Nearly four years after 51 former top intel officials smeared The Post and misled the nation about Hunter Biden’s laptop, not one has any regrets — even though the FBI and Justice Department have confirmed the computer’s authenticity and federal prosecutors even cited it as evidence in the first son’s gun case.
Indeed, the 51 “spies who lied” in a letter falsely suggesting the laptop report was “Russian disinfo” are proud of deceiving Americans, with a lawyer for some even calling their deception “patriotic.”
No: They sold out their own credibility for a mess of pottage by intentionally misleading the public, and giving pro-Biden media outlets an excuse to dismiss and censor The Post’s 2020 election-eve scoop, as well as offering Joe Biden an escape hatch on the issue in his then-upcoming debate with Donald Trump.
Again: A host of top intelligence community leaders effectively lied to the American people “for their own good”; after that, how can anyone trust any “information” the IC offers?
And how does the IC justify all the billions the taxpayers spend on it, when its leaders manipulate the public instead of serving it honestly?
Yet when Fox News asked, not one of the 51 even pretended to regret their deception, instead hiding behind more weasel words: The letter “only” said emails from the laptop had “the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation,” they pleaded.
Except they all stayed silent when the letter got “misread” the way they’d plainly intended.
And never mind that The Post’s reporting established the laptop’s authenticity, with a receipt from the repair shop where Hunter dropped off the device and an FBI subpoena showing agents had picked it up.
Plus, the spies — ex-National Intelligence Director James Clapper, former CIA chief Michael Haydon and others — could have checked with one of their intel contacts before signing and learned that the FBI had already determined the emails were real.
Then again, given their lack of regret now, you have to think some of them might have checked, learned the truth — and lied anyway.
They knew they were abusing their authority, and the public’s trust, to play politics: Former acting CIA chief Mike Morell testified under oath that then-senior Biden campaign official Antony Blinken reached out to him, prompting him to round up signatures for the false letter.
Morrell, who hoped to become CIA director under Biden, openly admits he organized the letter to “help” Biden “win the election.”
The nation needs intelligence agencies it can trust to be honest brokers of information; these 51 “leaders” did the exact opposite.
That may not count as treason under the law, but it’s certainly the very opposite of “patriotic.”