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-Lurid Crime Tales-
Justice coming for the ‘Dirty 51' Hunter Biden laptop liars
2022-05-20
[NYP] One of the most galling aspects of the Hunter Biden laptop saga is that the 51 former intelligence officials who played such a critical role in suppressing The Post’s stories and giving Joe Biden cover before the 2020 election have never been brought to account.

The "Dirty 51" lied by painting our stories as Russian disinformation in an Oct. 19, 2020, letter they signed and delivered to Politico five days after The Post exposé and three days before the final presidential debate of the election campaign.

They used the institutional weight of their powerful former roles to legitimize partisan political propaganda designed to smear The Post and everyone associated with the story and dissuade the rest of the media from looking deeper into the laptop.

The letter, titled "Public Statement on the Hunter Biden emails," and signed by former CIA Directors John Brennan, Leon Panetta and Mike Hayden, former acting CIA Director Michael Morell, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and other ex-spooks, claimed the material on Hunter’s hard drive "has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation," although not one of them had seen it.

Their lie "probably affected the outcome" of the 2020 presidential race, as former Attorney General William Barr has said, describing the letter as "partisan hackery," "baseless" and signed by "a coterie of retired intelligence officials who had lost their professional bearings."

Yet they have never apologized or retracted their lie. In fact, when The Post contacted the group in March, after the New York Times belatedly acknowledged the laptop was real, some, like Clapper, doubled down.
Posted by:Besoeker

#6  /\ I think the roots may indeed run a bit deeper.
Posted by: Besoeker   2022-05-20 15:09  

#5  It appears to be actionable. Trump's lawyer Parlatore is pursuing multiple lines of attack. First, the CIA chiefs clearly failed to run their letter through the pre-publication security review process. Second, it's obviously a major campaign favor, so there's a strong case it was in effect an "in-kind" campaign contribution.
Posted by: Patrocles   2022-05-20 14:11  

#4  Hunter Biden saga: NBC News joins NYT, WaPo, Politico in verifying laptop dismissed as Russian disinfo in 2020
Posted by: Skidmark   2022-05-20 13:14  

#3  I utterly believe they were directed to do so.
Posted by: Skidmark   2022-05-20 13:13  

#2  If justice is coming, he is driving cross country on a Big Wheel.
Posted by: Super Hose   2022-05-20 13:11  

#1  I utterly believe the intent of those 51 signatories to the letter (some of whom had careers worthy of actual respect) was to stop Trump by using their implied experience and wisdom to debunk the Hunter Biden story. I also believe many were always partisans whose experience was created by appointment, not a lifetime in the business. But sadly, the precise language of the statement they issued will protect them from any accountability beyond damage to their credibility and labeling as compromised sources.

This is the actual language from the letter:
"We want to emphasize that we do not know if the emails, provided to the New York Post by President Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, are genuine or not and that we do not have
evidence of Russian involvement -- just that our experience makes us deeply suspicious that the
Russian government played a significant role in this case. If we are right, this is Russia trying to influence how Americans vote in this election, and we believe strongly that Americans need to be aware of this."

The alibi is proof against liability beyond poor judgement, and the subsequent media stories about the NYP allegations being disproved are all spin about the actual letter answering the allegation.
Its dirty tricks by inference, and abuse of public trust, but I doubt it is actionable beyond public embarrassment.
Posted by: NoMoreBS   2022-05-20 11:57  

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