More than 50 former high-ranking U.S. intelligence officials have signed a letter saying the recent disclosure of emails allegedly belonging to Joe Biden’s son “has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.” The emails were published by the New York Post last week after the paper was given an alleged copy of Hunter Biden’s laptop hard drive by President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani. Several Post reporters refused to put their name on the reports because they were concerned about the authenticity of the material being pushed to run in the News Corp publication. While the letter’s signatories presented no new evidence, they said their national-security experience had made them “deeply suspicious that the Russian government played a significant role in this case,” and cited several elements of the story that suggested the Kremlin’s hand at work. The roll call of signatories include former Trump administration officials including Russ Travers, who served as National Counterterrorism Center acting director; several former CIA directors or acting directors; and more than three dozen other intelligence veterans. Several of the former officials on the list have endorsed Joe Biden for president. The letter emphasized the signatories did not know if the emails were genuine but said there were “a number of factors that make us suspicious of Russian involvement,” adding “Such an operation would be consistent with Russian objectives, as outlined publicly and recently by the intelligence community, to create political chaos in the United States and to deepen political divisions here but also to undermine the candidacy of former Vice President Biden and thereby help the candidacy of President Trump.”
