When news of Hunter Biden's laptop broke in October 2020, the media and intelligence officials rushed to classify its contents as "Russian disinformation." Twitter swiftly moved to ban the New York Post, which first published the story, from the social media platform for weeks. Individuals who shared the story were also banned.
Fifty-one former intelligence officials, who worked in a number of different federal government agencies at top levels, jumped to sign a letter stating the laptop "had all of the markings" of a Russian disinformation campaign. They did so while the Biden campaign and Hunter Biden himself failed to reject the authenticity of the laptop.
During Special Report Tuesday evening, anchor Bret Baier confronted one of those officials about his participation and asked if he regretted signing the letter given what it stated was untrue.
"In October, days before the 2020 election you signed onto this open letter which was published by POLITICO it said, 'We write to say that the arrival on the U.S. political scene of emails purportedly belonging to Vice President Biden’s son Hunter, much of it related to his time serving on the Board of the Ukrainian gas company Burisma, has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation,'" Baier read to former CIA officer David Priess. “Why did you sign onto that?”
“Because of what it says. It has all of the classic earmarks of one of these operations. You’ll note elsewhere in the letter – if you read it – that it also says we don’t know if this is a Russian operation at all. That has been dramatically changed in the retelling of the story," Priess said, doubling down on the false claim.
“Do you regret signing onto the letter?” Baier followed up.
“Absolutely not. Because those words are still true,” Priess said, claiming the letter didn't impact the 2020 presidential election.
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