This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
The CIA is being sued over helping the Joe Biden campaign in 2020 unleash the so-called "Dirty 51" letter through which a list of former intelligence officials sought to interfere in the election by describing the Hunter Biden laptop scandal as Russian disinformation.
The fact is that authorities knew at the time the letter was released that the information from the laptop was accurate.
The letter was released just as the 2020 presidential vote was approaching, and in it dozens of former government officials suggested it was not true, claiming it bore the earmarks of a Russian disinformation campaign.
At the same time, the FBI was urging social and legacy media outlets to censor reporting on the laptop, even though the bureau knew for a fact that the laptop was Hunter Biden's and the information was accurate.
Now government watchdog group Judicial Watch has sued the CIA under the Freedom of Information Act.
The organization said it is seeking access to "all communications of the spy agency's Prepublication Classification Review Board" regarding "an October 19, 2020, email request to review and 'clear' a letter signed by 51 former intelligence community officials characterizing the Hunter Biden laptop story as having 'all the earmarks of a Russian disinformation campaign.'"
What happened was that the New York Post reported that Hunter Biden's laptop, abandoned at a repair shop, "contained embarrassing and possibly incriminating information about the Biden family."
According to the watchdog, "In a May 10, 2023, report the House Judiciary Committee revealed that on October 19, 2020, three days before the second presidential debate between President Donald Trump and Democrat candidate Joe Biden, then-Acting CIA Director Michael Morell sent the PCRB the finalized letter for review, calling it a 'rush job,' and quickly secured its approval."
The legal action follows the CIA's failure to answer questions about its involvement in the Democrat Party's agenda.
Judicial Watch wants, "Records and communications of the Prepublication Classification Review Board, Central Intelligence Agency, including emails, email chains, email attachments, text messages, cables, voice recordings, correspondence, statements, letters, memoranda, reports, presentations, notes, or other form of record, regarding an October 19, 2020, email request to review and 'clear' a letter involving the Hunter Biden laptop story potentially having Russian involvement or being a Russian disinformation plot."
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan and House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Michael R. Turner already have told the CIA:
"The CIA has documents responsive to our requests and necessary to our oversight. On October 19, 2020, at 6:34 a.m., Morell submitted the statement to the CIA’s Prepublication Classification Review Board (PCRB), instructing it was a rush job, as it needed to get out as soon as possible.' The PCRB staff responded at 7:11 a.m. that it had received the statement, and cleared it for publication at 12:44 p.m. on the same day. Morell speculated that the quick turn-around from the PCRB was because '[t]hey are probably afraid I’m coming back' as CIA director. On May 9, 2023, the CIA produced to the Committees two emails: Morell’s email to the PCRB early on October 19, 2023, and the PCRB’s response at 12:44 p.m. However, the Committees have reason to believe additional documents remain in the possession of the CIA."
The members of Congress said there's evidence the CIA "may have helped to solicit signatories for the statement about Hunter Biden."
That, Judicial Watch said, "raises fundamental concerns about the role of the CIA in helping to falsely discredit allegations about the Biden family in the weeks before the 2020 presidential election."
"The Deep State CIA, it seems, engaged in election interference and a political operation against the American people to help Joe Biden and hurt Trump,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “And now the CIA is ignoring FOIA law to cover up its role in the scandal, censoring and suppressing the Hunter Biden/Joe Biden laptop story just before the presidential election."
The Daily Mail reported, "One signer of the statement, former CIA analyst David Cariens, 'disclosed to the Committees that a CIA employee affiliated with the agency's Prepublication Classification Review Board (PCRB) informed him of the existence of the statement and asked if he would sign it.'"
Joe Biden used the letter that lied about the laptop in defense of himself and his son Hunter during a presidential debate with President Trump at the time.
"Then-Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe said at the time that Hunter's laptop was actually 'not part of a Russian disinformation campaign' and had made that clear to the FBI and the larger intelligence community."
