... We are all individuals who devoted significant portions of our lives to national security. Some of us served in senior positions in policy departments and agencies, and some of us served in senior positions in the Intelligence Community....
We want to emphasize that we do not know if the emails, provided to the New York Post by President Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, are genuine or not and that we do not have evidence of Russian involvement -- just that our experience makes us deeply suspicious that
the Russian government played a significant role in this case. If we are right, this is Russia trying to influence how Americans vote in this election, and we believe strongly that Americans need to be aware of this. There are a number of factors that make us suspicious of Russian involvement.
Such an operation would be consistent with Russian objectives, as outlined publicly and recently by the Intelligence Community, to create political chaos in the United States and to deepen political divisions here but also to undermine the candidacy of former Vice President Biden and thereby help the candidacy of President Trump.
For the Russians at this point, with Trump down in the polls, there is incentive for Moscow to pull out the stops to do anything possible to help Trump win and/or to weaken Biden should he win. A “laptop op” fits the bill, as the publication of the emails are clearly designed to discredit Biden.
Such an operation would be consistent with some of the key methods Russia has used in its now mul-year operaon to interfere in our democracy – the hacking (via cyber operations) and the dumping of accurate information or the distribution of inaccurate or misinformation. Russia did both of these during the 2016 presidential election – judgments shared by the US Intelligence Community, the investigation into Russian activities by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, and the entirety (all Republicans and Democrats) on the current Senate Intelligence Committee. Such an operation is also consistent with several data points. The Russians, according to media reports and cybersecurity experts, targeted Burisma late last year for cyber collection and gained access to its emails.
And Ukrainian politician and businessman Adriy Derkach, identified and sanctioned by the US Treasury Department for being a 10-year Russian agent interfering in the 2020 elecon, passed purported materials on Burisma and Hunter Biden to Giuliani. Our view that the
Russians are involved in the Hunter Biden email issue is consistent with two other significant data points as well. According to the Washington Post, cing four sources, “U.S. intelligence agencies warned the White House last year that Giuliani was the target of an influence operation by Russian intelligence.” In addition, media reports say that the FBI has now opened an investigation into Russian involvement in this case. According to USA Today, “…federal authorities are investigating whether the
material supplied to the New York Post by Rudy Giuliani…is part of a smoke bomb of disinformation pushed by Russia.” ...
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