michael Turner, also a Republican from Ohio, sent letters to 12 of the former intelligence officials involved in the letter about Hunter’s laptop, namely former CIA Director John Brennan and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper.
In the letters, obtained by the Daily Wire, they demanded the officials provide the relevant documents to them regarding the letter and demanded that the officials “comply in full” with their requests for information. The Daily Wire, reporting on that, said:
In the correspondence obtained by The Daily Wire, the lawmakers said a request for relevant documents and testimony from the House Judiciary Committee in April 2022, when Jordan was ranking member of the panel, did not receive full compliance. “As we begin the 118th Congress, we write again to reiterate our outstanding request and ask that you immediately comply in full,” the lawmakers wrote, alluding to the fact that Republicans are now in control of the House.
The other recipients of letters on Monday were Rick Ledgett, John McLaughlin, Michael Morell, Nicholas Rasmussen, Russell Travers, Michael Vickers, Nick Shapiro, Jeremy Bash, Thomas Fingar, and Michael Hayden. Many of them held high-level positions in the CIA while others were high-ranking officials in other parts of the U.S. intelligence community.
The letters make no mention of subpoenas, but Jordan has shown a willingness to use the tool. Last week, Jordan issued his first round of subpoenas as chairman to top Biden administration officials seeking documents related to local school board meetings.
Tweeting about the move, the House Judiciary Committee Twitter account posted:
#BREAKING: @Jim_Jordan and @RepMikeTurner send letters to 12 ex-intelligence officials who called Hunter Biden laptop “disinformation,” including former CIA Director John Brennan and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper.
The letter is particularly relevant given both the Biden family’s China connections being in the news thanks to the Chinese balloon and the admission of one of the intelligence officers involved in the laptop letter that he and others “knew [Hunter’s laptop] had to be real” when they signed the letter. As we reported on that:
Such came out when former Defense Intelligence Agency deputy director Douglas Wise told The Australian, “all of us figured that a significant portion of that content had to be real to make any Russian disinformation credible.”
Wise did also try to defend the letter, however, saying “The letter said it had the earmarks of Russian deceit and we should consider that as a possibility. It did not say Hunter Biden was a good guy, it didn’t say what he did was right and it wasn’t exculpatory, it was just a cautionary letter.”
Wise also defended signing the letter, saying that he does not regret signing it “because context is important”. He also claimed that the laptop’s “chain of custody” left open the possibility that “Russians or even ill-intended conservative elements could have planted stuff in there.”
By: Will Tanner. Follow me on Twitter @Will_Tanner_1
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