None of the signatories of the controversial spy letter, which branded the reporting on Hunter Biden’s laptop as “Russian disinformation” prior to the 2020 election, have retracted their claims, according to a report.
FBI agent Erika Jensen, a witness in Hunter’s gun trial, testified last week that the laptop was legitimate and had not been tampered with. Jensen’s testimony dismissed assertions that the laptop’s data had been hacked or manipulated or was part of a Russian disinformation campaign intended to aid former President Donald Trump’s 2020 election bid.
Soon after Emma-Jo Morris, formerly of the New York Post, first reported on the Hunter Biden laptop story in October 2020, CNN reporter Natasha Bertrand wrote a Politico article citing “dozens of former intel officials” to propagate a false narrative about the origins of the laptop.
President Joe Biden referenced this story during a presidential debate with Trump to undermine the laptop’s contents. The story was reportedly planted by Secretary of State Antony Blinken for Biden’s use during the debate.
After more than 500 days, CNN and many in the media, who had largely accepted the Politico story as true, finally acknowledged it was false.
Despite this, many of the 51 former intelligence officials remain unwilling to admit the story was erroneous.
“No,” former Obama Director of National Intelligence James Clapper told Fox News when questioned about regretting his decision to sign the letter following the FBI agent’s testimony.
Ronald Marks, Marc Polymeropoulos, Douglas Wise, Paul Kolbe, John Sipher, Emile Nakhleh, and Gerald O’Shea continue to assert it was “patriotic” to sign it.
“There continues to be by many a calculated or woefully ignorant interpretation of the October 2020 letter signed by fifty-one former intelligence officials concerning Hunter Biden’s laptop,” their lawyer told Fox News:
A careful and objective reading of the document reflects that even today its content is accurate. It served as nothing more than a warning letter of what we have known for decades: certain foreign governments – including Russia – continue to try and actively interfere in our domestic affairs and our guard must remain vigilant. Every patriotic American should have signed that letter.
Greg Treverton, the former chair of the National Intelligence Council, expressed no regret in a statement to Fox News.
“This is very old news,” he stated. “What we said was true, we were inferring from our experience, and it did look like a Russian operation. We didn’t, and couldn’t of course say it was a Russian operation. Enough said.”
Russ Travers, the former National Counterterrorism Center director, told Fox News the scandal was “addressed… several years ago.”
