If this is the caliber of the workforce that currently inhabits our intel agencies, someone explain to me why they still deserve to exist.

Apparently, 50 former intel agents have run to Politico to sign a letter, a favorite tactic during the Trump era to push non-authoritative nonsense as authoritative, claiming that the Hunter Biden email scandal is actually Russian misinformation.

More than 50 former senior intelligence officials have signed on to a letter outlining their belief that the recent disclosure of emails allegedly belonging to Joe Biden’s son “has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.”https://t.co/T58QhdXEJd

— POLITICO (@politico) October 20, 2020

Oh, it has all the classic earmarks? Well, that settles it, right? I mean, who needs actual evidence of to push a wild, partisan conspiracy theory when you are trying to counter a myriad of evidence to the contrary, including an actual receipt that shows the laptop was dropped off at the repair shop by Hunter Biden.

(see Repair Shop Receipt for Hunter Biden Laptop Revealed, Media Narrative Burns to the Ground)

Of note here is that the letter does indeed provide zero backing for any of the claims made in it.

Also, numbers of people signing letters affirming things the media really wants to believe has got to be among the lowest forms of content right now … especially after the 88 folks who signed against ACB had not a lawyer among them.

Shall we look at who signed this one?

— Geoffrey Ingersoll (@GPIngersoll) October 20, 2020

Worse, many of the people who signed appear to be outright partisans for Joe Biden, including people affiliated directly with his campaign.

lol. Quite of few of the guys who signed this letter know Joe Biden personally or are affiliated with his campaign. They could seemingly find out from him if Hunter Biden dropped off the laptop or if any of the emails are fake. https://t.co/U71v3kxsXp

— Chuck Ross (@ChuckRossDC) October 20, 2020

Not shockingly, Politico didn’t bother to mention that part. You’d think it’d be relevant to point out that some of the signatories have obvious bias in the matter and have a clear motivation to spread false conspiracy theories to protect Biden.

Let’s also not forget these are some of the same intelligence officials who swore by the Steele dossier, so their judgment is certainly in question.

Almost all of these people were working in the intelligence community when they were using the Russian sourced Steele Dossier to spy on the Trump campaign so forgive me if I couldn't give less of a shit what they think about emails the Bidens have not said are false https://t.co/iuoa6Knng8

— Greg Price (@greg_price11) October 20, 2020

It’s been laid out beyond a doubt at this point that the emails are not Russia. Putin is not hiding in the closet trying to get Donald Trump elected by hurting Joe Biden, who has proven himself infinitely weaker on foreign policy, including dealing with Russia. That never made any sense anyway.

No, this is Hunter Biden being corrupt, his father being corrupt, and a media desperate to cover it up. There’s a reason the campaign isn’t denying the base facts of the story, and there’s a reason they are relying on others to spread misinformation about the origins of the emails instead of just doing it themselves. They know they are real. The only people still keeping up the ridiculous illusion that this is the Russians are partisan Democrats, the media, and apparently, some really terrible intel analysts.

(Please follow me on Twitter! @bonchieredstate)