Secretary of State Mike Pompeo rejected the idea that the apparent discovery of Hunter Biden’s laptop is part of a Russian influence operation, echoing instead Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe’s assurance that there is no evidence of Kremlin involvement.
“I saw DNI Ratcliffe’s statement,” Pompeo told reporters on Wednesday. “I have every reason to believe he’s got it exactly right.”
The question of foreign interference in the 2020 elections was renewed by the publication of emails allegedly discovered on Hunter Biden’s laptop by a computer repairman in Delaware and provided to Rudy Giuliani. Dozens of former intelligence officials released an open letter arguing that the emails have “the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation,” but President Trump’s spy chief maintained that there is “no intelligence that supports” the theory of Kremlin involvement.
“Let me be clear: The intelligence community doesn’t believe that because there is no intelligence that supports that,” Ratcliffe said this week. “This is not part of some Russian disinformation campaign.”
Senior members of President Trump’s administration have acknowledged that Russia is seeking to “denigrate” Biden and influence the 2020 elections. And Treasury Department officials sanctioned Ukrainian lawmaker Andrii Derkach, who has worked with Giuliani to procure evidence that Biden engaged in corruption in Ukraine, on the grounds that he is an “active Russian agent” targeting the 2020 Democratic nominee’s campaign.
“Derkach maintains close ties to Russian intelligence and sought to influence the views of American voters through a Russian-directed covert influence campaign centered on manipulating the American political process to advance Russia’s malign interests in Ukraine,” Pompeo warned in September. “This operation was designed to culminate prior to Election Day.”
Biden and Democratic lawmakers have pointed to Giuliani’s involvement in the unveiling of the laptop to argue that the release is part of that Kremlin operation.
“The new wave of attacks we are seeing on Vice President Biden are consistent with the false and unsubstantiated narratives that the President, his personal lawyer, and a sanctioned Russian agent have been pushing for well over a year,” a spokesman for Rep. Adam Schiff, the California Democrat who leads the House Intelligence Committee, said in a statement this week. “They appear intended to distract from recent reports that the White House, as early as December 2019, was made aware that Rudy Giuliani was being leveraged by Russian proxies as part of Kremlin efforts to interfere in our election.”
Giuliani has acknowledged working with Derkach, emphasizing that “the chance that Derkach is a Russian spy is no better than 50/50.” Yet, Ratcliffe’s dispute with Schiff seems to center on the fact that the laptop reportedly was uncovered after someone abandoned it at a computer repair shop in Delaware rather than from Russian intelligence officials, as in the case of the emails released by Wikileaks following 2016 cyberattacks against the Democratic Party.
“We have shared no intelligence with Chairman Schiff or any other member of Congress that Hunter Biden’s laptop is part of some Russian disinformation campaign,” he said. “It is simply not true.”
Pompeo, who has warned recently that the public should be wary of foreign countries “propagating information in a way here,” accepted that assurance.
“You know, when I was the CIA director, I always preferred that people defer to the intelligence community about matters best known to them,” he said.
