The ex-CIA chief who wrote the letter signed by 51 former intelligence officials attempting to discredit The Post’s report on Hunter Biden’s infamous laptop told another former top intelligence official that he was drafting it as a “talking point” for Joe Biden to use during a debate with President Donald Trump.
Former acting CIA Director Michael Morell told fellow former CIA boss John Brennan in an Oct. 19, 2020, email — obtained by Just the News — that he was attempting to give Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign some ammunition to “push back on Trump” during the debate as he urged Brennan to sign on to the letter calling Hunter Biden’s laptop a possible Russian disinformation operation.
“Can I add your name to this list?” Morell asks Brennan in the email.
“Trying to give the campaign, particularly during the debate on [Oct. 22, 2020], a talking point to push back on Trump on this issue,” Morell explains, admitting the letter was to help Biden during his showdown with Trump.
Brennan responded: “Ok, Michael, add my name to the list. Good initiative. Thanks for asking me to sign on.”
The smoking-gun email exchange shows that Brennan knew Morell’s political motivation before he signed on to the letter.
The Post learned on Thursday that Brennan will sit with members of the House subcommittee on the weaponization of the federal government for a transcribed interview related to the letter on May 11.
Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, who also signed on to the letter, will appear for an interview before the panel on May 17, a source familiar with the plans told The Post.
Morell’s email also sheds light on other members of the US intelligence community who were asked to add their name to the project but didn’t.
“Will be adding Leon, Sue Gordon, Jeh Johnson, George, Lisa Monaco, and Mike Rogers (DIRNSA) today. And working on adding Dan Coats, Mike Rogers (HPSCI), and Tom Bossert,” Morell writes.
Of those officials Morell mentions, it appears that only former CIA Director Leon Panetta added his name to the letter.
The CIA’s former Moscow station chief, Daniel Hoffman, told Fox News last week that he too was given the chance to sign the letter but he ultimately refused because there was “no evidence” of Russian involvement in Hunter Biden’s laptop scandal.
“It was not up to us to speculate. So I didn’t sign the letter. I typically don’t put my name to other people’s words,” Hoffman said.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), who also leads the government weaponization subcommittee, revealed last month that Morell testified before his panel that he drafted the letter and that Secretary of State Antony Blinken — then a Biden campaign adviser — was the “impetus” behind the attempt to discredit The Post.
Jordan and House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Turner (R-Ohio) informed Blinken last week that they would be investigating his role in the production of the letter.
On the same day Morell’s email exchange with Brennan took place, Politico published a report on the letter, and during Biden’s Oct. 22, 2020, debate against Trump, he used it to deflect accusations about his involvement in overseas influence-peddling schemes by claiming The Post had reported on “a Russian plant.”
