Congressional probe uncovers tie between Biden campaign, security letter dismissing Hunter laptop

Aided by two Obama-era witnesses, congressional investigators led by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan have developed the first evidence that a letter from security experts that falsely dismissed the Hunter Biden laptop as Russian disinformation during the 2020 election had ties to Joe Biden's presidential campaign.

Jordan told Just the News he expects to release a report from the House panel on weaponization of government later this month that lays out out evidence and the players behind the letter, which many Republicans now say was a consequential interference in the last presidential election.

"It was all done with politics, and it looks like there was some some real connections with the Biden campaign," Jordan said during an interview late last week on the John Solomon Reports podcast, declining to be more specific because there are more witness interviews being conducted this week.

For most of the last two years, the letter from 51 national security officials has been portrayed as an organic effort from the intelligence community to raise concerns that the emergence of Hunter Biden's laptop in fall 2020 could be tied to a foreign power. The laptop has since been proven authentic, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence has said it did not involve a foreign disinformation campaign. 

But before the letter was debunked, it was used to censor stories online in the New York Post, Just the News and other outlets in what has been described by former President Donald Trump, Jordan and many others as an interference in the election that kept voters from understanding influence peddling allegations surrounding the Biden family.

Jordan said his investigators have derived valuable information from transcribed interviews from two former CIA officials from the Obama era: former acting Director Mike Morrell and Nick Shapiro, a former adviser to ex-Director John Brennan.

"It seems to me that one of the key players here was Michael Morell, that he was one kind of coordinating this, working this together," Jordan said. "And then there are a few other folks. We have talked to Nick Shapiro. Mr. Shapiro, I think, was the one kind of coordinating the outreach to the legacy media and how they wanted this story presented." 

Morell currently works as a contributor at CBS News. A spokesman for CBS News did not immediately return an email seeking comment from Morell or the network.

Shapiro, who worked as former President Barack Obama's national security spokesman before rising to deputy CIA director under Brennan, did not immediately respond to a request for comment at his consulting firm.

Jordan said the specific ties to the Biden campaign will be divulged in the interim report after additional transcribed interviews are completed.