The lawsuit seeks CIA records regarding the “rush order” review of Hunter Biden’s laptop disinformation letter
A surveillance group said Thursday it was suing on CIA data that could shed light on the process by which the agency “declassified” a letter that falsely claimed emails from Hunter Biden’s laptop were Russian disinformation.
Judicial Watch, which filed the Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, is demanding all records and communications from the spy agency’s Prepublication Classification Review Board regarding an October 19, 2020 email inquiry made by former CIA Acting Director Mike Morell became.
Morell wrote to the agency, asking the review board to “declassify” a letter he authored and signed by 51 former intelligence officials, in which he described the Post’s bombastic Hunter Biden laptop story as “all the signs of a Russian disinformation campaign.”
“In October 2020, in the run-up to the presidential election, the New York Post reported that Hunter Biden’s laptop, which was left at a Delaware computer store, contained embarrassing and potentially incriminating information about the Biden family.
“In a May 10, 2023 report, the House Judiciary Committee revealed that on October 19, 2020, three days before the second presidential debate between President Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden, then-acting CIA Director Michael Morell told the PCRB the Final version submitted “I submitted the letter for review, labeled it ‘rush order’ and quickly received approval,” according to Judicial Watch noted in an opinion announces the lawsuit.
The group added that it filed the lawsuit after the CIA failed to respond to a May 11 FOIA request for the same filings, including “emails, email chains, email attachments, text messages , telegrams, voice recordings, correspondence, statements”. , letter, memorandum, report, presentation, memo or other form of record,” in reference to Morell’s email inquiry to the agency.
In an affidavit, Morell told the House Judiciary Committee that Antony Blinken — a former Biden campaign official and current secretary of state — inspired the drafting of the letter after reaching out to him “on or before” Oct. 17, 2020 days after the Post published an email from the laptop that suggested Hunter had introduced his Ukrainian business partner to his father, then-Vice President Biden.
Morell, identified as a potential CIA director under Biden, said he organized the letter to “help Vice President Biden … because I wanted him to win the election.”
The former acting spy chief later told his co-signer, John Brennan, former CIA director, that he planned to release the letter ahead of Biden’s Oct. 22, 2020 presidential debate against Donald Trump: “I’m trying to support the campaign, particularly during the debate… a to allow discussion.” Point to push Trump back.”
“The Deep State CIA appears to have engaged in election interference and a political operation against the American people to aid Joe Biden and harm Trump,” Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, said in a statement.
“And now the CIA is ignoring the FOIA law to cover up their role in the scandal by censoring and suppressing the Hunter Biden/Joe Biden laptop story just before the presidential election,” he added.
Politico published a report on the letter the same day that Morell’s email exchange with Brennan took place, and during Joe Biden’s debate against Trump on Oct. 22, 2020, he used it to ward off allegations of his involvement in foreign influence schemes he claimed , the Post reported on “a Russian plant”.
Laura Dehmlow, executive director of the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force, recalled in a closed testimony before the House Judiciary Committee that the FBI told Twitter that same day that Hunter Biden’s laptop was legitimate. The Post published the first article in an explosive reporting series.
Several news outlets have since confirmed the authenticity of the data The Post discovered on Hunter Biden’s laptop.
