In October 2020, 51 former intelligence officials signed on to a public letter that stated that the appearance of the Hunter Biden laptop story on the political scene had “all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.” Though the former officials acknowledged in their public letter that they did “not have evidence of Russian involvement,” Republicans have argued that the letter helped discredit the laptop story just before the election.
Enter Jim Jordan’s Judiciary Committee
House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan and Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Turner now accuse Antony Blinken, who was not a government official at the time but an adviser for the Biden 2020 campaign, of contacting Mike Morell to orchestrate the letter signed by the 51 former intelligence officials. Morell is a former deputy director for the CIA and one of the former intelligence officials who signed the public letter.
Michael Morell
The committee chairs write: “Morell testified that on or around October 17, 2020, you [Blinken] reached out to him to discuss the Hunter Biden laptop story. At the time you served as a senior advisor to the Biden campaign. According to Morell, although your outreach was couched as simply gathering Morell’s reaction to the [New York] Post story, it set in motion the events that led to the issuance of the public statement.”
Democratic members on the committee have pointed out the GOP’s cherry-picked statements in the transcript in order to manufacture an accusation against Secretary of State Blinken.
“Jim Jordan has released cherry-picked excerpts of a transcribed interview,” a Democratic Judiciary committee spokesman said in a statement. “To be clear, no part of that interview demonstrates that Tony Blinken or any other Biden campaign official asked Mike Morell to write a letter about Hunter Biden’s laptop.”
From the transcript:
CNN