Ex-Spy Who Discredited Hunter Biden's Emails Used WaPo Column to Boost Joe Biden
Michael Morell, a former CIA deputy director and a contributing columnist for the Washington Post, played a role in orchestrating an Oct. 19, 2020, letter that suggested that the release of Hunter Biden's laptop was a probable Russian disinformation campaign. The letter was signed by 50 other former intelligence officials and was organized by Morell after a conversation with Tony Blinken, a Biden adviser who is now the secretary of state. Morell later admitted to lawmakers that he undertook the initiative to help Biden win the election. Morell also used his position as a columnist for the Post to attack former President Donald Trump and push various claims about Russian disinformation before the election.
Morell had contact with Blinken before he published his final columns, and he interviewed Blinken on his podcast on Sept. 22, 2020. He told lawmakers that he had a "fairly close" relationship with the Biden aide. Morell, who was at one point under consideration for Biden’s CIA chief, said he got the idea to write the Hunter Biden letter after an email or phone call with Blinken on Oct. 17, 2020, three days after the New York Post published its first story on emails from Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop. According to Morell, Blinken sent him a USA Today article that said the FBI was investigating whether the laptop was part of a Russian disinformation campaign. Morell said he then contacted former CIA officer Marc Polymeropoulos before starting the letter.
Morell testified that the Biden campaign helped strategize the release of the letter. The retired spymaster told an aide to former CIA director John Brennan, another signatory, that the campaign wanted the letter to go to a Washington Post reporter. It eventually appeared at Politico, which published the letter under the headline, "Hunter Biden story is Russian disinfo, dozens of former intel officials say." Biden cited the letter during a debate with Trump on Oct. 22, 2020, but made no mention of his campaign’s hidden hand. Morell said Biden aide Steve Ricchetti, who now serves in the White House, thanked him for the letter after the first debate.
The Post has penalized columnists for campaign connections more tenuous than Morell’s. In 2011, conservative columnist George Will came under scrutiny after his wife began advising Rick Perry’s presidential campaign. The Post’s ombudsman found that Will did not use his column to improperly boost his wife’s client, but said the columnist should have disclosed his wife’s work. The ombudsman wrote that "readers need to be able to judge for themselves if any conflict of interest could bias a journalist, even an opinion columnist."
Morell wrote some of his Post columns with signatories to the letter, including former CIA officer David Priess. An Oct. 11, 2020, column with Priess asserted that Trump’s financial debt posed a national security risk. His Oct. 12, 2020, article with Vickers asserted that Trump intelligence director John Ratcliffe should resign. Democrats would later assail Ratcliffe after he disputed Biden's campaign claims that Russia was involved in the release of Hunter’s emails.
Tim Graham, the Media Research Center’s director of media analysis, said that the Post describes Morell’s CIA service in the George W. Bush administration to make Morell look bipartisan. "It's that ‘career official’ spin that helps them present people like Morell as less partisan." However, the Post penalized columnists for campaign connections more tenuous than Morell's.
Morell leaned on a deep network of former spies to gather signatures for the letter. Many of those were from his consulting firm, Beacon Global Strategies, including former CIA director Leon Panetta, former CIA official Jeremy Bash, and former Defense Department official Mike Vickers.
Michael Morell collaborated with other signatories to the Hunter Biden letter on some of his columns for the Washington Post, including David Priess and Mike Vickers. In an October 11, 2020, column with Priess, Morell argued that Trump's financial debt was a national security risk. In an article published the next day with Vickers, Morell called for the resignation of John Ratcliffe, Trump's intelligence director. Ratcliffe was later criticized by Democrats for challenging the Biden campaign's assertion that Russia played a role in the release of Hunter Biden's emails.
