According to a second interim report from the House Judiciary, CIA contractors colluded with the Biden campaign to mislead American voters before the 2020 election. Members of the Judiciary Committee now have more emails and sworn testimony to support the claim that the October 19, 2020, public statement from 51 former intelligence officials was a "blatant political operation from the start." The statement was a written response to an October 14, 2020, explosive article published by the New York Post concerning "secret emails" found on Hunter Biden's laptop.
The referenced emails disproved Joe Biden's statements about his involvement in his son's business dealings in Ukraine. The statement came at a volatile time in the election cycle, with a heightened ability to influence public opinion. Using the titles of the former intelligence officials would make it seem more credibly correct that the Hunter Biden laptop was "Russian disinformation."
Ironically, the 51 members claimed they had no access to classified information on Hunter Biden's emails. Instead, they stated in the letter that it was '[their] experience" that "[made] them deeply suspicious that the Russian government played a significant role in this case." According to the report:
"Each signatory interviewed sought to assure the Committees that they had no access to classified information about the New York Post story or the contents of Hunter Biden's laptop. Even still, the use of their official titles and security credentials could be read to suggest access to classified information unavailable to everyday Americans. In his interview before the Committees, Makridis testified that the Hunter Biden statement's claims could appear more legitimate to the average American because the signatories used their former intelligence titles."
Then Chief Operating Officer (COO) of the CIA, Andrew Makridis, told members of the Judiciary it was "possible" the official statement would influence the average citizen:
The report reveals that Antony Blinken, a top Biden campaign official at the time, made a critical call about breaking news articles focused on the secret emails to former Deputy Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director Michael Morrell. In his sworn testimony to the House Judiciary Committee in the Spring of 2023, Morrell admitted Blinken's phone call prompted him to coordinate the intelligence community (IC) statement to help Joe Biden win the election.
In an October 19 email, Morrell asked recipients (redacted) to sign and "rush" the letter out to the public. Morrell and former CIA intelligence officer Mark Polymeropoulos wrote the statement.
The CIA "at its highest levels" was aware of the statement on Hunter Biden before its approval and publication, including then CIA Director Gina Haspel. The CIA also alerted the Office of the Director of National Intelligence about the draft of the statement. It seems no effort was made to properly vet or "slow down the CIA's process for reviewing" the statement at the time. The entire process from draft to publication took place in a "mere six-hour time period," according to the report.
On the same day that ODNI cleared the letter for publication, then-Director John Ratcliffe officially rejected the notion that the laptop story was a part of some Russian disinformation campaign. Ratcliffe stated on Fox News that "the intelligence community doesn't believe that because there is no intelligence that supports that." Ratcliffe would have had access to all the information possessed by the intelligence community at the time.
One of the newer revelations in the second interim report is that some of the statement's signatories were "on active contract with the CIA" at the time of publication. The 51 signatories claimed "to not have had access to any classified information" while asserting the emails "had all the hallmarks of Russian disinformation." According to the report, Morrell and former CIA Inspector General David Buckley were on the CIA's payroll at the time of publication.
The CIA purposely declined to declassify the "entire universe of signatories," and some of the signatories had special Green Card access at the time—access that allowed employees to enter secure CIA facilities.
Some CIA employees expressed concern over the politicized nature of the content, including criticism of Polymeropoulos's involvement in drafting the letter. According to the report, one employee stated, "It appears [Polymeropoulos] is actively involved in a pro-Biden campaign and may be disclosing classified information in his efforts." The CIA's internal review board—the Prepublication Classification Review Board (PCRB)—"determined that Polymeropoulos's talking points contained classified information that had to be removed prior to publication."
Oddly, PCRB never questioned that several individuals who signed the letter were on active contracts with the CIA. Makridis testified that it is inappropriate for a "currently serving staff officer or contractor" to be involved in a "political process."
The IC letter was published before the upcoming campaign debate between candidates Trump and Biden. One of the emails featured in the report shows that the IC letter was "meant to insulate Vice President Biden," and another, written on October 18, 2020, stated a wish to give Biden "a talking point" in the upcoming debate with Trump. Morrell states that he and Marc drafted the statement because they believed the Russians were involved, and "we think Trump will attack Biden on the issue at this week's debate, and we want to give the VP a talking point to use in response."
According to the report, the process of vetting and publishing the letter went against standards of "analytic objectivity and sound intelligence tradecraft." Multiple individuals in the IC community had an opportunity "to raise concern about how a politicized Hunter Biden statement would hurt the integrity and credibility of the U.S. intelligence community." Instead, it was approved at all levels and served to "influence the public discourse" weeks before the 2020 election.
