Biden lied about Hunter laptop at last debate with Trump, Spies Who Lie tell Congress

WASHINGTON — Call it the C-Y-A.President Biden lied during his most recent debate against Donald Trump when he claimed a group of former intelligence operatives had determined files from his son Hunter’s abandoned laptop were “garbage” and a “Russian plant” — so signers of the “Spies Who Lie” letter told Congress in testimony made public Thursday, just hours before the first Biden-Trump debate of 2024.The former spies, whose letter was drafted specifically to give Biden, now 81, a “talking point” at the second and final debate of the 2020 campaign, said they merely suggested that files from Hunter’s hard drive were bogus, but didn’t assert it as a fact — days after bombshell reports by The Post showed the elder Biden was involved in his family’s Chinese and Ukrainian business relationships.“When he said that it is a Russian plan or whatever — garbage — that’s not what we said in there,” said former CIA Director John Brennan, who was among the best-known signers.“What he said was not an accurate reflection of what the statement said,” Brennan added in a May 11, 2023, deposition before the House Judiciary Committee.Asked if Biden had been “accurate” with his debate claim, James Clapper, the former director of national intelligence, said, “Not exactly.”“If he had said ‘could have’ or ‘may have,’ that would comport with what the intent, as I felt it was, ofthe public statement, not a definitive statement [that] this was Russian interference,” Clapper said in a May 17, 2023, deposition.The controversial letter said the laptop files had “all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation” and was organized by former CIA acting director Michael Morell, who wrote in an email acquired by House investigators that “we think Trump will attack Biden on the issue at this week’s debate, and we want to give the Vice President, VP, a talking point to use in response.”“I wanted [Biden] to win the el...