WASHINGTON — The Republican-led House Judiciary and Intelligence committees on Monday demanded interviews with 51 former intelligence officials from party leaders who indicated that The Post’s bombshell 2020 reports on Hunter Biden’s laptop were Russian inaccuracies. were based on information.
A GOP congressional source said Republicans are prepared to compel testimony from subpoenas if former spokesmen refuse to appear voluntarily.
“Subpoenas are very likely and intelligence officials know it. Why not cooperate now?” sources told The Post.
Among those sitting for questioning are former CIA directors Michael Hayden and John Brennan, and former director of national intelligence James Clapper, who were also well-known figures. Demand The laptop story “has all the classic hallmarks of a Russian information operation.”
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), who leads the Judiciary Committee, and Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio), who heads the intelligence panel, told the men that “Act fully immediately” and book a “transcribed interview” to discuss their role in the story.
“You have been on notice of our oversight request — and you know the request is pending — for months,” the lawmakers wrote, referring to an earlier April 2022 letter from Republicans on the Judiciary Committee.
The earlier request asked recipients to “identify all persons with whom you communicated regarding the initiation, drafting, modification, signature, publication, or promotion of the statement” and called the effort “all Documents and communications referring to or relating to” provide.
October 19, 2020 Public warning about laptops Unprecedented big-tech censorship — via Facebook and Twitter — followed The Post’s reporting on documents linking then-Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden to his son Hunter and brother James Biden’s business deals in China and Ukraine. .
Biden, who won the presidency weeks later, pointed to false claims by former intelligence leaders denying the authenticity of documents from his son’s laptop.
“Look, there are 50 former national intelligence people who said that what they’re accusing me of is a Russian plan,” Biden said during the final debate with then-President Donald Trump. “They’ve said that it has all the characteristics — four — five former heads of the CIA, both parties, saying what they’re saying is a load of garbage. His, his, and his good friends. No one believes it except Rudy Giuliani.
Trump shouted on the debate stage, “You mean the laptop is now another Russia, Russia, Russia hoax? You have to be—”
“That’s right. That’s right —” Biden responded when Trump took aim at him.
Hunter Biden all but admitted the laptop was his last this week — more than two years later — when he asked repairman John Paul McIsaac and various Trump allies for allegedly mishandling his computer files. Called for state and federal criminal investigations.
McIsaac provided evidence that Hunter Biden dropped the laptop at his Delaware store before failing to retrieve it. McIsaac also shared paperwork showing he gave the device to the FBI in December 2019 before later providing copied records to The Post through Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani.
Other former intelligence officials to testify on behalf of Jordan and Turner include former CIA chief of staff Jeremy Bash, former NSA deputy director Richard Ledgett and former intelligence undersecretary of defense Michael Vickers.
Former National Counterterrorism Center Deputy Director Russell Travers, former CIA official Nick Shapiro, former National Counterterrorism Center Director Nicholas Rasmussen, former Assistant Secretary for Intelligence Thomas Finger, and former Deputy CIA Director John McLaughlin also. Letters received.
The demands come as three former Twitter employees, including former company lawyer and one-time FBI general counsel James Baker, are set to testify before the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday. Amid lingering questions about the authorities’ possible role in the censorship of the laptop story.
According to a document released by Twitter’s new owner Elon Musk, the FBI paid Twitter $3.5 million from October 2019 to February 2021 to process the bureau’s moderation requests.
The Post’s first laptop bombshell — published five days before the detective alum’s letter — revealed that Vadim Pozharsky, an executive at the Ukrainian gas company Bresma, emailed Hunter in 2015 asking him “to his father “Thank you for the opportunity to meet” — which is in direct contrast to Biden. 2019 claim that he “never talked” with his son about “overseas business matters”.
The Biden campaign vaguely denied that the meeting had taken place. But further reporting confirmed key details, including the fact that Joe Biden attended the 2015 DC dinner the day before the Burisma exec’s email. A group of her son’s colleagues, including Pozharsky and a Kazakh trio who posed for a photo with the Bidens, attended.
Hunter also invited Russian billionaire Yelena Baturina and her husband, former Moscow mayor Yuri Luzhkov, to the dinner — though it’s unclear if either attended. A 2020 report by a Republican-led Senate committee alleged that Baturina paid $3.5 million in 2014 to a firm affiliated with Hunter Biden. Baturina is one of a dwindling number of Russian oligarchs still facing sanctions from the Biden administration over Russia’s more than 11-month-old invasion of Ukraine.
Hunter earned up to $1 million a year for serving on the Brisma board from 2014 to 2019, when her father was put in charge of the Obama administration’s Ukraine policy. Visitor logs show that Joe Biden met with his son’s jailed business partner, Devon Archer, in 2014 when both Hunter Biden and Archer joined the Burzama board.
A second October 2020 bombshell from The Post — published four days before the ex-spies’ deposition — about Hunter Biden and his uncle Jim Biden’s business plan with CEFC China Energy Co. The talks were explained, known as a key cog in Beijing. Belt and Road” campaign of foreign influence.
On May 13, 2017, an email recovered from the laptop said the “big guy” would get 10 percent of the deal. Hunter Biden’s former business partner, Tony Bobolinski, has alleged that he discussed the CEFC deal with Joe Biden in May 2017, and that both Bobolinski and another former Hunter Biden associate, James Gallier, referred to Joe Biden as a “big man.” was identified as
Hunter and James Biden Earned $4.8 million From CEFC China Energy in 2017 and 2018, according to a subsequent Washington Post review of Hunter Biden laptop documents. one October 2017 email A call about CEFC’s effort to buy US natural gas identifies Joe Biden as a participant.
Republicans have accused Biden of being too soft on China on issues such as determining the origin of COVID-19, which has killed more than one million Americans, and halting exports of fentanyl, which only extended from 2018 to 2021. killed nearly 196,000 Americans, as well as last week’s handling of a Chinese spy balloon that flew over the United States before being shot down.
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