December 6, 2022

The Spies Who Deserve to Be Out in the Cold

The most blameworthy actors in the “Twitter Files” are former intelligence officials.

The “Twitter Files” released by Elon Musk give us a more fine-grained understanding of how and why the social media company decided to censor the Hunter Biden laptop story.

This was a woefully stupid decision. The New York Post’s account was suspended for two weeks for the offense of coming up with a scoop that we are still talking about and that will surely play a large role in upcoming GOP investigations into Biden family corruption.

That’s the kind of thing that newspapers should get awards for; Twitter thought it should get punished for it.

But the Twitter officials caught up in the progressive bubble that caused them to censor first, ask questions later — all in the name of “safety,” of course — weren’t the most blameworthy actors in this episode.

That dishonor belongs to the former intelligence officials who put out a widely cited, deliberately misleading letter suggesting that the Hunter Biden laptop was Russian disinformation. It muddied the discussion over the laptop and gave President Joe Biden a handy tool to try to deflect the laptop story.

These former officials knew what they were doing, traded on their public service for a tawdry political purpose, and have by and large demonstrated no remorse.

Even the former head of trust and safety at Twitter — who sounds like he just came from a sit-in at a university president’s office demanding the disinvitation of a right-wing speaker from campus — has said Twitter shouldn’t have suppressed the Hunter Biden story.

Amazingly, the former officials, once entrusted with some of the most sensitive powers and roles in the U.S. government, aren’t as responsible and accountable as a social-media functionary from woke central casting. As a sheer matter of public accountability, their disgraceful performance should be one focus of House Republican investigators beginning in January.

More than 50 former intelligence officials signed the letter, including five former CIA directors or acting directors. Biden cited the letter in a debate with Donald Trump. “There are,” he said, “50 former national intelligence folks who said that what … he’s accusing me of is a Russian plant.”

That statement was strictly true; it just didn’t hold the significance that Biden hoped the average listener would assume. When Trump derisively noted that Biden sounded like he was saying that the laptop was another Russian hoax, Biden doubled down: “That’s exactly what we’re told.”

Of course, we all know that there’s no way Biden heard about the laptop with all its tawdry and comprising information and thought, “No, that’s not my boy — must be the insidious work of an extremely adept, undetected Russian spy network trying to influence the election.”

Now that multiple other news outlets have confirmed the legitimacy of the laptop, the letter-writers haven’t repented about themselves spreading clever disinformation meant to influence the election. They’ve fallen back on a Jesuitical defense of their handiwork.

And, indeed, the letter-writers played a game. They didn’t actually say that the Hunter Biden laptop story was disinformation, at the same time they created that impression. This has given them plausible — or more accurately, implausible — deniability.

Cornered about the letter on Fox News, former CIA officer David Priess said that the laptop story, just as the letter asserted, had “all the classic earmarks” of Russian disinformation. That didn’t mean it was disinformation, just that it had the earmarks.

That’s not how the letter was promoted at the time, though. Nick Shapiro, a prime mover behind the missive and a former top aide under CIA director John Brennan, told Politico, “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.”

No weasel words there. And the press coverage leaned heavily on the suspicions of the intelligence officials, not their lawyerly caveats.

Even more than the former management of Twitter, the letter-writers have shown they never should be trusted again.

© 2022 by King Features Syndicate

Who We Are

The Patriot Post is a highly acclaimed weekday digest of news analysis, policy and opinion written from the heartland — as opposed to the MSM’s ubiquitous Beltway echo chambers — for grassroots leaders nationwide. More

What We Offer

On the Web

We provide solid conservative perspective on the most important issues, including analysis, opinion columns, headline summaries, memes, cartoons and much more.

Via Email

Choose our full-length Digest or our quick-reading Snapshot for a summary of important news. We also offer Cartoons & Memes on Monday and Alexander’s column on Wednesday.

Our Mission

The Patriot Post is steadfast in our mission to extend the endowment of Liberty to the next generation by advocating for individual rights and responsibilities, supporting the restoration of constitutional limits on government and the judiciary, and promoting free enterprise, national defense and traditional American values. We are a rock-solid conservative touchstone for the expanding ranks of grassroots Americans Patriots from all walks of life. Our mission and operation budgets are not financed by any political or special interest groups, and to protect our editorial integrity, we accept no advertising. We are sustained solely by you. Please support The Patriot Fund today!


The Patriot Post and Patriot Foundation Trust, in keeping with our Military Mission of Service to our uniformed service members and veterans, are proud to support and promote the National Medal of Honor Heritage Center, the Congressional Medal of Honor Society, both the Honoring the Sacrifice and Warrior Freedom Service Dogs aiding wounded veterans, the National Veterans Entrepreneurship Program, the Folds of Honor outreach, and Officer Christian Fellowship, the Air University Foundation, and Naval War College Foundation, and the Naval Aviation Museum Foundation. "Greater love has no one than this, to lay down one's life for his friends." (John 15:13)

★ PUBLIUS ★

“Our cause is noble; it is the cause of mankind!” —George Washington

Please join us in prayer for our nation — that righteous leaders would rise and prevail and we would be united as Americans. Pray also for the protection of our Military Patriots, Veterans, First Responders, and their families. Please lift up your Patriot team and our mission to support and defend our Republic's Founding Principle of Liberty, that the fires of freedom would be ignited in the hearts and minds of our countrymen.

The Patriot Post is protected speech, as enumerated in the First Amendment and enforced by the Second Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, in accordance with the endowed and unalienable Rights of All Mankind.

Copyright © 2024 The Patriot Post. All Rights Reserved.

The Patriot Post does not support Internet Explorer. We recommend installing the latest version of Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, or Google Chrome.