Hunter Biden Laptop Update!

CIA Rushed Approval of Hunter Laptop Letter by Former Intel Officials
Judicial Watch Announces President Tom Fitton’s Fourth Book
DHS Lets Criminals, Suspected Terrorists into U.S., Agency Watchdog Affirms

CIA Rushed Approval of Hunter Laptop Letter by Former Intel Officials

We received eight pages of records from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), showing Mike Morell, former acting CIA director under President Obama, requesting CIA permission to publish a letter by former intelligence community leaders stating that they believed the laptop emails exposing Hunter Biden’s connections to Ukraine were Russian disinformation.

Morrell’s request for prepublication review incredibly was approved in just six hours by the CIA.

We forced the release of the material through a June 23, 2023, Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed after the CIA failed to respond to a May 11, 2023, request (Judicial Watch v. Central Intelligence Agency (No. 1:23-cv-01844)). We are asking for:

Records and communications of the Prepublication Classification Review Board, Central Intelligence Agency, including emails, email chains, email attachments, text messages, cables, voice recordings, correspondence, statements, letters, memoranda, reports, presentations, notes, or other form of record, regarding an October 19, 2020, email request to review and “clear” a letter involving the Hunter Biden laptop story potentially having Russian involvement or being a Russian disinformation plot.

“This is a rush job, as it needs to get out as soon as possible,” Morell wrote in an email on Monday, October 19, 2020, at 6:36 a.m., to the CIA’s Publications Classification Review Board (PCRB) with a copy to Marc Polymeropoulos, a former CIA senior intelligence officer.

This was five days after the New York Post published an article on the Hunter Biden emails, three days before a Donald Trump/Joe Biden debate, and 15 days before the presidential election.

The “Public Statement on the Hunter Biden Emails” is included in the records. It states in part:

We want to emphasize that we do not know if the emails, provided to the New York Post by President Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, are genuine or not and that we do not have evidence of Russian involvement — just that our experience makes us deeply suspicious that the Russian government played a significant role in this case.

At 8:01 a.m. the same day, an unnamed CIA official sent Morell’s request to an official whose name is also redacted:

Below is a high profile/high alert action item for 19 October:

Former DDCIA Michael Morell submitted for review the attached manuscript (“Public Statement on the Hunter Biden Emails”). Mr. Morell has advised us that this article was co-authored with former DO officer Marc Polymeropoulos and that “many former senior and working-level officials from across the IC will sign and then be made public. PCRB has determined that this manuscript contains no classified information.” [Emphasis in original]

At 11:44 a.m., five hours and eight minutes after Morrell sent his request, a person whose name is redacted sends an emailstating:

You may notify former DDCIA [Deputy Director] Morell.

At 12:44 p.m. an official whose name is redacted emails Morell:

Dear Michael,

The Prepublication Classification Review Board completed its review of your article titled “Public Statement on the Hunter Biden Emails.” The Board determined that it contains no classified information and can be published. Agency approval for publication of this material does not represent Agency endorsement or verification of this work.

If you add new material, please resubmit it before sharing, highlighting the new language to expedite our review. The PCRB appreciates your cooperation with prepublication review. You may reach out to us via [redacted] with questions or concerns.

Kind regards, PCRB Staff

These documents are astounding. That the CIA would turn around a campaign document like this for Joe Biden’s team in six hours is insane news. This seems to be demonstrable campaign interference by the CIA, and that should be alarming to all Americans.

We have multiple federal lawsuits focused on Biden family corruption:

In July, we sued the DOJ for records from the Office of the Attorney General and Office of the Deputy Attorney General regarding the Internal Revenue Service investigation of Hunter Biden.

In June 2023, we filed a lawsuit against the Department of Justice for a copy of the FBI FD-1023 form that describes “an alleged criminal scheme involving then-Vice President Biden and a foreign national relating to the exchange of money for policy decisions.” Judicial Watch also asked for communications about the FD-1023.

In May 2023, we filed a FOIA lawsuit against the National Archives for Biden family records and communications regarding travel and finance transactions, as well as communications between the Bidens and several known business associates.

On October 14, 2022, we sued the DOJ for all records in the possession of FBI Supervisory Intelligence Analyst Brian Auten regarding an August 6, 2020, briefing provided to members of the U.S. Senate. Ron Johnson (R-WI) and Chuck Grassley (R-IA) raised concerns that the briefing was intended to undermine the senators’ investigation of Hunter Biden.

We filed a lawsuit against the U.S. State Department on April 20, 2022, for messages sent through the SMART (State Messaging and Archive Retrieval Toolkit) system that mention Hunter Biden.

In December 2020, State Department records obtained through our FOIA lawsuit showed that former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie “Masha” Yovanovitch had specifically warned in 2017 about corruption allegations against Burisma Holdings.

In October 2020, we forced the release of State Department records that included a briefing checklist of a February 22, 2019, meeting in Kyiv between then-U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch and Sally Painter, co-founder and chief operating officer of Blue Star Strategies, a Democratic lobbying firm which was hired by Burisma Holdings to combat corruption allegations. At the time of the meeting, Hunter Biden was serving on the board of directors for Burisma Holdings.

Judicial Watch Announces President Tom Fitton’s Fourth Book

I am pleased to announce the coming publication of my fourth Judicial Watch book, Rights and Freedoms in Peril: An Investigative Report on the Left’s Attack on America.

In it, I detail a long chain of abuses officials and political groups have made against the American people. The new book is available for pre-order now at JudicialWatchBook.com and is set for publication on October 15.

The book explores the Left’s declaration of war on everything from the rule of law to the colorblind Constitution, border security, honest elections, and government accountability. From our perch at Judicial Watch, I have witnessed in person the very abuse, lawfare, and corruption that strikes at the heart of our rights and constitutional freedoms.

Judicial Watch has filed hundreds of lawsuits to expose and stop leftist government misconduct and abuse.

My previous Judicial Watch books include A Republic Under Assault, Clean House, and The Corruption Chronicles

A Republic Under Assault, The Left’s Ongoing Attack on American Freedom, is a hard-hitting, fast-paced look at how the Radical Left and the Deep State tried to destroy the Trump presidency. It expands on the observation that “President Biden has a personal corruption problem, has obvious health challenges, must manage internal warfare between his party’s corrupt corporate wing and its rising Communists, and his moral claim on the presidency is rejected by a massive number of voters.”

The Corruption Chronicles and Clean House, revealed what Judicial Watch, the world’s largest and most effective watchdog group, uncovered in its battles against Obama administration secrecy.

The Left has taken extraordinary steps to eradicate American liberty, motivated by a radical ideology whose adherents occupy the nation’s highest offices. This upcoming book is an exhaustive investigation into the progressive movement’s efforts to dismantle the venerable institutions protecting the rights and freedoms of all Americans.

DHS Lets Criminals, Suspected Terrorists into U.S., Agency Watchdog Affirms

Remember how we created a massive federal agency to “protect us” from foreign invaders after 9/11? Of course, we all know it isn’t working, as our Corruption Chronicles blog reveals:

The massive federal agency created after 9/11 to “safeguard the American people” risks national security by allowing criminals, suspected terrorists and other nefarious actors into the United States and letting asylum seekers with derogatory information remain in the country. More than two decades after the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil, this may seem unbelievable to many, but it is the ugly reality inside the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the mammoth agency with over 260,000 employees responsible for aviation and border security as well as emergency response. The Biden administration’s disastrous open border policies have jolted the agency and those on the frontline that operate under its umbrella, specifically Customs and Border Protection (CBP).

CBP is responsible for screening all foreign visitors and returning American citizens upon arrival at a United States port of entry (POE). U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), another DHS conglomerate, is supposed to vet foreigners seeking asylum to verify their identities and determine eligibility. Both DHS agencies are supposed to use technology, procedures, and coordination to perform these duties, but a federal audit reveals they are not fully effective, leaving the nation at risk. “Although U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) deployed new technologies to enhance traveler screening, it could not access all Federal data necessary to enable complete screening and vetting of noncitizens seeking admission into the United States,” according to a reportmade public this month by the DHS Inspector General. The 35-page document is sprinkled with redactions to protect sensitive information, but the publicly available portions tell an alarming story. For instance, CBP used varied and sometimes inconsistent inspection procedures for travelers arriving in vehicles at land ports of entry and the agency does not have the technology to perform biometric matching on travelers arriving in vehicles at the crossings.

Incredibly, the probe found that CBP is inconsistent when it conducts inspections of travelers seeking admission to the U.S. through land crossings. Specifically, the watchdog determined that CBP used non-standard inspection procedures for vehicle passengers. “At three land POEs we visited, CBP officers did not query all vehicle occupants in Simplified Arrival to identify criminal warrants, national security concerns, or border crossing history before admitting them into the country,” the report states. “Officers at those POEs said port management frequently directed officers working vehicle primary inspection lanes to query only drivers to expedite processing. This practice leaves officers unaware of potentially derogatory information about persons in a vehicle other than the driver.” While some officers told investigators they applied experience and professional judgment when determining whether to check all persons in a vehicle, others said they felt pressured by management to release vehicles into the country without querying all occupants, even if the officer believed all passengers should be vetted before admitting the vehicle’s occupants into the country.

As for USCIS, the government agency that oversees lawful immigration to the United States, the DHS watchdog found that it did not always complete timely screenings of more than 400,000 asylum applicants between October 2017 and March 2023. “Additionally, USCIS does not have a dedicated procedure or comprehensive technology solution to perform interim screening of asylum applicants whose cases were not adjudicated within the required 180-day timeframe,” the report states. “Without capabilities to effectively screen and vet noncitizens, CBP is unable to conduct complete screening and vetting of all noncitizen travelers at air and land ports of entry.” The report proceeds to blast both DHS agencies, concluding that the lapses will continue to admit dangerous persons into the country and enable asylum seekers who may pose significant threats to public safety and national security to keep living in the United States for extended periods while awaiting an asylum decision. The DHS IG also reminds that in a past report, it identified at least two persons paroled into the U.S. as part of Operation Allies Refuge/Operation Allies Welcome who may have posed a risk to national security and the safety of local communities.

Until next week,