Signatory of Letter Claiming Hunter Biden's Laptop Was Disinformation Admits He Knew It Was Real

Or that it was mostly real.

He forgot to mention that when he signed the letter.

A former top intelligence official who signed on to a letter attacking The Post's bombshell 2020 reporting on Hunter Biden's laptop as Russian disinformation has now admitted he knew a "significant portion" of the recovered files "had to be real" -- but doesn't regret dismissing the exposé.

Douglas Wise, a former Defense Intelligence Agency deputy director, was one of 51 erstwhile intelligence brass who issued the public letter on Oct. 19, 2020 -- five days after The Post began a series of reports on the now-first son's shady overseas business dealings.

"All of us figured that a significant portion of that content had to be real to make any Russian disinformation credible," said Wise -- who didn't respond when The Post reached out for an explanation in March of last year, but found his tongue when he spoke to The Australian.

The Oct. 19 letter -- whose signatories included former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, former Director of National intelligence James Clapper, and former CIA Director John Brennan -- went out of its way to cast doubt on the legitimacy of The Post's scoop, devoting five paragraphs to explaining "factors that make us suspicious of Russian involvement" while slipping in the caveat that "we do not know if the emails ... are genuine or not and ... we do not have evidence of Russian involvement."

In turn, the letter's pronouncement that the recovered laptop "has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation" was used by Joe Biden's presidential campaign and other media outlets to quell outcry over suppression of the story by Facebook and Twitter.

In Nixonian terms, this is a modified limited hang-out fallback position.

...

"The letter said it had the earmarks of Russian deceit and we should consider that as a possibility," Wise told The Australian. "It did not say Hunter Biden was a good guy, it didn't say what he did was right and it wasn't exculpatory, it was just a cautionary letter."

In fact, the letter referred to "[o]ur view that the Russians are involved in the Hunter Biden email issue" and concluded with the message: "It is high time that Russia stops interfering in our democracy."

Despite the letter's black-and-white statements, Wise -- now retired from government service and listed on his LinkedIn page as the sole proprietor of New Mexico-based Southwest National Security Consultants LLC -- insists that its critics, "whether they're members of the conservative journalist community, conservative politicians or just ultra-right wing extremists, they haven't paid attention to the content."

The laptop was in the possession of the FBI before it was leaked to the press. The FBI knew it was real, and would have announced that they had proven it was fake or altered if it was indeed fake or altered.

But they kept silent because they knew it was real, and they are a corrupt criminal political organization. They are the Enforcement Arm of the Democrat Party.

posted by Ace at 02:15 PM

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