Executive order says the signatories ‘willfully weaponized’ the intelligence community’s credibility to manipulate the political process.
President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Monday revoking the security clearances of 51 former U.S. intelligence officials who signed a letter discrediting credible reports about emails found on Hunter Biden’s laptop.
The letter was issued just weeks ahead of the 2020 presidential election in which Hunter Biden’s father, then-candidate former Vice President Joe Biden, was a contender. The signatories said that a news report about emails found on the laptop that Hunter Biden allegedly abandoned at a Delaware repair shop were false and “part of a Russian disinformation campaign.”
The emails detailed some of the younger Biden’s foreign business dealings with China and in Ukraine. None showed direct evidence of his father benefiting from the deals as vice president. Presidential candidate Biden denied any wrongdoing.
Many lewd photo of Hunter Biden were on the laptop he left in a computer repair shop.
Trump’s executive order said that the signatories had “willfully weaponized” the intelligence community’s credibility to manipulate the political process by discrediting the reports ahead of the 2020 election.
The 51 intelligence officials include former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, Jr., former CIA Acting Director Michael J. Morell, former Central Intelligence Agency director John Brennan, and former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta. Two of the 51 have since died.
The order accused the officials of engaging in partisan politics and instructed the director of national intelligence to produce a report within 90 days outlining “any additional inappropriate activity that occurred within the Intelligence Community, by anyone contracted by the Intelligence Community or by anyone who held a security clearance” related to the letter, and potential disciplinary actions.
The order also revoked the security clearance of former national security advisor John Bolton due to his 2019 memoir, which the White House said was “rife with sensitive information drawn from his time in government.”
It stated that Bolton’s memoir posed “a grave risk” of exposing classified material and undermined future presidents’ ability to request candid advice on matters of national security from their staff.
Letter on Hunter Biden’s Laptop
The letter—which was written in response to a New York Post report on data said to have been obtained from a laptop abandoned by Hunter Biden at a Delaware repair shop—stated that emails referenced in the news story had “all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.”
At the same time, Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe told Fox News that the emails were not Russian disinformation—a statement that the FBI did not contest.
The New York Post story alleged that Hunter Biden introduced his father, when he was vice president, to a top executive at Burisma Holdings, a Ukrainian energy company on whose board the younger Biden sat.
After the letter was released, many prominent Democrats cited legacy media reports on the letter in response to questions raised in Congress about the emails.
In 2020, then-candidate Biden also cited the letter during a debate against opponent Trump.
It wasn’t until 2023, long after the 2020 election, that the letter’s credibility crumbled when Morell testified to Congress that then-Biden campaign adviser Antony Blinken “triggered” him to organize it in a bid to “help Vice President Biden in the debate.”
Trump’s order stated that senior CIA officials were aware of the contents of the letter, and that multiple signatories held clearances at the time while maintaining “contractual relationships” with the CIA.
“This fabrication of the imprimatur of the Intelligence Community to suppress information essential to the American people during a Presidential election is an egregious breach of trust reminiscent of a third world country,” the order stated.
By Aldgra Fredly. Bill Pan contributed to this report.
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