AOC: Republicans are “weaponizing this committee… talking about Hunter Biden’s ‘half-fake’ laptop story”
Democrat Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez calls out Republicans for investigating and talking about Hunter Biden’s laptop. Meanwhile, there was intel agents who knew the Hunter Biden laptop hard drive data was legit, but lied and still signed off on a document suggesting it was not. A letter suggesting the Hunter Biden laptop story could be part of a Russian disinformation operation was signed by 51 intelligence veterans, and one of them said that they knew the contents of the device were genuine at the time – but they still signed the letter anyway in what was obviously a big lie.
The letter was used to dismiss the laptop and put the story to rest, but politicians and people on social media would not ever let this story sit by the wayside and they continued to demand answers. It came out in the days leading up to the 2020 presidential election and many of the contents of which have since been analyzed and shown to be authentic.
“All of us figured that a significant portion of that content had to be real to make any Russian disinformation credible,” a former Defense Intelligence Agency deputy director, Douglas Wise, told The Australian in a new interview more than two years later.
The signees warned in the letter that the October 2020 arrival of reports about the laptop “has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.” Former CIA Director John Brennan and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper were also included among the signees, according to Daily Wire.
A headline by Politico said the former intelligence officials were claiming the story was “Russian disinfo.” Joe Biden, the father of Hunter, and a presidential candidate at the time, during one of his debates with then-President Donald Trump, used the letter to cast doubt on the laptop story – but then reports came out saying the contents of Hunter Biden’s laptop hard drive were in fact genuine.
Wise said that “the letter said it had the earmarks of Russian deceit and we should consider that as a possibility.” “It did not say Hunter Biden was a good guy, it didn’t say what he did was right and it wasn’t exculpatory, it was just a cautionary letter,” Wise explained. Wise does not regret signing the letter as he says, “because context is important,” while he also notes that the laptop’s “chain of custody” left open the possibility that “Russians or even ill-intended conservative elements could have planted stuff in there.”
The famous laptop contains details about Hunter Biden’s personal life and financial affairs, and it was allegedly abandoned at a Delaware computer repair shop before the FBI obtained it.
Right now, Hunter Biden is under federal investigation, which includes his foreign business dealings and tax affairs. Though, until after the 2020 election, the existence of that years-long inquiry was not revealed to the public. Before Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) became a speaker, he said that Republicans would subpoena the dozens of intelligence veterans who signed onto the letter in the new session of Congress.