James Clapper is back, and he’s really angry at Politico for reporting on his 2020 election interference.

Clapper, the former CIA director who played an intimate role in hatching the Russian collusion hoax targeting Donald Trump, recently told The Washington Post that the letter he signed dismissing Hunter Biden’s laptop as Russian disinformation was not meant to dismiss the laptop as Russian disinformation.

According to Clapper, Politico distorted the letter, presenting it as definitive when it was merely a suggestion. Jonathan Turley wasn’t buying it.

…Of course, that is the very profile of disinformation that was used by Twitter and other companies to censor others. When scientists and pundits stated that they were offering alternative views on covid or elections, they were censored or suspended…

— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) February 13, 2023

…Notably, I do not recall Clapper rushing forward before the election to correct the widespread use of the letter to dismiss the laptop as Russian disinformation. It was only after the Russian disinformation claims were debunked after the election that he appears distraught… https://t.co/MBbHSFsnL1

— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) February 13, 2023

Turley’s critique of Clapper is exactly correct. It is a rewriting of history to pretend that letter was an idle suggestion simply drawing on the possibility of Russian election interference regarding the Hunter Biden laptop. On the contrary, while the letter left a few outs for its signatories, it was clearly pushing a very specific narrative as not just being probable, but almost an absolute.

As I noted in a prior article, the idea that the letter was ambiguous is false. There was a very specific citation of “our view” (i.e. the signatories) being that the Hunter Biden laptop was Russian disinformation. Further, it pointedly denounced Russian interference in US elections despite there being no evidence that was the case.

In fact, the letter referred to “[o]ur view that the Russians are involved in the Hunter Biden email issue” and concluded with the message: “It is high time that Russia stops interfering in our democracy.”

Even still, as Turley says, Clapper obviously knew how that letter would be used, otherwise, there would have been no reason to even release it. It was meant to provide an air of authority to a false conspiracy theory about Russia in order to abscond from the Biden family’s degenerate and corrupt behavior. In other words, it was meant to interfere in the election on behalf of the Democratic Party, and it succeeded.

Now, the rats want to flee the ship, but the ship has already sunk to the bottom of the sea. There’s no walking back what was done, and while Politico did sensationalize the letter for political gain, Clapper is the one who chose to sign it with full knowledge of how it would be used. He and the rest of his former intelligence colleagues did what Russia couldn’t: Throw an American election.