House Republicans are asking questions from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) following a whistleblower's claims of agency meddling to obstruct probes into Hunter Biden.
On Thursday, the GOP leaders of the House Oversight and Judiciary Committees sent a letter to CIA Director William Burns letter to request records related to allegations that the CIA collaborated with the Department of Justice to protect President Joe Biden and his son.
The lawmakers stated, “The information we recently received from the whistleblower appears to support our concerns about the DOJ's departure from standard procedures to give preferential treatment to Hunter Biden.” They continued, “According to the whistleblower, in August 2021, when IRS investigators were preparing to interview Patrick Kevin Morris, an associate of Hunter Biden, the CIA intervened to halt the interview.”
“Two DOJ officials were supposedly called to CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia for a briefing about Mr. Morris,” the lawmakers added. “During that meeting, it was conveyed that Mr. Morris could not be a witness during the investigation.”
Reps. Jim Jordan of Ohio and James Comer of Kentucky, who lead the Judiciary and Oversight Committees, respectively, gave Director Burns until April 4 to reply to the congressional inquiry.
In December, House Republicans launched an investigation into probe CIA interference in the 2020 election regarding the agency’s potential connection to the notorious Hunter Biden laptop letter, which sought to discredit the computer as a tool of Russian disinformation.
“We understand that former intelligence officials often return to the intelligence community under private contract for their previous agencies,” Jordan wrote. “It is crucial for the Committees’ oversight to ascertain whether any of the signatories of the public statement were actively employed by CIA as contractors or consultants at the time they signed the public statement.”
While the CIA is under scrutiny for safeguarding political allies, the same agency is accused of spreading fabricated conspiracies to undermine Republicans. In February, Substack journalists Michael Shellenberger, Matt Taibbi, and Alex Gutentag published a series of reports on the CIA, revealing the intelligence agency responsible for Russiagate while pressuring allied nations to monitor the Trump campaign.
“The US [intelligence community] urged the ‘Five Eyes’ intelligence alliance to surveil Trump’s associates and share the intelligence they gathered with US agencies, according to sources close to a House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HSPCI) investigation,” they reported.
The team of investigative reporters also stated that the FBI’s raid on Mar-a-Lago was likely an operation to retrieve material compiled in a binder that would reveal misconduct related to the Russia hoax by the deep state.
“Multiple sources believe that Trump’s possession of the binder, or one of multiple binders, led the FBI to raid his home in Mar-a-Lago, which resulted in the prosecution of Trump by Justice Department special prosecutor Jack Smith,” they wrote. However, former CIA Director Gina Haspel, who served under Trump, “repeatedly obstructed attempts to declassify information about the Trump-Russia investigation” as early as 2018.
