House Republican calls on ‘The 51’ to be prosecuted for alleged Hunter Biden laptop cover-up
None of the 51 signatories expressed regret about signing the letter
By Michael Lee Fox News
Published July 7, 2024 1:04pm EDT
Rep. Claudia Tenney, R-N.Y., took aim at a group of intelligence officials responsible for signing a letter that sought to discredit the Hunter Biden laptop story on the eve of the 2020 election.
"The 51 should all be prosecuted for knowingly pushing a false statement," Tenney said in a post on X Sunday. "See 18 U.S.C. § 1001, it's a felony crime to: make a ‘false statement’ to an agent of the federal government related to a federal matter."
"The 51" in Tenney’s post refers to 51 former top intel officials who signed on to a letter claiming that the laptop at the center of a New York Post report just weeks before the 2020 election bore all the hallmarks of a Russian disinformation campaign, a document that was later used by President Biden to shrug off concerns over the device in a debate with former President Trump. It was later revealed that the laptop was real, even eventually being entered as evidence in Hunter Biden’s federal gun trial.
In the wake of that trial, Fox News Digital reached out to all 51 individuals who signed the October 2020 letter to ask if they regretted signing it after it was revealed to be authentic.
"No," former Obama Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said.
"This is very old news," Greg Treverton, a signatory who previously served as chair of the National Intelligence Council, told Fox News Digital. ‘"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."
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https://www.foxnews.com/politics/tenney-calls-the-51-prosecuted-alleged-hunter-biden-laptop-coverup
