Finally: A Former Intelligence Official Who Declined to Sign the Hunter Biden Laptop Letter
By Susie Moore | 6:30 PM on April 28, 2023
51 is an interesting number, isn’t it? It’s one shy of a deck of cards. It’s the mysterious “Area” where a top-secret U.S. military installation associated with UFOs is located. It’s exactly three times the number of intelligence agencies who confirmed Russia tried to interfere in the 2016 election. It’s a large number — an impressive one, even. And when 51 current and former intelligence officials sign and publicize a letter, it’s designed to get your attention and, undoubtedly, persuade you of the import of what is being said.
And so it did — for many Americans, the characterization of the Hunter Biden laptop emails as bearing “all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation” by dozens of intelligence officials (who surely could be trusted, right?) allowed them to confidently wave off the New York Post’s blockbuster story and the corroboration provided by Tony Bobulinski as not just false but likely the work of the Russians, thus making it virtually incumbent on them to reject it and vote accordingly.
But just as Hunter’s abandoned laptop eventually proved to be legit, recent testimony from former acting CIA Director Mike Morrell before the House Judiciary Committee highlighted a direct line between Joe Biden’s 2020 campaign and the letter’s genesis. (You don’t say?!)
Ever since Matt Taibbi and Michael Shellenberger testified before Congress in March, I’ve become a fan of Taibbi’s weekly podcast with Walter Kirn, “America This Week.” In last week’s episode, which arrived on the heels of the latest Morrell revelations, Taibbi and Kirn pondered the role of the famed 51, remarked on the fact that the entire endeavor was neatly put together and publicized in a matter of days (leaving virtually no time for any investigation into the material on the laptop), and noted that rather than holding intelligence officials up as authorities, we ought rightly be suspect of their messaging, given that it’s literally their job not to tell the truth. If I recall correctly, they also questioned whether there were other intelligence officials who didn’t sign the letter (given that so stinkin’ many did).
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https://redstate.com/smoosieq/2023/04/28/finally-a-former-intelligence-official-who-declined-to-sign-the-hunter-biden-laptop-letter-n738367
