Two former intelligence officials whom Mike Morell had name-dropped as potentially supporting a letter designed to discredit stories on Hunter Biden's abandoned laptop told the Washington Examiner they had no involvement in the political effort by the former spy chief.
Morell, a former acting CIA director under President Barack Obama, sent an Oct. 19, 2020, early morning email to John Brennan, the final CIA director under Obama, seeking to convince him to add his name to the growing list of signatories to the Hunter Biden laptop letter, which baselessly claimed Russian involvement with the New York Post stories about President Joe Biden’s son’s business dealings in Ukraine and China.
FOUR SENATE RACES ID'ED BY MCCONNELL THAT COULD GIVE GOP CONTROL IN 2024
A total of 51 ex-intelligence officials quickly signed the laptop letter, which contributed to the unfounded narrative that the Hunter Biden laptop stories were nothing but a product of Russian disinformation — a talking point happily seized upon by Joe Biden’s 2020 campaign and spread by some of the laptop letter signers.
But two of the intelligence officials whom Morell told Brennan either would be signing the letter or that he was working on getting to sign it both suggested to the Washington Examiner that Morell may have misled Brennan when touting their names in the recruitment email to him.
Morell told Brennan that he “will be adding … today” six names to the list, including “Leon” (a likely reference to Obama CIA and Pentagon leader Leon Panetta, who did sign) and “George” (a likely reference to former national intelligence officer Roger Zane George, who also signed the letter).
Morell also said he “will be adding” officials that day, including Lisa Monaco, a homeland security adviser under Obama and now the deputy attorney general under Biden, Jeh Johnson, Obama’s secretary of homeland security, retired Adm. Mike Rogers, director of the National Security Agency from 2014 to 2018 under Obama and Trump, and Sue Gordon, the principal deputy director of national intelligence under Trump until August 2019, none of whom publicly signed the letter.
Gordon told the Washington Examiner that “I declined to sign” and that “the rest, why Mike wrote that, no idea.” She added that “I don’t know why he said that. I just know I declined to sign.”
“Haven’t had one moment of doubt about my decision, and who else signed it carried no weight for me, though to some it’s important I guess,” Gordon added.
Johnson and Rogers did not return a request for comment, nor did Biden’s DOJ, where Monaco currently serves under Attorney General Merrick Garland.
Morell also claimed to Brennan that he was “working on adding” Tom Bossert, homeland security adviser under Trump from 2017 into 2018, former Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI), who chaired the House Intelligence Committee from 2011 to 2015, and Dan Coats, the director of national intelligence under Trump from 2017 to 2019, all three of whom also did not sign publicly.
“No involvement whatsoever,” Coats told the Washington Examiner. “Not aware of any letter or request to sign or aware of any anonymous request or approval to have my name on any letter. Left DNI on August 15, 2019. Staying out of politics.”
Rogers and Bossert did not respond to a request for comment.
After receiving the email, Brennan called it a “good initiative” and told Morell to “add my name to the list.”
Morell did not respond to the Washington Examiner’s questions about the denials by Gordon and Coats.
The published laptop letter did say that “nine additional former IC officers who cannot be named publicly also support the arguments in this letter,” but it is unclear who those anonymous supporters were.
The October 2020 recruitment email by Morell unearthed by the Washington Examiner earlier this month was sent to former unnamed intelligence officials the evening of Oct. 18 and included a draft of the laptop letter co-authored by him and former senior CIA operations officer Marc Polymeropoulos as an attachment. Morell told prospective signers that one purpose of the letter, which was published on Oct. 19, was to give Joe Biden a “talking point” to deploy against Donald Trump in the presidential debate on Oct. 22.
After the Washington Examiner published its story, other outlets revealed the separate “talking point” email that Morell sent to Brennan the morning of Oct. 19, hours before the letter was published that evening by Politico in a story titled, “Hunter Biden story is Russian disinfo, dozens of former intel officials say.”
Joe Biden then cited the letter onstage to deflect Trump's criticisms over what Trump called the “laptop from hell.”
The new revelations come on the heels of House testimony by Morell where he said now-Secretary of State Antony Blinken “triggered” him to write the October 2020 laptop letter.
Another key letter signatory was Nick Shapiro, a former deputy chief of staff and senior adviser to Brennan. Politico has said Shapiro provided them with the letter, and he was quoted in their article at the time: “The real power here ... is the number of former, working-level IC officers who want the American people to know that once again the Russians are interfering.”
Morell told House investigators this year that getting the letter to the media “was entirely Nick Shapiro’s responsibility.” Shapiro reached out to the Washington Post and to the Associated Press before Politico agreed to run the story. He kept then-Biden campaign official and current Biden White House deputy press secretary Andrew Bates in the loop with the first two outlets, telling him, “This is what I gave them.”
Morell told Shapiro to tell reporters on background that Morell talked to people outside of government who specialized in Russia and was "struck by the fact that all of them thought Russia is involved here. He thought people should know that.”
A new report led by Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) said that “this assertion is disingenuous for several reasons.”
The report noted that “Morell admitted in testimony to the Committees" that he spearheaded the letter to help Biden win the election against Trump. It also notes that Morell testified he didn't speak to others about potential Russian involvement with Hunter Biden’s laptop, "but rather researched the issue himself following his conversation with Blinken.”
Morell's claim was also undercut by 26 of the 36 former intelligence officials he asked to sign the statement, but declined to do so, the report notes.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
"These facts cast doubt on Morell’s intended perception that a groundswell of Russia experts organically concluded that the Hunter Biden laptop was a Russian intelligence operation," the report said.
Konstantinos "Gus" Dimitrelos, a cyber forensics expert and former Secret Service agent, conducted an examination of the laptop for the Washington Examiner last year, concluding that “my analysis revealed there is a 100% certainty that Robert Hunter Biden was the only person responsible for the activity on this hard drive and all of its stored data” and that “the hard drive is authentic.”