The ex-CIA chief who wrote the letter signed by 51 former intelligence officials falsely claiming that emails from Hunter Biden’s laptop published by The Post before the 2020 election were Russian disinformation misled his fellow signatories when he assured them that he would “clear the statement with the Publication Review Board at CIA” the following day.
In an October 18, 2020, email obtained by The Post, Michael Morell asks his fellow spooks, including former CIA Directors John Brennan, Leon Panetta and Mike Hayden, to sign the letter, explaining that he and former CIA agent Marc Polymeropoulos had “drafted the attached because we believe the Russians were involved in some way in the Hunter Biden email issue and because we think Trump will attack Biden on the issue at this week’s debate and we want to give the VP a talking point to use in response.”
Morell asks the CIA alumni in the group to “highlight your Russia work” in their affiliations when they sign the letter and assures them that he will secure pre-publication clearance from the CIA “tomorrow.”
But the letter was published by Politico the following day, Oct. 19, 2020, leaving no time for the required pre-publication security review by the CIA, a lifelong obligation for all former agency employees, and a process that could take several months.