A former CIA official, who claimed that Hunter Biden’s “Laptop from Hell” was “Russian disinformation,” is now boasting of “personally swinging the election away from Trump.”
John Sipher, who served as a senior operations officer at the CIA for decades, gloated that he takes “special pride” in falsely claiming that the contents of Hunter’s harddrive were fake.
Sipher was one of several high-level U.S. Government intelligence officials that signed a letter falsely stating that reports about the laptop were part of a “Russian disinformation” campaign.
The letter was used as evidence by then-presidential candidate Joe Biden’s campaign, Democrats, and their allies in Big Tech and the media to bury the reports in the weeks running up to the 2020 election.
However, their claims were fabricated and used, without evidence, to protect Joe Biden.
“I take special pride in personally swinging the election away from Trump,” Sipher gloated in a now-deleted post on Twitter.
“I lost the election for Trump?
“Well then I [feel] pretty good about my influence.”
Sipher and 50 other former U.S. intelligence officials signed the letter on Oct. 19, 2020.
They alleged, without evidence, that the reporting on the laptop’s contents “has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.”
They made the claims without examining the laptop or knowing whether it was legitimate.
The letter was at the core of a fake news story from Politico that claimed the New York Post story about the laptop was “Russian disinformation.”
The Post was the first to report about emails on the laptop.
Hunter’s MacBook Pro was dropped off at a computer repair store in Delaware and never picked up by then-presidential candidate Joe Biden’s son, according to the store’s owner.
While the FBI picked up the computer and a hard drive from the store’s owner, the bureau’s apparent inaction in probing the matter prompted him to pass on a copy of the hard drive to an attorney representing former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who, in turn, passed it to the Post.
The Oct. 14, 2020, story about the emails came as some voters were still deciding whether to vote for Biden or Trump.
The story was widely questioned by legacy media outlets, suppressed by social media platforms, and claimed to be part of a Russian effort, despite top officials such as Director of National Intelligence (DNI) John Ratcliffe saying there was no evidence that was the case.
Sipher is one of the few former officials who signed the letter to respond to fresh questions about the laptop’s contents, after more legacy media outlets, including Politico, said they’ve confirmed that it’s legitimate.
Sipher got into arguments with former acting DNI Richard Grenell and others on Twitter, where he later said his claims of helping Trump lose were sarcasm.
He also wrote that “the letter didn’t say the laptop was disinformation,” but, in May 2021, posted a link to the Politico story that did say that.
Former DNI James Clapper told the Post that he stands by the statement “made AT THE TIME.”
“I think sounding such a cautionary note AT THE TIME was appropriate,” Clapper said.
“The letter explicitly stated that we didn’t know if the emails were genuine, but that we were concerned about Russian disinformation efforts,” said Russ Travers, former acting director of the National Counterterrorism Center.
“I spent 25 years as a Soviet/Russian analyst.
“Given the context of what the Russians were doing at the time (and continue to do—Ukraine being just the latest example), I considered the cautionary warning to be prudent.”
