Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper is trying to set the record straight about a 2020 letter he signed.
After the discovery of a laptop, now confirmed to be Hunter Biden’s, over 50 former intelligence officials signed a letter suggesting it could be the product of Russian disinformation. And Politico, which obtained the letter, published a 2020 story about it titled, “Hunter Biden story is Russian disinfo, dozens of former intel officials say.”
However, Clapper — who signed the letter — now says the outlet “distorted” its purpose.
“There was message distortion,” he told The Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler.
Clapper added, “All we were doing was raising a yellow flag that this could be Russian disinformation. Politico deliberately distorted what we said. It was clear in paragraph five.”
The Hunter Biden laptop and claims of ‘Russian disinfo’ https://t.co/JLGvaSvFwr
— Glenn Kessler (@GlennKesslerWP) February 13, 2023
For its part, Politico disputed Clapper’s claim as it said in a statement to The Post, “The article fairly and accurately reported on — and summarized — the intelligence officials’ letter.”
“More specifically, the headline is a fair summary of their allegations, the subhead offers additional context, and the first paragraph of the article hyperlinks to the letter itself, allowing readers to draw their own conclusion,” it added.
The letter noted the signatories have “an understanding of the wide range of Russian overt and covert activities that undermine US national security, with some of us knowing Russian behavior intimately.”
Additionally, the letter stated, “We write to say that the arrival on the US 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.”
Kessler pointed out, “The letter refers to a Russian ‘information operation’ — not disinformation. Within the national security community, there’s a difference.” But Clapper told The Post he believes it is a “difference without a distinction.”
The fifth paragraph of the letter states, “We want to emphasize that we do not know if the emails, provided to the New York Post by President Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, are genuine or not and that we do not have evidence of Russian involvement — just that our experience makes us deeply suspicious that the Russian government played a significant role in this case.”
“This paragraph five — a ‘get out of jail free’ card — is intended to provide plausible deniability if Russian involvement is not proven,” Kessler added.
He pointed out the letter “does not clearly say the Hunter Biden laptop was a ‘Russian disinformation’ program, notwithstanding the Politico headline.”
However, he argued, “It was to Joe Biden’s advantage to misleadingly embrace the message conveyed in the headline — just as, for political reasons, for Republicans to continue to make that claim as well.”
The letter amounted to someone saying, “We think [insert person here] may — may — have committed a crime. We are not saying they did. We do not have evidence they did. But based on what we have seen on the news, it is possible they did. And it is probably worth checking out.”
As it turns out, the laptop was not Russian disinformation. If Clapper and the other signers felt the letter was being distorted, they could have spoken out to clarify the letter’s intention. Instead, they essentially signed it and disappeared as the laptop was dismissed as Russian disinformation.
