News/Commentary

Brennan testifies privately on Hunter Biden laptop letter, ‘confirmed that this thing was all political’

May 12, 2023 | | Print Article

Former CIA Director John Brennan was hauled in front of the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government on Thursday to testify concerning the Hunter Biden laptop letter that 51 intelligence officials signed falsely claiming it was Russian disinformation.

(Video Credit: Fox News)

“[Brennan] sat for a four-hour interview and he further confirmed that this thing was all political,” House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), who leads the subcommittee, asserted on “Jesse Watters Primetime.”

A member of the panel, Rep. Kat Cammack (R-Fla.), told Fox News that the subcommittee is still in the “fact-finding phase” of its investigation. But she asserts that the letter and where it originated from indicates that federal agencies were weaponized to help Joe Biden get elected in the 2020 presidential election.

“These depositions, they can be lengthy and there’s a ton of discovery to sift through,” Cammack told host Martha MacCallum concerning the testimony.

“But what we’re really getting at is painting an irrefutable picture that the intelligence community — along with the law enforcement agencies, the DOJ, and others, at the highest levels — have been working to weaponize their agencies against the American people and certainly for political gain.”

(Video Credit: via Congresswoman Kat Cammack)

“What we saw was at the behest of the Biden administration, then [Biden campaign adviser] Blinken, now Secretary of State Blinken, was coordinating with Brennan and [former Director of National Intelligence James] Clapper and others to get signatories on this letter through the pre-publication classification review board, actually soliciting members of the [intelligence community] to say, ‘Oh, we deem this to be Russia misinformation,’” Cammack commented on Fox News.

“To me, that is absolutely crazy. If that’s not weaponization of our federal government, I don’t know what is,” she contended.

Brennan was one of the intelligence officials who signed the letter in October 2020. It asserted that Hunter Biden’s overseas business affairs via his laptop had “all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.”

Jordan revealed in April that former CIA Acting Director Michael Morell testified that he drafted the letter and that Secretary of State Antony Blinken was the moving force behind the attempt to discredit the New York Post’s reporting on the laptop.

An email dated Oct. 19, 2020, from Morell to Brennan indicates that Morell was trying to provide Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign “a talking point” to “push back on Trump” during the final presidential debate as he urged Brennan to sign the letter.

Brennan evidently didn’t need much convincing and was all-in for adding his name to the letter, replying to Morell, “Ok, Michael, add my name to the list. Good initiative. Thanks for asking me to sign on.”

The same day that email was sent, Morell reportedly told the CIA’s Prepublication Classification Review Board (PCRB) that he needed the letter approved as a “rush job.” An employee who worked for the board asked former CIA analyst David Cariens to sign the disinformation letter, according to a written statement by Cariens given to the weaponization panel.

The panel reportedly approved the letter in just 5.5 hours. It added a disclaimer that its approval did not mean it was verification of its claims. When Morell mocked up the letter, he did not include that disclaimer.

At the time that Morell drafted the letter, he was hoping to be considered as the new head of the CIA if Biden was elected. Biden picked William Burns instead.

Jordan claims the panel plans to invite Obama-era Director of National Intelligence James Clapper in for questioning next week, according to Fox News.

Get the latest BPR news delivered free to your inbox daily. SIGN UP HERE

Latest posts by Terresa Monroe-Hamilton (see all)

Comment

We have no tolerance for comments containing violence, racism, profanity, vulgarity, doxing, or discourteous behavior. If a comment is spam, instead of replying to it please click the ∨ icon below and to the right of that comment. Thank you for partnering with us to maintain fruitful conversation.

Latest Articles