At least a dozen ex-intelligence officials who signed the letter linking Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop to Russia steered tens of thousands of dollars to Joe Biden’s campaign and joint fundraising committee ahead of the 2020 presidential election, records show.
The October 2020 letter has come back under the spotlight after a handful of revelations about its origins, including that ex-Obama CIA head Mike Morell testified in April to congressional investigators that then-Biden campaign adviser and now-Secretary of State Antony Blinken “triggered” him to write it. Between May 2019 and November 2020, 12 laptop letter signers boosted Biden with campaign donations to the tune of almost $40,000, according to campaign finance disclosures.
PRICE TAG FOR BIDEN SIGNATURE CLIMATE LAW BALLOONS TO MULTIPLE OF INITIAL ESTIMATES
The 12 laptop letter signers spent an average of roughly $3,300 total supporting Biden in 2020, a sum that takes into account how Jeremy Bash, an ex-chief of staff for both former President Barack Obama’s CIA and Defense Department and now the managing director at the Washington, D.C.-based consulting firm Beacon Global Strategies, contributed $18,900 to Biden for President and the Biden Victory Fund.
Bash was appointed in August 2022 by Biden to the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board, which “oversees the Intelligence Community’s compliance with the Constitution and all applicable laws, Executive Orders, and Presidential Directives,” according to an archived version of the board’s website under Obama.
“This looks like Russian intelligence,” Bash, discussing Hunter Biden’s laptop, alleged on Oct. 19, 2020, on MSNBC. “This effort by Rudy Giuliani and the New York Post and Steve Bannon to cook up supposed dirt on Joe Biden looks like a classic Russian playbook disinformation campaign.”
Another laptop letter signer, ex-CIA analyst Peter Corsell, donated $12,800 combined to Biden’s campaign and victory fund, according to campaign finance disclosures. Obama Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, a laptop letter signer who also led Obama’s CIA and was the White House chief of staff for President Bill Clinton, gave $5,000 in June 2020 to Biden’s campaign.
Rodney Snyder, an ex-CIA chief of staff under Obama who signed the laptop letter, gave $2,800 to the Biden Victory Fund. James Clapper, Obama’s national intelligence director who also signed the letter, donated $750 to Biden’s victory fund, records show. Other laptop signers who donated to Biden’s campaign or victory fund include former National Intelligence Council Chairman Gregory Treverton, ex-CIA Directorate of Operations veteran Paul Kolbe, Biden’s counterterrorism coordinator Nicholas Rasmussen under the Department of Homeland Security, George W. Bush administration CIA head John McLaughlin, and ex-CIA Deputy Director of Analysis Pam Purcilly, according to a Washington Examiner review.
“If the letter was supposed to be an objective political assessment, that’s not done by people who spend their time making large political donations,” Tom Jones, the president of the American Accountability Foundation, a right-leaning watchdog, told the Washington Examiner. “It should have been discounted from day one, and it really calls into question whether you should ever trust these people again.”
Biden cited the letter in an Oct. 22 debate against Trump three days after Politico published it, describing how “former national intelligence folks” said Hunter Biden’s laptop was a “Russian plan” and “a bunch of garbage.” The laptop’s contents have since been authenticated and shown to not contain any tampering, according to analyses conducted by outlets such as the Washington Examiner, the New York Post, and CBS News.
The donations to Biden’s campaign and joint fundraising committee are a further window into how many signers supported the vice president’s election bid. Signers have also maintained close ties to the Bidens, scoring 24 White House visits since October 2021 and landing senior roles in the federal government, the Washington Examiner reported.
Mike Howell, the director of the Oversight Project at the Heritage Foundation, told the Washington Examiner that the campaign donations fit into the broader issue that the Hunter Biden laptop letter was clearly a “partisan” maneuver to help Biden.
“It was a lie,” he said. “They knew what they were saying, and they knew exactly how propaganda regime legacy media would run with it and how Biden would spin it.”
David Buckley, the CIA’s ex-inspector general who from July 2021 to January 2023 was staff director for the Democratic-led Jan. 6 Capitol riot select committee, contributed $2,000 combined to Biden’s campaign and victory fund, according to disclosures. He notably gave $50 to Biden for President on Oct. 18, 2020, one day before the laptop letter that he signed was published by Politico, Federal Election Commission records show.
“Punishments for these people need to be severe,” Howell added. “Step one is make sure they get no security clearances whatsoever. Step two is you need to make sure if any of them in the government, they need to be fired. Step three is any of the places they’re working now can’t be doing any government work and getting government contracts.”
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Although Republicans have swiftly rebuked the signers of the laptop letter, many of the ex-intelligence officials have been vocal in standing behind the contents of their 2020 statement.
“No facts that have emerged since that time undermine any of their caveated assessments,” Mark Zaid, an attorney for seven letter signers, including Kolbe, previously told the Washington Examiner. “Unfortunately, both candidate Biden and some within the media mischaracterized what the statement actually said, and that unnecessarily created the controversy we are dealing with today.”
