Politico silent on changing ‘Russian disinfo’ Hunter story headline

Politico kept quiet Friday when asked whether it would change a notorious headline wrongly implying The Post’s bombshell expose on Hunter Biden’s laptop was Russian disinformation. 

The Post reached out one day after it broke the story that former acting CIA Director Michael Morell told the House Judiciary Committee that Biden 2020 campaign official Antony Blinken, now Secretary of State, reached out to him in the days after America’s favorite tabloid dropped the first of several bombshells on Hunter Biden’s laptop Oct. 14, 2020.

Morell said Blinken’s call prompted him to “help [Joe] Biden” by organizing his colleagues to sign a letter questioning The Post’s scoop, which was subsequently strategically leaked.

The Oct. 19, 2020, Politico story by reporter Natasha Bertrand – now at CNN —  was titled, “Hunter Biden story is Russian disinfo, dozens of former intel officials say.”

The fifth paragraph of the letter stated that the officials “do not have evidence of Russian involvement” related to the laptop story, yet the headline attached to Bertrand’s report stated as a matter of fact that the spooks believed The Post was peddling “Russian disinfo.” 

The letter was used by Biden during the Oct. 22 debate against former President Donald Trump to deflect accusations about his involvement in overseas influence-peddling schemes by claiming The Post had reported on “a Russian plant.”

Morell testified that after the debate, he received a call from Steve Ricchetti, chairman of the Biden campaign, to thank him for writing the letter. 

The laptop, abandoned by Hunter Biden at a Delaware computer repair shop in 2019 as he struggled with a crack cocaine addiction, links President Biden to his son and brother Jim Biden’s foreign influence-peddling schemes. 

In the aftermath of Politico’s report on the intel officials’ concerns, most news outlets ignored the laptop’s contents. 

The Post’s reporting on the laptop was also suppressed by Twitter and Facebook.

Claims that the contents of Hunter Biden’s laptop are Russian disinformation have been widely dismissed in the years since The Post’s initial report. 

In March 2022, both the Washington Post and New York Times confirmed the authenticity of the laptop, and in November 2022, CBS did as well.

In February, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper — one of the signatories — belatedly claimed the headline had misrepresented what the 51 former intelligence officials tried to say.

“All we were doing was raising a yellow flag that this could be Russian disinformation. Politico deliberately distorted what we said. It was clear in paragraph five,” Clapper told the Washington Post at the time.

Along with Clapper and Morell, the letter published by Politico was also signed by former CIA directors Michael Hayden, Leon Panetta, and John Brennan — as well as dozens of other former intelligence officials.