Former Attorney General William Barr argued the effort by dozens of former intelligence officials to cast doubt on the Hunter Biden laptop revelations by baselessly suggesting Russia involvement “probably affected the outcome” of the 2020 presidential race.
The 51 former spy officials who signed a letter suggesting Russia was involved with the laptop saga are now largely silent about why they weighed in on the story weeks before the election. Despite offering no proof, President Joe Biden’s 2020 campaign, along with many in the media, dismissed the October 2020 laptop story as being part of a Russian disinformation operation, with Biden citing the letter in a debate with then-President Donald Trump, which Barr critiqued.
Conservative radio show host Hugh Hewitt asked Barr on Tuesday about four “interventions” in presidential elections and which was most “material” to the outcome. Hewitt’s examples were Iran-Contra prosecutor Lawrence Walsh issuing an indictment against former Reagan Defense Secretary Caspar Willard Weinberger just four days before the election between then-President George H.W. Bush and future President Bill Clinton in 1992, debate moderator Candy Crowley inserting herself on President Barack Obama’s side during a debate with then-candidate Mitt Romney, Russian influence efforts in the 2016 race between Trump and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and Facebook and Twitter censoring stories about the laptop just before the 2020 election.
“Well, the ones that stick with me are Walsh and the laptop — the intelligence officials suggesting that it was Russian disinformation in order to essentially keep a cork in it until after the election,” Barr replied. “I do think that that, given how close the election was, you know, I think that that probably affected the outcome, or at least there is a very distinct probability of that. The same, I think, with Walsh.”
Joe Biden called the laptop story “garbage” and part of a “Russian plan” and cited the letter. He was referring to a Politico report about the letter in an article titled “Hunter Biden story is Russian disinfo, dozens of former intel officials say.” The title was misleading because the letter never directly called the laptop Russian “disinformation.” The laptop “has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation,” the officials claimed, but they admitted that “we do not have evidence of Russian involvement.” But the letter also referred to “our view that the Russians are involved in the Hunter Biden email issue.”
A recent report from the New York Times said emails from the laptop were authentic, which multiple other outlets had previously concluded. The Justice Department is reportedly investigating Hunter Biden for foreign lobbying violations related to his overseas business dealings, in addition to scrutinizing his taxes.
DOJ INVESTIGATING HUNTER BIDEN FOR POTENTIAL FOREIGN LOBBYING VIOLATIONS
Barr had expounded on all of this on Monday, criticizing the president’s falsehoods and the decision by former intelligence officials to influence the race.
“I was very disturbed during the debate when candidate Biden lied to the American people about the laptop,” Barr said on America Reports on Fox News. “He was squarely confronted with the laptop, and he suggested that it was Russian disinformation and pointed to the letter written by intelligence people that was baseless, which he knew was a lie. And I was shocked by that.”
Barr added: “So when you’re talking about interference in an election, I can’t think of anything more than that kind of thing.” The former attorney general has repeatedly said he did not believe voter fraud changed the outcome of the Trump-Biden race.
Barr’s new memoir, One Damn Thing After Another, revealed his thoughts about how Trump reacted to the revelation in December 2020 that Hunter Biden was under federal investigation.
“I had heard that he was angry that I didn’t say anything after the presidential debate in which Biden falsely suggested the relevant emails on his son Hunter’s laptop may have been placed there by the Russians,” Barr wrote. “Biden’s bogus statement relied on a letter published a few days before by a coterie of retired intelligence officials who had lost their professional bearings and lent their names to partisan hackery.”
The former attorney general added: “Their claim was exposed a few days later when the FBI, together with John Ratcliffe, the director of national intelligence, made clear there were no grounds to think the laptop’s damning content reflected foreign disinformation. But, of course, the media, having heralded the letter’s fictitious claims, stayed mostly quiet about its debunking. The damage was done. Biden got away with deception. And Trump thought I was to blame.”
Ratcliffe, then the director of national intelligence, said in October 2020 that “there is no intelligence that supports that … Hunter Biden’s laptop is part of some Russian disinformation campaign.”
Barr said in his book that, in mid-October 2020, he received a call from Trump, who asked him, “You know about this stuff from Hunter Biden’s laptop?” Barr said that he replied, “Mr. President, I can’t talk about that, and I’m not going to.” When Trump continued that “you know, if that was one of my children—” Barr said he cut Trump off, saying, “Damnit, Mr. President, I am not going to talk to you about Hunter Biden. Period!”
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The former attorney general said on Fox News on Monday that “my reaction to the president there was obviously resisting the idea of injecting a criminal investigation of one of the candidates’ children into the race when there hasn’t been any definitive judgment over at the Department of Justice.”
Barr publicly rejected the idea of appointing a special counsel to investigate Hunter Biden when asked about it in late December 2020.
