Several former intelligence officials who signed the now-notorious letter dismissing a bombshell report on a laptop belonging to the son of President Joe Biden as “Russian disinformation” are going to serve on a new advisory group created by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Tuesday announced the establishment of the Homeland Intelligence Experts Group, which is tasked with meeting four times a year to provide the agency with input on some of the “most complex problems and challenges,” including terrorism, fentanyl, “transborder issues,” and new technology.
The group includes former senior intelligence officials, journalists, and “prominent human rights and civil liberties advocates,” according to Mr. Mayorkas. Some of them are known for attempting to discredit the New York Post’s Hunter Biden laptop stories in a public letter in the weeks leading to the 2020 presidential election.
The letter was written on Oct. 19, 2020, just five days after the Post published its first story on emails, photos, and videos found on a laptop Hunter Biden had abandoned at a repair shop in Delaware. In the letter, 51 former intelligence officials claimed this story “has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.”
“If we are right, this is Russia trying to influence how Americans vote in this election, and we believe strongly that Americans need to be aware of this,” the signers wrote.
Mainstream media reports of the letter were picked up by many prominent Democrats in response to questions raised from the exposé. Then-Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden also cited the letter during a debate against his opponent, incumbent Republican President Donald Trump, accusing him of spreading false information planted by the Russian government.
“There are 50 former national intelligence folks who said that what he’s accusing me of is a Russian plant,” he said. “Five former heads of the CIA, both parties, say what he’s saying is a bunch of garbage. Nobody believes it except his good friend Rudy Giuliani.”
The letter’s credibility has since crumbled, especially after former CIA acting Director Mike Morell testified to Congress that then-Biden campaign adviser Antony Blinken, who is now secretary of state, “triggered” him to organize it in a bid to “help Vice President Biden in the debate.”
By Bill Pan
