‘Spies Who Lie’ leader, cosigners were CIA contractors when they falsely implied Hunter Biden laptop was Russian fake
WASHINGTON — Some of the 51 “Spies Who Lie” were active CIA contractors when they claimed files from first son Hunter Biden’s laptop had “the classic earmarks” of Russian disinformation ahead of the 2020 election — a fact that was uneasily noted inside the agency, records acquired by The Post show.
Former CIA acting director Michael Morell, who previously told Congress he organized the Oct. 19, 2020, letter to give former Vice President Joe Biden a “talking point” ahead of a debate against then-President Donald Trump, was under contract with the CIA at the time, the agency told Congress.
Ex-agency inspector general David Buckley also was a contractor at the time of the letter, according to an interim report from two House committees investigating the matter, and records suggest that at least two other letter-signers may also have had active contracts at the time.
The terms of the contracts and compensation were not immediately clear.
Morell flatly denied he was a contractor when contacted by The Post, writing Tuesday in an email, “If you write that, you would [be] wrong.”
Morell doubled down in a second email, writing that “I can’t” speculate on why he was listed as such by the agency he once led and insisting: “It’s wrong.”
A congressional source provided The Post with the CIA’s document outing Morell as a contractor after his denial.
Robert Dugas, CIA deputy general counsel for litigation and investigations, shared the information in an April 25 letter to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Turner (R-Ohio).
“I write to provide an UNCLASSIFIED document related to your … letters seeking information,” Dugas wrote, along with a five-name chart that listed Morell and Buckley, who could not be reached for comment, as contractors on the date of the laptop letter.
“The evidence in our report speaks for itself and it seems that the spy who lied is continuing to do so,” Russell Dye, a spokesman for the Judiciary Committee, fired back Tuesday evening.
The five-name table identifying Morell as a contractor specified that former CIA Director John Brennan and fellow letter-signers Nick Rasmussen and Marc Polymeropoulos had no such arrangement.
The letter suggesting that laptop files linking Joe Biden to his relatives’ foreign dealings were Russian disinformation notably only described signers as “former” intelligence operatives.
The document was controversial within the CIA, internal records indicate.
“This frustrates me. I don’t think it is helpful to the Agency in the long run,” a CIA official whose identity was redacted wrote on Oct. 20, 2020 — the day after the letter was distributed to Politico — with a link to the outlet’s story.
“I also love that at least a few of the random signatures belong to individuals currently working here on contracts…,” responded another official, whose name also was redacted.
The Hatch Act bars most CIA employees from engaging in partisan political activity, but the status of contractors is murkier. A 2015 intelligence community directive on contract personnel, for example, doesn’t mention the issue.
A second table provided by the CIA to Congress shows laptop letter-signers who had contracts and “green badge” access with the agency — indicating other signatories had formal relationships with The Company.
That table indicates that Morell’s contract lapsed at some point after Oct. 19, 2020, and that he entered into a new contract on May 1, 2021, as an “independent contractor” — with a “no fee senior advisory services” role.
Morell’s colleague at Beacon Global Strategies, letter-signer Jeremy Bash, is identified in the second table as an “independent contractor” as well — serving as a “contractor/green badge” holder from April 2, 2019, through April 1, 2022, with a brief gap before receiving a new deal beginning in August 2022.
Yet another letter-signer, former National Security Agency deputy director Richard Ledgett, was also listed as having the same status at the time of the letter.
The disclosures are contained within an interim report by the House Intelligence Committee and the Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government — which also reveals that then-CIA Director Gina Haspel likely knew about the letter when it was submitted for review.
“The new information included in this report, based on new testimony and declassified documents, shows the potential dangers of a politicized intelligence community,” says the interim report, which the CIA reviewed prior to distribution.
“Some of the signatories of the statement were on the CIA payroll at the time as contractors and others had special access to CIA facilities.
“Even Michael Morell — before the Committees learned of his contract with the CIA — acknowledged, ‘It’s inappropriate for a currently serving staff officer or contractor to be involved in the political process.'”
The congressional report adds: “Due to purported operational concerns, the CIA declined to declassify the entire universe of signatories who were on active contract.”
Then-candidate Biden used the intelligence alumni letter to falsely claim at his second and final 2020 presidential debate with Trump that The Post’s reporting on his role in his family’s international business dealings was a “Russian plant” and “garbage.”
“There are 50 former national intelligence folks who said that what he’s accusing me of is a Russian plant,” Biden said of Trump. “Five former heads of the CIA, both parties, say what he’s saying is a bunch of garbage. Nobody believes it except his good friend Rudy Giuliani.”
The FBI, which took possession of the laptop in 2019 before a copy of the hard drive was provided to The Post in 2020, told Twitter on the day of the initial bombshell reporting that the laptop was authentic, but the bureau’s stance was not widely known until well after the election.
Morell testified to Congress last year that he was inspired to organize 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 51-person 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” — directly contradicting Biden’s 2019 claim that he’d “never spoken” with his son about “his overseas business dealings.”
The Biden campaign initially denied that the meeting happened, noting it was not on “official schedules” — but further reporting established that Joe Biden did in fact attend a 2015 dinner in DC with Pozharskyi and Biden family patrons from Russia and Kazakhstan one day before the Burisma exec’s thank-you note.
Hunter Biden himself confirmed his dad’s attendance during House impeachment inquiry testimony this February, saying, “I do believe that Vadym was at one of these dinners, yes.”
The then-second son earned up to $1 million per year to serve on Burisma’s board from 2014 to 2019, despite no relevant industry experience, beginning shortly after his father assumed control of the Obama administration’s Ukraine policy.
A second October 2020 bombshell from The Post — published four days before the spies’ statement — described communications about Hunter Biden and his uncle James Biden’s venture with Chinese state-linked CEFC China Energy. That story’s accuracy also has been affirmed by additional reporting.
A May 13, 2017, email from the laptop said the “big guy” — Joe Biden — was penciled in for a 10% stake in a proposed joint entity involving CEFC, The Post reported in its scoop.
The Biden family’s relationship with CEFC began around 2015 while Biden was still vice president, additional reporting indicates. Joe Biden met with the company’s chairman, Ye Jianming, in early 2017 before an initial $1 million flowed to Hunter and James Biden, former Biden family associate Rob Walker testified to Congress this year. Ye has since gone missing in China amid corruption allegations.
Hunter Biden in July 2017 wrote that he was “sitting here with my father” in a threatening message to a China-based CEFC associate demanding to know “why the commitment made has not been fulfilled,” IRS whistleblower Joseph Ziegler revealed to Congress last year. Within 10 days of that message, another $5.1 million flowed from CEFC to accounts linked to Hunter and James Biden.
James Biden confirmed to the House impeachment inquiry in February that he gave $40,000 of his CEFC income to the future president as part of an alleged loan repayment.
The CIA issued a statement Tuesday night that did not elaborate on the agency contracts with “former” officeholders who signed the letter.
The agency focused primarily on defending the pre-publication review process that inspected the statement for classified information and found that there was none — allowing 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.”
