CNN’s moderators for Thursday’s presidential debate have deep ties to former intelligence officials who signed the now-debunked letter claiming Hunter Biden’s laptop had “all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation,” Real Clear Investigations (RCI) reported Wednesday.
Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper lied about leaking false information to one of CNN’s moderators, Jake Tapper, about the Trump campaign exchanging information with Russia throughout the election cycle, according to the RCI report.
Tapper, failing to inform the public that the information came from a Clinton campaign-funded dossier, the now discredited Steele dossier, disseminated the information in a January 10, 2017, CNN report co-authored with Carl Bernstein.
Clapper denied leaking the information to Tapper during a July 2017 congressional deposition.
Clapper “flatly denied ‘discuss[ing] the dossier [compiled by Steele] or any other intelligence related to Russia hacking of the 2016 election with journalists,” the House Intelligence Committee said, according to RCI.