Clapper Doubles Down in Amazingly Bad Remarks About Russia and the Laptop
Former Director of Intelligence James Clapper certainly has a lot of gall.
Clapper appeared on CNN with host Kaitlan Collins. Collins asked him about the letter signed by the 51 former intel officials, including him. If he had any shame at all, he would be apologizing for what they did with that letter. It helped interfere in the 2020 election. It enabled Joe Biden to falsely claim the laptop was Russian disinformation. The organizer of the letter, former CIA Director Mike Morrell, said the intel letter was meant—in his mind—to help Joe Biden during his debate with former President Donald Trump and in the election, to give him a “talking point.”
But Clapper seemed to have no remorse.
Well, to answer your question, no, I don’t regret it. I thought, at the time, it was appropriate to sound a warning about, watch out for the dark hand of the Russians. In my case, this was on the heels of what I saw the Russians do in 2016 to interfere and influence the outcome of our election. So, I thought it was appropriate. I thought the letter was appropriately caveated by acknowledging we didn’t have any direct evidence. To this day, I still have not seen any official results of forensic analysis of that laptop, as to whether or not, in some way, the Russians messed with it.
They had no evidence at all to suggest it was the Russians, yet they all signed on to the letter anyway because it fit the narrative they wanted to push. So much for their credibility. Notice he doesn’t acknowledge what Morrell said about the purpose of the letter.
Clapper even doubled down, by saying, “I still have not seen any official results of forensic analysis of that laptop, as to whether or not, in some way, the Russians messed with it.” Think about what he’s saying there for a minute. He is still suggesting it could be Russian disinformation unless you can disprove it, even without any evidence supporting it.
Of course, there’s ample evidence to disprove it. Clapper completely ignores the reality of the laptop, the evidence on it with lots of questionable Biden behavior, and even Hunter’s lawyer talking about the laptop info being “stolen” (thus, acknowledging the info), as well as the various media outlets that did authenticate it.
This whole “we didn’t say it was disinformation because we put in a caveat” is a pretty lame defense. Why suggest it at all, when you had no evidence to support it right before the election?
Collins didn’t give him any real pushback. That’s not surprising since CNN hired Clapper to be “national security analyst” despite his admitted “clearly erroneous” testimony to Congress about the government collecting data on Americans. That didn’t stop them from hiring him. They also hired people like former FBI official Andrew McCabe. They got called out for it by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. “Are you prepared to defend your network” for hiring these guys, McCarthy demanded of a CNN reporter. None of that seems to matter to CNN.
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