At least three former intelligence officials who publicly, and falsely, tried to discredit The Post’s Hunter Biden laptop story have gotten new gigs — as national security consultants.
The so-called “lying spies” — former CIA director John Brennan, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, and former CIA senior operations officer Paul Kolbe — will serve on the Department of Homeland Security’s announced “Homeland Intelligence Expert Group” panel recently .
In that capacity, they will offer their views on national intelligence matters to Department of Intelligence and Analysis Undersecretary Ken Wainstein and Counterterrorism Coordinator Nicholas Rasmussen.
Seventeen experts were named to the nascent group.
“The security of the American people depends on our ability to collect, generate and disseminate actionable intelligence to our federal, state, local, regional, tribal, campus and private sector partners,” Mayorkas said in a statement about the group.
“I deeply thank these distinguished individuals for dedicating their extraordinary expertise, experience and vision to our critical mission.”
The group will meet at least four times a year to discuss various ongoing national security problems.
Alejandro Mayorkas named three intelligence officials who publicly, and falsely, tried to discredit The Post’s Hunter Biden laptop story to the Department of Homeland Security’s “Homeland Intelligence Expert Group” panel.Getty Images
CIA Director John Brennan has been named national security consultant.AP
Pressing concerns on the agenda include: “terrorism, fentanyl, cross-border issues and emerging technologies,” per the press release.
In October 2020, a group of 51 former intelligence officials signed a letter skeptically claiming that the emails highlighted in The Post’s first expose about Hunter had “all the hallmarks of a Russian information operation.”
Politico amplified the story with the headline, “Hunter Biden story was Russian disinfo, dozens of former intel officials say.”
Some of the signatories later sought to distance themselves from the title, arguing that it was a distortion of what their letter claimed.
Around the time of the letter, social media companies such as Twitter, now known as X, took down The Post’s story, before later backing down.
Revelations from the so-called “Twitter Files” later revealed the FBI’s alleged role in suppressing The Post’s scoop on the so-called “laptop from hell.”
However, President Biden referred to the letter during his second debate with then-President Donald Trump to fend off criticism of alleged influence peddling.
However, since then, many news outlets such as the New York Times, Washington Post, CBS News, and more have reported on the hard drive.
There is no evidence that most of it contains false information planted by Russia.
However, most of the signatories of the letter refused to apologise.
Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper has also been named to the panel. AP
“No, I’m not sorry,” Clapper told CNN host Kaitlin Collins back in June. “I thought, at that time, it was appropriate to sound the warning about ‘Beware of the dark hands of Russia.'”
“And, in my case, this is a follow-up to what I saw Russia do, in 2016, to interfere and influence the outcome of our election.”
One of the officials, Douglas Wise, who previously worked as deputy director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, later admitted he was “very suspicious” the laptop story was a fabrication.
“We all assumed that the bulk of the content had to be real to make any Russian disinformation credible,” Wise later told “The Australian.”
Last week, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) announced he had directed three congressional committees to begin an impeachment inquiry.
The investigation is related to allegations of influence peddling by the Biden family – accusations the president and the White House strongly deny.
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
