Republicans write to CIA Director Bill Burns demanding records on ‘Dirty 51’ Hunter Biden letter

Republicans are stepping up pressure on the CIA to turn over all documents to the letter signed by 51 intelligence officials claiming Hunter Biden’s laptop was Russian disinformation.

DailyMail.com has received a letter from the GOP heads of the judiciary and intelligence committees to CIA Director Bill Burns demanding internal communications before the public statement is released in October 2020.

Rep. Mike Turner and Rep. Jim Jordan say their investigation into the letter’s origins has revealed that the “statement was drafted and circulated following communications between acting CIA Director Michael Morell and Biden campaign adviser – now Secretary of State – Antony Blinken”.

They have said they can call witnesses through a “mandatory process” if the CIA does not turn over all the documents.

The intelligence officers attempted to downplay damaging images and information found on Hunter Biden’s laptop

Morell sent the statement to the CIA’s Prepublication Classification Review Board (PCRB) and asked that it be prioritized as a “rush job” for release before the November 2020 presidential election.

“The committees have reason to believe that additional documents are in the possession of the CIA,” Turner and Jordan write in their letter.

“The Committees have received evidence that the CIA, or at least a CIA employee, may have helped recruit signatories to the statement on Hunter Biden.”

It details how former CIA operative David Cariens emailed staff to say he had been asked by a colleague to sign the letter.

The person who contacted him even admitted, “We want to emphasize that we don’t know if the emails that President Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, sent to the New York Post are genuine or not and that we have no evidence of Russian involvement. .’

Turner and Jordan said if the claims are true, it “raises fundamental concerns” about the CIA’s “role in falsely discrediting allegations about the Biden family in the final weeks before the 2020 presidential election.”

The demands from top Republicans come a week after they released a report in November 2020 claiming the letter was “a political operation to help elect Joe Biden.”

The House Judiciary Committee released the report on May 9 entitled, “The Hunter Biden Statement: How Senior Intelligence Community Officials and the Biden Campaign Worked to Mislead American Voters.”

It also reveals that former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper provided editorial advice to “amplify the verbiage.”

Clapper will testify behind closed doors on Wednesday about his role in the creation of the letter.

Republicans have said they could call witnesses through a “mandatory process” if CIA Director Burns doesn’t turn over all the documents

On October 18, 2020, emails in the report show Clapper emailing Morrell his intent to sign the letter.

He also offered a key sentence to include, writing: “I have one editorial suggestion for the letter: I think it would reinforce the verbiage if you say this has all the classic hallmarks of a Soviet/Russian intelligence operation rather than the ‘feeling’. of a Russian operation.

Morrell responded that Clapper’s suggestion was accepted and “It was a good one.”

Morrell recently testified before the House Judiciary Committee that an Oct. 17 phone call with Biden’s current Secretary of State Antony Blinken “definitely” piqued his interest in coordinating the letter.

However, Blinken insisted last week that he was not behind the infamous letter, emphasizing that he does not “do politics.”