Former CIA Director Leon Panetta had a golden opportunity recently on Fox News to distance himself from the “Russian disinformation” fiasco surrounding the Hunter Biden laptop. Instead, he doubled down and showed no interest in apologizing.
Incredibly, he claimed to have “no regrets” over the infamous letter asserting the lie that the laptop was merely part of a Kremlin campaign. “My concern was to alert the public [about] disinformation…Frankly, I haven’t seen any evidence from any intelligence agency that it was not the case.”
In other words, Panetta clings to the hope that Moscow was somehow involved. Of course, he dismissed the laptop’s discovery as having the “classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.”
In fact, the former spook gave even more credit to the Russian boogeyman.
He told Fox’s Bret Baier, “I think disinformation is involved here. I think Russian disinformation is part of what we’re seeing everywhere. I don’t trust the Russians. That’s exactly why I was concerned that the public not trust the Russians either.”
Whether Russians can be trusted is not relevant. According to Panetta, he didn’t want the public to trust Russia?
Here’s the video of Leon Panetta lying about his signing of the lying Dirty 51 letter. He knows that DNI Ratcliffe and the FBI said at the time that Hunter Biden’s laptop had nothing to do with Russian disinformation. He knows the truth and always did but he refuses to admit it. https://t.co/jx0qhABzSg
— Miranda Devine (@mirandadevine) October 13, 2023
Exactly what bearing does this have on the validity of Hunter Biden’s laptop and a grossly deceptive letter signed by 51 U.S. intelligence officials?
Baier questioned Panetta over whether he had any regrets over how he handled the bombshell story just days before the 2020 presidential election. “No,” he replied. “I don’t have any regrets about not trusting the Russians.”
Again, back to “trusting the Russians.”
This despite the contents of the laptop clearly leading back to their owner. Plus, Hunter Biden’s legal team all but admitted that the laptop was legitimate last February.
In September, the first son sued former New York City Mayor and Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani. Hunter Biden claimed that Giuliani’s associates “altered” laptop data and dispersed it to other parties.
This all after his father asserted during a 2020 presidential debate that the discovery of the abandoned laptop was part of a “Russian plan.” He cited the endorsement of dozens of intelligence officials who signed off on the letter claiming “disinformation.”
Since that debate, the New York Times and the Washington Post have authenticated the computer as legitimate. But not Panetta.
