James Clapper is attempting to rewrite the narrative after the Washington Post decided, three years later, to fact check the Politico article and Hunter Biden Russia laptop letter.

As we’ve noted several times, James Clapper, along with 50 other intelligence community experts, wrote a letter back in October 2020 alleging that Russia was involved in planting disinformation on Hunter Biden’s laptop. 

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.

“If we are right,” they added, “this is Russia trying to influence how Americans vote in this election, and we believe strongly that Americans need to be aware of this.”

Nick Shapiro, a former top aide under CIA director John Brennan, provided POLITICO with the letter on Monday. He noted that “the IC leaders who have signed this letter worked for the past four presidents, including Trump. The real power here however is the number of former, working-level IC officers who want the American people to know that once again the Russians are interfering.”

You can read the entire letter here. 

The New York Post broke the story about the Hunter Biden laptop. A laptop whose contents had been in possession of the FBI for MONTHS prior to October 2020. The FBI was sitting on the information while Joe Biden was campaigning from his basement. Once the NY Post released the information, the knives came out on multiple levels. The Post was throttled by Twitter and social media platforms for over two weeks, and the intelligence experts wrote their letter of concern during that time. A letter that discredited intelligence hack James Clapper now claims was distorted by Politico. 

“There was message distortion,” former director of national intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. told The Fact Checker in a telephone interview. “All we were doing was raising a yellow flag that this could be Russian disinformation. Politico deliberately distorted what we said. It was clear in paragraph five.” He said he was unaware of how Biden described the letter during the debate.

Oh. OH REALLY?? NOW he’s claiming the reporting on the letter was wrong. How convenient. 

If James Clapper truly believed Politico "deliberately distorted" that letter he signed onto, then why did he wait until Glenn Kessler contacted him about it in 2023 versus criticizing Politico in Oct. 2020 after it published the article? https://t.co/Jp1LnuhhSr

— Joseph A. Wulfsohn (@JosephWulfsohn) February 13, 2023

Oh he waited until now because he was a willing participant in setting the narrative that everything on the laptop except for ‘And and The’ was bogus and very likely Russian disinformation. But NOW Clapper is trying to claim it wasn’t really meant to be interpreted that way and that he didn’t even know that Biden discussed it during a debate with President Trump. This discussion:

JOE BIDEN: “Look, there are 50 former national intelligence folks who said that what he’s accusing me of is a Russian plan. They have said that this has all the characteristics — four, five former heads of the CIA, both parties, say what he’s saying is a bunch of garbage. Nobody believes it except him and his good friend Rudy Giuliani.”

TRUMP: “You mean, the laptop is now another Russia, Russia, Russia hoax? You gotta be—”

BIDEN: “That’s exactly what … we’re told.”

TRUMP: “Is this where you’re going? This is where he’s going? The laptop is Russia, Russia, Russia?”

Yes, Joe Biden, Clapper and everyone in the media and Democrat complex nattered on about how this was a Russia hoax. They ran with that narrative until last summer when, suddenly, it was ok to say the information on the laptop was REAL. 

But Clapper says he didn’t know Biden talked about it?

Clapper’s claim that he was unaware that Biden brought up the letter in his final debate with former President Donald Trump and called The Post’s story “a bunch of garbage” also elicited skepticism. ​

“​Clapper of course didn’t complain about the Politico headline … at the time, even tho Biden cited the ‘distorted’ article during a debate w/ Trump (which Clapper laughably claimed he didn’t know about),” Washington Examiner reporter Jerry Dunleavy wrote on Twitter.

Biden also cited the letter in a “60 Minutes” interview that October, calling the report part of a “smear campaign.”

Other media outlets also ran with the Politico story, repeating the claims of “Russian disinformation.”​

Clapper is, as the folks at Powerline aptly pointed out, full of claptrap. 

Keep in mind, Doug Wise, one of the other signatories on that letter backtracked big time last month and admitted as we noted here, that the information on the laptop was real. So James Clapper’s claptrap on this is laughable at best. 

Furthermore, this is a guy who has been yelling at the sky since 2016 claiming that Trump stole the election with Russia’s help. 

With the result being that people believed the allegations in the Russia laptop letter. Especially since Clapper gave multiple interviews discussing the letter and the Russia disinformation gambit!

“To me, this is just classic textbook Soviet Russian tradecraft at work,” former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper says as authorities are investigating if recently published emails are tied to a Russian disinformation effort targeting Biden. https://t.co/shyMNnJ7Yr pic.twitter.com/GFSeIWXeY4

— CNN (@CNN) October 17, 2020

Rightfully so, Clapper is getting dragged gloriously for his backpedaling. 

…Notably, I do not recall Clapper rushing forward before the election to correct the widespread use of the letter to dismiss the laptop as Russian disinformation. It was only after the Russian disinformation claims were debunked after the election that he appears distraught… https://t.co/MBbHSFsnL1

— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) February 13, 2023

Another thing to keep in mind is that Clapper was front and center with pushing the Steele Dossier narrative onto the American public, and when asked about it refused to answer.

https://twitter.com/JerryDunleavy/status/1625273452562186241?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1625273452562186241%7Ctwgr%5E2e2293ce5a76f536532df51d64d2259aca7efa7f%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Ftwitchy.com%2Fsamj-3930%2F2023%2F02%2F14%2Fjames-clapper-tries-rewriting-history-around-hunters-laptop-story-but-jerry-dunleavy-brought-receipts%2F

I don’t have any doubt that he still believes that load of bunk is genuine. James Clapper backtracking on his Russia disinformation claptrap is a futile effort to shut the barn door after the horses are now five states away. 

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Feature Photo Credit: James Clapper caricature by Donkeyhotey via Flickr, cropped and modified