WASHINGTON A former top intelligence official who signed on to a letter attacking The Post s bombshell 2020 reporting on Hunter Biden s laptop as Russian disinformation has now admitted he knew a significant portion of the recovered files had to be real but doesn t regret dismissing the exposé.
Douglas Wise, a former Defense Intelligence Agency deputy director, was one of 51 erstwhile intelligence brass who issued the public letter on Oct. 19, 2020 five days after The Post began a series of reports on the now-first son s shady overseas business dealings.
All of us figured that a significant portion of that content had to be real to make any Russian disinformation credible, said Wise who didn t respond when The Post reached out for an explanation in March of last year, but found his tongue when he spoke to The Australian.
The Oct. 19 letter whose signatories included former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, former Director of National intelligence James Clapper, and former CIA Director John Brennan went out of its way to cast doubt on the legitimacy of The Post s scoop, devoting five paragraphs to explaining factors that make us suspicious of Russian involvement while slipping in the caveat that we do not know if the emails & are genuine or not and & we do not have evidence of Russian involvement.
