In October 2020, a controversy emerged involving data from a laptop that belonged to Hunter Biden that was abandoned at a computer shop in 2019. [1] On October 19, 2020, a group of 51 former senior intelligence officials, who had served in four different administrations, including the Trump administration, released an open letter stating that the release of the alleged emails "has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation".
During an interview with Fox News on October 19, 2020, Trump's National Intelligence Director John Ratcliffe said the emails were "not part of some Russian disinformation campaign" and accused Adam Schiff of mischaracterizing the views of the intelligence community by describing the alleged emails as part of a smear campaign against Joe Biden. [2] Schiff's spokesman accused Ratcliffe of "purposefully misrepresenting" Schiff's words. [3]
Name | Agency | Positions held | Current position |
---|---|---|---|
Jim Clapper | DNI | Director of National Intelligence (2010–2017) Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence | CNN National Security Analyst |
Michael Hayden | CIA | Director, Central Intelligence Agency (2006-2009) | George Mason University Visiting Professor |
Leon Panetta | CIA | Director, Central Intelligence Agency (2009–2011) | |
John Brennan | CIA | Director, Central Intelligence Agency (2013–2017) White House Homeland Security and Counterterrorism Advisor | NBC News and MSNBC National Security Analyst |
Thomas Fingar | DNI | Chair, National Intelligence Council (2005–2008) Deputy Director of National Intelligence for Analysis | Stanford University, Payne Distinguished Lecturer National Committee on United States–China Relations, Board of Directors |
Rick Ledgett | NSA | Deputy Director of the National Security Agency (2014–2017) | M&T Bank, Board of Directors, |
John McLaughlin | CIA | Acting Director, Central Intelligence Agency (2004) Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency | Johns Hopkins University Distinguished Practitioner-in-Residence |
Michael Morell | CIA | Acting Director, Central Intelligence Agency (2012–2013) Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency | Beacon Global Strategies Senior Counselor |
Mike Vickers | DoD | Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence (2011–2015) Operations Officer, Central Intelligence Agency | BAE Systems Board of Directors |
Doug Wise | DIA | Deputy Director Defense Intelligence Agency Senior CIA Operations Officer | |
Nick Rasmussen | DNI | Director, National Counterterrorism Center (2014–2017) | |
Russ Travers | DNI | Acting Director, National Counterterrorism Center (2018–2020) Deputy Director, National Counterterrorism Center | Deputy Homeland Security Advisor |
Andy Liepman | DNI | Deputy Director, National Counterterrorism Center Senior Intelligence Officer, Central Intelligence Agency | RAND Corporation, Senior Policy Analyst [4] |
John Moseman | CIA | Chief of Staff, Central Intelligence Agency Director of Congressional Affairs, Central Intelligence Agency | |
Larry Pfeiffer | CIA | Chief of Staff, Central Intelligence Agency Director, White House Situation Room | Michael V. Hayden Center for Intelligence, Policy, and International Security, George Mason University, Director |
Jeremy Bash | CIA | Chief of Staff, Central Intelligence Agency Chief of Staff, Department of Defense | Beacon Global Strategies, Managing Director |
Rodney Snyder | CIA | Chief of Staff, Central Intelligence Agency Director of Intelligence Programs, National Security Council | |
Glenn Gerstell | NSA | General Counsel, National Security Agency | Beacon Global Strategies [5] |
David B. Buckley | CIA | Inspector General, Central Intelligence Agency Democratic Staff Director, House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence | United States House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack, Staff Director [6] |
Nada Bakos | CIA | Analyst and Targeting Officer, Central Intelligence Agency | Foreign Policy Research Institute, Senior Fellow [7] |
Patty Brandmaier | CIA | Senior Intelligence Officer, Central Intelligence Agency Deputy Associate Director for Military Affairs, Central Intelligence Agency | |
James B. Bruce | CIA | Senior Intelligence Officer, Central Intelligence Agency Senior Intelligence Officer, National Intelligence Council | RAND Corporation, Adjunct Researcher [8] |
David Cariens | CIA | Intelligence Analyst, Central Intelligence Agency | |
Janice Cariens | CIA | Operational Support Officer, Central Intelligence Agency | |
Paul Kolbe | CIA | Senior Operations Officer, Central Intelligence Agency Chief, Central Eurasia Division, Central Intelligence Agency | Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Senior Fellow [9] |
Peter Corsell | CIA | Analyst, Central Intelligence Agency | I Squared Capital, Partner |
Brett Davis | CIA | Senior Intelligence Officer, Central Intelligence Agency Deputy Director of the Special Activities Center for Expeditionary Operations, CIA | New North Ventures, Partner [10] |
Roger Zane George | CIA | National Intelligence Officer | Occidental College, Professor |
Steven L. Hall | CIA | Senior Intelligence Officer, Central Intelligence Agency Chief of Russian Operations, Central Intelligence Agency | CNN contributor |
Kent Harrington | CIA | National Intelligence Officer for East Asia, Central Intelligence Agency Director of Public Affairs, Central Intelligence Agency | |
Don Hepburn | CIA | Senior National Security Executive | Boanerges Solutions, President |
Timothy D. Kilbourn | CIA | Dean, Sherman Kent School of Intelligence Analysis, Central Intelligence Agency PDB Briefer to President George W. Bush, Central Intelligence Agency | |
Ron Marks | CIA | Officer, Central Intelligence Agency Twice former staff of the Republican Majority Leader | George Mason University, Visiting Professor |
Jonna Hiestand Mendez | CIA | Technical Operations Officer, Central Intelligence Agency | |
Emile Nakhleh | CIA | Director of the Political Islam Strategic Analysis Program, Central Intelligence Agency Senior Intelligence Analyst, Central Intelligence Agency | University of New Mexico, Director of National Security Programs [11] |
Gerald A. O’Shea | CIA | Senior Operations Officer, Central Intelligence Agency Served four tours as Chief of Station, Central Intelligence Agency | |
David Priess | CIA | Analyst and Manager, Central Intelligence Agency PDB Briefer, Central Intelligence Agency | Michael V. Hayden Center for Intelligence, Policy, and International Security, George Mason University, Senior Fellow [12] |
Pam Purcilly | CIA | Deputy Director of Analysis, Central Intelligence Agency Director of the Office of Russian and European Analysis, Central Intelligence Agency | |
Marc Polymeropoulos | CIA | Senior Operations Officer, Central Intelligence Agency Acting Chief of Operations for Europe and Eurasia, Central Intelligence Agency | Atlantic Council, Nonresident Senior Fellow [13] |
Chris Savos | CIA | Senior Intelligence Officer, Central Intelligence Officer | |
Nick Shapiro | CIA | Deputy Chief of Staff and Senior Advisor to the Director, Central Intelligence Agency | Tulane University [14] |
John Sipher | CIA | Senior Operations Officer, Central Intelligence Agency Deputy Chief of Russian Operations, Central Intelligence Agency | Atlantic Council, Nonresident Senior Fellow [15] |
Stephen Slick | CIA | Senior Director for Intelligence Programs, National Security Council Senior Operations Office, Central Intelligence Agency | University of Texas at Austin, Director of Intelligence Studies Project |
Cynthia Strand | CIA | Deputy Assistant Director for Global Issues, Central Intelligence Agency | |
Greg Tarbell | CIA | Deputy Executive Director, Central Intelligence Agency Analyst of the Soviet Union and Russia, Central Intelligence Agency | |
David Terry | CIA | Chairman of the National Intelligence Collection Board Chief of the PDB, Central Intelligence Agency | |
Greg Treverton | DNI | Chair, National Intelligence Council | University of Southern California, Professor |
John Tullius | CIA | Senior Intelligence Officer, Central Intelligence Agency | Naval Postgraduate School, National Intelligence Chair [16] |
David A. Vanell | CIA | Senior Operations Officer, Central Intelligence Agency | |
Winston Wiley | CIA | Director of Analysis, Central Intelligence Agency Chief, Counterterrorism Center, Central Intelligence Agency | |
Kristin Wood | CIA | Senior Intelligence Officer, Central Intelligence Agency PDB Briefer, Central Intelligence Agency | Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Non-Resident Fellow [17] |
In addition, nine additional former IC officers who cannot be named publicly also supported the arguments in this letter.
The New York Post is an American conservative daily tabloid newspaper published in New York City. The Post also operates three online sites: NYPost.com; PageSix.com, a gossip site; and Decider.com, an entertainment site.
James Andrew Baker is a former American government official at the Department of Justice who served as general counsel for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and later served as deputy general counsel at Twitter, Inc. before being fired by Elon Musk in December 2022.
Robert Hunter Biden is an American attorney and businessman. He is the second son of U.S. President Joe Biden and his first wife, Neilia Hunter Biden. Biden was a founding board member of BHR Partners, a Chinese investment company, in 2013, and later served on the board of Burisma Holdings, one of the largest private natural gas producers in Ukraine, from 2014 until his term expired in April 2019. He has worked as a lobbyist and legal representative for lobbying firms, a hedge fund principal, and a venture capital and private equity fund investor.
Russian espionage in the United States has occurred since at least the Cold War, and likely well before. According to the United States government, by 2007 it had reached Cold War levels.
John Lee Ratcliffe is an American politician and attorney who served as the Director of National Intelligence from 2020 to 2021. He previously served as the U.S. representative for Texas's 4th district from 2015 to 2020. During his time in Congress, Ratcliffe was regarded as one of the most conservative members. Ratcliffe also served as Mayor of Heath, Texas, from 2004 to 2012 and acting United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Texas from May 2007 to April 2008.
John F. Solomon is an American journalist who was a contributor to Fox News until late 2020. He was formerly an executive and editor-in-chief at The Washington Times.
Carter William Page is an American petroleum industry consultant and a former foreign-policy adviser to Donald Trump during his 2016 presidential election campaign. Page is the founder and managing partner of Global Energy Capital, a one-man investment fund and consulting firm specializing in the Russian and Central Asian oil and gas business.
The Steele dossier, also known as the Trump–Russia dossier, is a controversial political opposition research report compiled by Christopher Steele that was published without permission as an unfinished 35-page compilation of "unverified, and potentially unverifiable" raw intelligence reports—"not established facts, but a starting point for further investigation". It was written from June to December 2016 and contains allegations of misconduct, conspiracy, and cooperation between Donald Trump's presidential campaign and the government of Russia prior to and during the 2016 election campaign. Several key allegations made in June 2016 about the Russian government's efforts to get Trump elected were later described as "prescient" because they were corroborated six months later in the January 2017 report by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Mueller Report, namely that Vladimir Putin favored Trump over Hillary Clinton; that he personally ordered an "influence campaign" to harm Clinton's campaign and to "undermine public faith in the US democratic process"; that he ordered cyberattacks on both parties; and that many Trump campaign officials and associates had numerous secretive contacts with Russian officials and agents.
On April 25, 2019, former vice president Joe Biden released a video announcing his candidacy in the 2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries. On November 3, 2020, Biden and his running mate, Kamala Harris, defeated incumbent Republican president Donald Trump and vice president Mike Pence in the general election.
Russian interference in the 2020 United States elections was a matter of concern at the highest level of national security within the United States government, in addition to the computer and social media industries. In 2020, the RAND Corporation was one of the first to release research describing Russia's playbook for interfering in U.S. elections, developed machine-learning tools to detect the interference, and tested strategies to counter Russian interference. In February and August 2020, United States Intelligence Community (USIC) experts warned members of Congress that Russia was interfering in the 2020 presidential election in then-President Donald Trump's favor. USIC analysis released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) in March 2021 found that proxies of Russian intelligence promoted and laundered misleading or unsubstantiated narratives about Joe Biden "to US media organizations, US officials, and prominent US individuals, including some close to former President Trump and his administration." The New York Times reported in May 2021 that federal investigators in Brooklyn began a criminal investigation late in the Trump administration into possible efforts by several current and former Ukrainian officials to spread unsubstantiated allegations about corruption by Joe Biden, including whether they had used Trump personal attorney Rudy Giuliani as a channel.
The Trump–Ukraine scandal was a political scandal that arose from the discovery of U.S. President Donald Trump's attempts to coerce Ukraine and other countries into providing damaging narratives about 2020 Democratic Party presidential candidate Joe Biden and giving misinformation relating to Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections. Trump enlisted surrogates in and outside his administration, including personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani and Attorney General William Barr, to pressure Ukraine and other governments to cooperate in supporting conspiracy theories concerning US politics. Trump blocked payment of a congressionally-mandated $400 million military aid package, in an attempt to obtain quid pro quo cooperation from Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Contacts were established between the White House and government of Ukraine, culminating in a call between Trump and Zelenskyy on July 25, 2019.
Since 2016, then-presidential candidate Donald Trump and his allies have promoted several conspiracy theories related to the Trump–Ukraine scandal. One such theory seeks to blame Ukraine, instead of Russia, for interference in the 2016 United States presidential election. Also among the conspiracy theories are accusations against Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden, and several elements of the right-wing Russia investigation origins counter-narrative. American intelligence believes that Russia engaged in a years long campaign to frame Ukraine for the 2016 election interference, that the Kremlin is the prime mover behind promotion of the fictitious alternative narratives, and that these are harmful to the United States. FBI director Christopher A. Wray stated to ABC News that "We have no information that indicates that Ukraine interfered with the 2016 presidential election" and that "as far as the [2020] election itself goes, we think Russia represents the most significant threat."
The Russia investigation origins counter-narrative, or Russia counter-narrative, is a conspiracy theory narrative embraced by Donald Trump, Republican Party leaders, and right-wing conservatives attacking the legitimacy and conclusions of investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 elections, and the links between Russian intelligence and Trump associates. The counter-narrative includes conspiracy theories such as Spygate, accusations of a secretive, all-powerful elite "deep state" network, and other false and debunked claims. Trump in particular has attacked not only the origins but the conclusions of the investigation, and ordered a review of the Mueller report, which was conducted by attorney general William Barr – alleging there was a "deep state plot" to undermine him. He has claimed the investigations were an "illegal hoax", and that the "real collusion" was between Hillary Clinton, Democrats, and Russia – and later, Ukraine.
Natasha Bertrand is an American journalist who is a Pentagon correspondent for CNN covering national security.
The Biden–Ukraine conspiracy theory is a series of false allegations that Joe Biden, while he was vice president of the United States, improperly withheld a loan guarantee and took a bribe to pressure Ukraine into firing prosecutor general Viktor Shokin to prevent a corruption investigation of Ukrainian gas company Burisma and to protect his son, Hunter Biden, who was on the Burisma board. As part of efforts by Donald Trump and his campaign in the Trump–Ukraine scandal, which led to Trump's first impeachment, these falsehoods were spread in an attempt to damage Joe Biden's reputation and chances during the 2020 presidential campaign, and later in an effort to impeach him.
The United States Department of Justice under the Trump administration acquired by a February 2018 subpoena the Apple iCloud metadata of two Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee, several others associated with the committee, and some of their family members. The subpoena covered 73 phone numbers and 36 email addresses since the inception of the accounts. Seizing communications information of members of Congress is extraordinarily rare. The department also subpoenaed and obtained 2017 and 2018 phone log and email metadata from news reporters for CNN, The Washington Post and The New York Times. Apple also received and complied with February 2018 subpoenas for the iCloud accounts of White House counsel Don McGahn and his wife. Microsoft received a subpoena relating to a personal email account of a congressional staff member in 2017.
This is a timeline of major events in second half of 2019 related to the investigations into the myriad links between Trump associates and Russian officials and spies that are suspected of being inappropriate, relating to the Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections. It follows the timeline of Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections before and after July 2016 up until election day November 8, and the transition, the first and second halves of 2017, the first and second halves of 2018, and the first half of 2019, but precedes that of 2020 and 2021.
In October 2020, a controversy arose involving data from a laptop that belonged to Hunter Biden. The owner of a Delaware computer shop, John Paul Mac Isaac, said that the laptop had been left by a man who identified himself as Hunter Biden. Mac Isaac also stated that he is legally blind and could not be sure whether the man was actually Hunter Biden. Three weeks before the 2020 United States presidential election, the New York Post published a front-page story that presented emails from the laptop, alleging they showed corruption by Joe Biden, the Democratic presidential nominee and Hunter Biden's father. According to the Post, the story was based on information provided to Rudy Giuliani, the personal attorney of incumbent president and candidate Donald Trump, by Isaac. Forensic analysis later authenticated some of the emails from the laptop, including one of the two emails used by the Post in their initial reporting. Shortly after the Post story broke, social media companies blocked links to it, while other news outlets declined to publish the story due to concerns about provenance and suspected Russian disinformation. By May 2023, no evidence had publicly surfaced to support suspicions that the laptop was part of a Russian disinformation scheme.
The Twitter Files are a series of releases of select internal Twitter, Inc. documents published from December 2022 through March 2023 on Twitter. CEO Elon Musk gave the documents to journalists Matt Taibbi, Bari Weiss, Lee Fang, and authors Michael Shellenberger, David Zweig and Alex Berenson shortly after he acquired Twitter on October 27, 2022. Taibbi and Weiss coordinated the publication of the documents with Musk, releasing details of the files as a series of Twitter threads.
The United States House Oversight Committee investigation into the Biden family is an ongoing investigation since January 2023 by the United States House of Representatives into US President Joe Biden and his family. The investigation was initiated on January 11, and includes examination of the foreign business activities of Biden's son, Hunter, and brother, James, as well as Twitter's involvement in the Hunter Biden laptop controversy.