'Spies who Lie': How CIA helped Biden spread fake news in 2020 US elections to beat Donald Trump

Several signatories of the controversial "Spies Who Lie" letter, which claimed files from Hunter Biden's (Son of US President Joe Biden) laptop had "the classic earmarks" of Russian disinformation ahead of the 2020 election, were active CIA contractors at the time, according to records obtained by The New York Post. Former CIA acting director Michael Morell, who organised the October 19, 2020, letter to give Joe Biden a "talking point" for a debate against then-President Donald Trump, was under contract with the CIA when he signed the letter, the agency confirmed to Congress. Morell, however, denied being a contractor at the time, stating in an email, "If you write that, you would [be] wrong."

David Buckley, a former CIA inspector general, was also a contractor when he signed the letter, according to an interim report from two House committees investigating the matter. Records suggest at least two other signatories may have had active contracts at the time. The House Judiciary Committee and Intelligence Committee provided The Post with a document listing Morell and Buckley as contractors on the date the letter was issued.

The letter, which described the laptop files as having "the classic earmarks" of Russian disinformation, was contentious within the CIA. An internal CIA email dated October 20, 2020, revealed frustration: "This frustrates me. I don’t think it is helpful to the Agency in the long run," wrote a CIA official whose identity was redacted. Another official responded, "I also love that at least a few of the random signatures belong to individuals currently working here on contracts."

During the 2020 US elections, Democrats and Joe Biden asserted that the Hunter Biden laptop scandal was a Russian disinformation campaign. CIA contractors also played a role in reassuring the public that this narrative was not based on truth.

It was later revealed that Hunter Biden's laptop, allegedly left at a Delaware computer repair shop in 2019, indeed contained emails, photos, and videos that suggested his involvement in questionable business dealings in Ukraine and China. The laptop reportedly also contained adult content, including evidence of Biden taking drugs and engaging in the trafficking of prostitutes across state lines. The FBI verified the laptop's authenticity, and it was used as evidence in a criminal case against Hunter Biden. 

The Hatch Act prohibits most CIA employees from engaging in partisan political activity, but the rules for contractors are less clear. A 2015 intelligence community directive on contract personnel does not address this issue.

A second table provided by the CIA to Congress identified other letter signers with contracts and “green badge” access, indicating formal relationships with the agency. This table showed that Morell's contract lapsed after October 19, 2020, but he entered a new contract on May 1, 2021, as an "independent contractor" providing "no fee senior advisory services."

Jeremy Bash, a letter signer and Morell's colleague at Beacon Global Strategies, was identified as an "independent contractor" with the CIA from April 2, 2019, through April 1, 2022, with a brief gap before a new deal began in August 2022. Another signer, former National Security Agency deputy director Richard Ledgett, had the same status at the time of the letter.

The interim report by the House Intelligence Committee and the Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on the Weaponisation of the Federal Government revealed that then-CIA Director Gina Haspel likely knew about the letter when it was submitted for review. The report stated, "The new information included in this report, based on new testimony and declassified documents, shows the potential dangers of a politicised intelligence community."

Some signatories were on the CIA payroll, while others had special access to CIA facilities. Morell, before Congress learned of his CIA contract, acknowledged, "It’s inappropriate for a currently serving staff officer or contractor to be involved in the political process."

The CIA issued a statement defending the pre-publication review process that checked the letter for classified information, which allowed for its public release. “CIA officers, as a condition of their employment, are required to sign a secrecy agreement that includes a lifelong obligation to submit any and all intelligence-related materials to CIA’s Pre-Publication Review Board (PCRB) before they are published. That process was followed in this case,” a CIA spokeswoman said. “The PCRB reviews material to determine if they contain any classified information. The PCRB’s confirmation that information is unclassified is never an endorsement of the reviewed content or its veracity. These former officers were not speaking for CIA.”

During the second and final 2020 presidential debate, Joe Biden cited the letter to dismiss The New York Post’s reporting on his involvement in his family’s international business dealings as a “Russian plant” and “garbage.” The FBI had confirmed the laptop’s authenticity to Twitter on the day of the initial reporting, but this stance was not widely known until well after the election due to censorship and shadow ban by Jack Dorsey's Twitter (now Elon Musk's X) 

Morell testified to Congress that he was motivated to organise the letter after receiving a call from future Secretary of State Antony Blinken, a longtime Biden adviser. The Post’s first laptop bombshell, published five days before the letter, revealed that Vadym Pozharskyi, an executive at the Ukrainian gas company Burisma, emailed Hunter in 2015 to thank him for the "opportunity to meet your father," contradicting Joe Biden’s claim that he’d "never spoken" with his son about his overseas business dealings.

A second October 2020 bombshell from The New York Post detailed communications about Hunter and James Biden’s venture with Chinese state-linked CEFC China Energy, including a May 13, 2017, email indicating the "big guy" would get 10% of the deal. Former Biden family associate Rob Walker testified that Joe Biden met with the company’s chairman Ye Jianming before cash began to flow earlier that year.

The disclosures from the interim report highlight concerns over a politicised intelligence community and the involvement of CIA contractors in political activities.