Hunter Biden laptop letter author helped Clinton tie Trump to Putin in 2016

The former spy chief who organized and co-authored the infamous Hunter Biden laptop letter ahead of the 2020 election also played a key role in helping Hillary Clinton in 2016 smear Donald Trump by tying him to Russia's Vladimir Putin.

Mike Morell, the former acting CIA director, injected into the American political bloodstream the idea that Trump was an “agent” of Putin and Russia, a refrain that would be repeated over and over again by the Clinton campaign.

Similar to recruiting 51 ex-spies in 2020 to falsely claim the laptop was somehow tied to Russia, Morell also led a letter in 2016 signed by over 50 former national security officials who insinuated Trump had nefarious links to Putin’s Russia.

Morell’s claims would be heavily relied upon by the Clinton campaign throughout the summer and fall of 2016, and Clinton would personally and repeatedly tout Morell’s endorsement and his claims about Trump and Putin.

Newly declassified evidence shows the FBI was alerted to intelligence in 2016 indicating Clinton planned to smear Trump by linking him to Russia in an effort to distract from her scandal surrounding the sending of classified emails on an illicit email server.

That same intelligence, gathered from Russia, also suggested the FBI's leaders played right into the campaign's strategy by conducting a sweeping investigation into false claims of Trump-Russia collusion.

Clinton campaign communications director Jennifer Palmieri strongly implied in a 2017 Washington Post article that the Clinton campaign had sought Morell out in the summer of 2016 to encourage him to weigh in publicly about Trump and Russia, and Clinton herself also hinted at this in her 2017 campaign memoir, What Happened.

Morrell told the New York Times that he decided to weigh in in 2016 on his own and not due to outside considerations.

Morell, Palmieri, and the Clinton Foundation did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Just the News.

As reported by Just the News, public records show Clinton herself, in coordination with Palmieri, her campaign general counsel Marc Elias, campaign manager Robby Mook, campaign chairman John Podesta, campaign policy adviser Jake Sullivan, and others launched an effort to link Trump to Putin as the 2016 battle for the White House raged.

The Clinton campaign also funded through its law firm British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s now-discredited dossier and spread the false claims of a secret communications channel between the Trump Organization and Alfa Bank.

Newly declassified evidence dubbed the "Clinton Plan intelligence" included purported intercepted communications from a George Soros ally suggesting that Clinton’s 2016 campaign against Trump was plotting an effort to demonize the Republican nominee by connecting him to Putin, and that the Clinton campaign expected the FBI would put more fuel on the fire.

The declassified revelations from special counsel John Durham’s report included purported emails from Leonard Benardo, a top official at George Soros’s Open Society Foundations, and alleged communications by Clinton foreign policy adviser Julianne Smith. Benardo denied writing the messages, while Smith said she didn’t remember having done so but couldn’t rule out proposing such a Clinton plan.

The newly declassified annex of the report also shows Durham found some corroborating evidence for the intercepts but concluded the purported emails from Benardo were likely mashups or composites of what Russian spies had probably collected from multiple Clinton allies. 

Smith was the head of the Clinton campaign’s Europe team and worked as a foreign policy advisor for the failed 2016 bid. Smith had been deputy national security advisor to then-Vice President Joe Biden during the Obama administration.

The Durham classified annex assessed that “it is a logical deduction [REDACTED] [Julianne] Smith was, at minimum, playing a role in the Clinton campaign’s efforts to tie Trump to Russia," and that the communications reviewed by the special counsel “certainly lends at least some credence that such a plan existed.”

Clinton herself was previously asked about the Clinton Plan intelligence, and told Durham’s team in an interview that it "looked like Russian disinformation to me; they're very good at it, you know."

But Morell’s actions — and the Clinton’s embrace of his baseless framing of Trump as a Russian agent and Putin stooge —  provide evidence the Clinton campaign did in fact carry out a political dirty trick.

Clinton campaign seemingly recruits Morell for Trump-Russia plan

Durham’s 2023 public report revealed that “the Intelligence Community received the Clinton Plan intelligence in late July 2016.”

Palmieri wrote in her 2017 Washington Post story that “the week after the convention” in late July 2016 “we sought out credible national security voices to sound alarms” and that “I was surprised by the enthusiasm with which some, such as former acting CIA director Michael Morell, jumped into the fray.”

“When I worked in the Obama White House, people in national security positions had been uneasy making broad public arguments, particularly about political matters. Not this time,” Palmieri wrote in 2017. “They were so concerned about the situation that, to me, the language they used to describe the threat they believed Russia and Trump posed was shocking.”

Palmieri said that “I remember my jaw dropping as I sat in our Brooklyn campaign headquarters and read the op-ed Morell submitted to the New York Times in early August [2016]” as she linked to Morell’s piece.

Clinton also discussed the Morell opinion piece in her book What Happened, a post-mortem she penned on the 2016 election.

“Maybe the press wouldn’t listen to us, but I figured they would listen to respected intelligence officials. On August 5, Mike Morell, the former acting director of the CIA, wrote a highly unusual op-ed in the New York Times. PDespite being a strictly nonpartisan career professional, he said that he had decided to endorse me for President because of my strong record on national security, including my role in bringing Osama bin Laden to justice. By contrast, he said Trump was “not only unqualified for the job, but he may well pose a threat to our national security.” Coming from America’s former top spy, that was a shocking statement. But it paled compared with what Morell said next.”

ABC News reported in early August 2016 that “a flood of prominent Republicans in recent weeks announced their support for Clinton over Trump, including … former acting CIA Director Mike Morell” and that “the recruitment effort has been spearheaded by Clinton's campaign chairman, John Podesta.”

Morell was employed at Beacon Global Strategies at the time, a consultancy firm whose founder and managing director was Philippe Reines, who had served as communications advisor to Clinton during her tenure as secretary of state.

Morell, for his part, told the New York Times in mid-August 2016 that “I made the decision to speak out entirely on my own, with no other consideration given any thought. This was a deeply personal decision made on a completely personal basis. The only people I discussed the op-ed with were my family and a few very close friends. Nobody else.”

Morell claims Putin “recruited” Trump to be “agent” of Russia

Morell’s claim that Trump was an agent of Putin’s Russia would be embraced by the Clinton campaign all the way through November 2016.

Palmieri noted in her 2017 opinion piece that Morell had written in August 2016 that “in the intelligence business, we would say that Mr. Putin had recruited Mr. Trump as an unwitting agent of the Russian Federation.”

There was, and is, no evidence of this, according to two special prosecutors who investigated the Russia matter. But such claims matched well with the Clinton Plan intelligence intercepted by the U.S. government.

Clinton also described Morell’s opinion piece on Trump and Putin at great length in her book, What Happened.

“Putin, he [Morell] noted, was a career intelligence officer ‘trained to identify vulnerabilities in an individual and to exploit them.’ And here’s the shocking part: ‘In the intelligence business,’ Morell said, ‘we would say that Mr. Putin had recruited Mr. Trump as an unwitting agent of the Russian Federation.’ … Morell’s argument … was that Putin was manipulating Trump into taking policy positions that would help Russia and hurt America,” Clinton said in her book.

“Even without a secret conspiracy, there was plenty of troubling pro-Putin behavior right out in the open,” Clinton wrote. “Morell’s op-ed was the equivalent of pulling the fire alarm in a crowded building. And yet, somehow, most in the media — and many voters — continued to ignore the danger staring us in the face.”

Morell’s comments claiming Trump was an agent for Putin and Russia were picked up by numerous outlets including Politico, Reuters, NBC News, Vox, CNN, The Atlantic, The Hill, The Week, the Times of Israel, the Washington Post, CBS News, The Verge, the Jerusalem Post, the Daily Kos, GQ, The Telegraph, The Times, the Daily Mail, the Boston Globe, and many others.

Trump dismissed Morell’s endorsement of Clinton in a short tweet.

“Michael Morell, the lightweight former Acting Director of CIA, and a man who has made serious bad calls, is a total Clinton flunky!” Trump wrote in early August 2016.

Brian Fallon, the Clinton campaign’s press secretary, touted Morell’s quote about Trump allegedly being an “agent” of Putin in an early September 2016 tweet.

Palmieri told Politico in late September 2016 that Clinton needed to win, because “the alternative is really frightening about our country, but also what it means if, like, somebody like Putin is able to, you know — who, you know, obviously has got a hold on Trump, you know, what that would mean for our democracy.”

When asked if she really believed Putin would have a hold over U.S. domestic affairs if Trump won, Palmieri replied: “Well, I think that he would — yeah, I think that — this is Mike Morell, who has a lot more credibility on this than myself … former acting director of the CIA has said that he has become a witting or unwitting — you know, he’s become a recruit, basically, of the Russian Federation — an unwitting agent of the Russian Federation.”

Josh Schwerin, the Clinton campaign’s director of speechwriting, shared an article on Twitter pushing the quote by Morell about Trump being recruited by Putin in an early October 2016 tweet.

Podesta gave a mid-October 2016 interview to Time magazine where he criticized Trump over Putin and Russia — directly citing Morell.

“This definitely is the first campaign that I’ve been involved with in which I’ve had to tangle with Russian intelligence agencies,” Podesta said. “Who seem to be doing everything they can on behalf of our opponent.”

Podesta added Trump is “either willfully ignoring the information that’s coming from the highest reaches of the U.S. intelligence community, or he is, as former acting CIA director Mike Morell said, an unwitting agent of the Russian Federation.”

The Clinton campaign also released a video in mid-October 2016 which cited Morell’s contention about Trump and Putin:

"Why would Russia and Putin have an interest in seeing Donald Trump win the election in November? It’s because it’s frightening how closely the foreign policy of Trump aligns with Putin’s preferences," the video stated.

The video said it was also “concerning enough that the former acting director of the CIA said that Putin had recruited” the Republican nominee as “an unwitting agent of the Russian Federation.”

The Clinton campaign put out another press release in mid-October 2016 on “15 facts you should know about Donald Trump, WikiLeaks, and Russia.” Tenth on the list was Morell’s claim that Putin had recruited Trump as a Russian agent.

Harry Reid cites Morell’s Trump-Putin claims in Comey letter

Morell’s claims about Trump being an agent of Putin and Russia would soon be promoted by the most powerful Democrat in Congress.

Since-deceased Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., sent a late August 2016 letter to Comey which would set off a media and political firestorm. The very second line of the letter, seeking to link Trump and Putin, directly cited Morell’s claims.

“I have recently become concerned that the threat of the Russian government tampering in our presidential election is more extensive than widely known and may include the intent to falsify election results,” Reid wrote. “The evidence of a direct connection between the Russian government and Donald Trump’s presidential campaign continues to mount and has led Michael Morell, the former Acting Central Intelligence Agency Director, to call Trump an ‘unwitting agent’ of Russia and the Kremlin.”

Clinton discussed this in her book, What Happened, writing that “I wasn’t the only one who noticed” that the media was supposedly ignoring the Trump-Russia claims.

“At the end of August, Harry Reid, one of the congressional ‘gang of eight’ who are briefed on the most sensitive intelligence matters, wrote a letter to FBI Director Comey that cited [Roger] Stone’s claims and asked for a full and thorough investigation,” Clinton wrote. “He also raised the prospect that there might be an attempt to falsify official election results. … Like Morell’s op-ed, Reid’s letter was an attempt to shake the country out of its complacency and get the press, the administration, and all Americans focused on an urgent threat. It didn’t work.”

Clinton did not mention that Reid’s letter to Comey relied heavily upon Morell’s opinion piece.

Morell leads “A Call for Transparency” on Trump and Putin

Morell led a mid-September 2016 open letter entitled “A Call for Transparency” which sought to negatively link Trump to Putin and Russia. Similar to what would happen with the Hunter Biden laptop letter four years later, it was signed by roughly 50 former national security officials.

Morell and future Hunter Biden laptop letter signers Jeremy Bash, David Buckley, Thomas Fingar, John McLaughlin, and Michael Vickers all signed. Nick Shapiro, the longtime aide to John Brennan, and Julianne Smith also signed it.

“Russia offers the most clear cut example of where Mr. Trump’s business interests may be influencing his policy positions,” the letter said. It added: “Mr. Trump has filled his campaign with top-level advisers with deep ties to Russia, including former campaign chair Paul Manafort, who resigned amid a cascade of revelations about the depth of his connections to pro-Kremlin individuals.”

“On the campaign trail, Mr. Trump has repeatedly praised Vladimir Putin’s authoritarian leadership, while outlining policies that read like a Kremlin wish list,” the letter contended.

It was reported by The New York Times that Morell and former defense intelligence official Michael Vickers — also a future Hunter Biden laptop letter signer — “put together the letter with input from” with Samantha Vinograd, a former senior adviser to Thomas Donilon, a former national security adviser under Obama.

The outlet wrote that “Morell said he and Mr. Vickers sought the letter” after a Newsweek story by Kurt Eichenwald entitled, “How the Trump Organization’s Foreign Business Ties Could Upend U.S. National Security.”

The Clinton campaign would repeatedly cite the September 2016 letter written by Morell and signed by fifty national security officials which attacked Trump and framed him as pro-Putin.

“Despite his effort to hide his business dealings, we now know that Donald Trump has profited from hundreds of millions of dollars from Russian interests. These alarming financial ties present a possible motive for his otherwise puzzling pro-Putin policies such as his openness to lifting sanctions against Russia that currently inhibit money making opportunities for corporations like the Trump Organization,” the Clinton campaign said in a press release from deputy communications director Christina Reynolds in late September.

“This is precisely what more than fifty national security experts warned against when they called on Trump to disclose and divest his conflict-laden foreign assets that could endanger America's national security," she added.

Christopher Steele was the source for a late September 2016 Yahoo News article by Michael Isikoff about Carter Page titled “U.S. intel officials probe ties between Trump adviser and Kremlin.” The article cited a “well-placed Western intelligence source” who claimed that Page met with alleged Putin associate and Rosneft energy company chairman Igor Sechin. Page denies this meeting took place, and the FBI found no evidence of it. That Yahoo News article was subsequently referenced in FISA applications against Page.

The Clinton campaign shared the article and released a statement from the campaign’s senior national spokesperson Glen Caplin touting the story, saying that “it's chilling to learn that U.S. intelligence officials are conducting a probe into suspected meetings between Trump's foreign policy adviser Carter Page and members of Putin's inner circle while in Moscow.”

The Clinton campaign press release also again touted the letter organized by Morell and signed by dozens of national security officials attacking Trump and attempting to tie him to Russia.

“Just one day after we learned about Trump's hundreds of millions of dollars in undisclosed Russian business interests, this report suggests Page met with a sanctioned top Russian official to discuss the possibility of ending U.S. sanctions against Russia under a Trump presidency — an action that could directly enrich both Trump and Page while undermining American interests,” the Clinton campaign contended. “This is precisely what more than fifty national security experts warned against when they called on Trump to disclose and divest his conflict-laden foreign assets that could endanger our national security.”

Clinton campaign repeatedly touts Morell endorsement

Trump released an early September 2016 letter from 88 retired military leaders endorsing him for president, with the group saying that “the 2016 election affords the American people an urgently needed opportunity to make a long-overdue course correction in our national security posture and policy.”

Trump touted the letter on the campaign trail, CBS News reported, but “Clinton pushed back, saying Trump has lagged in securing key military supporters compared to past Republican nominees, including John McCain and Mitt Romney. She pointed to her endorsements from retired Marine Gen. John Allen, who blasted Trump at the Democratic National Committee, and former CIA deputy director Mike Morell.”

Clinton said in early September that “I’m honored that in the last 24 hours, more retired generals and admirals have decided to endorse my campaign.”

“To focus more on these crucial challenges, tomorrow I’m convening a meeting of bipartisan national security leaders and experts, including former secretaries of homeland security, Michael Chertoff and Janet Napolitano; General John Allen; former acting director of the CIA Michael Morell; and former NATO supreme allied commander James Stavridis, and others,” Clinton said.

Clinton’s campaign put out a press release in mid-October 2016 detailing a media call where “a group of National Security officials today called out Donald Trump’s cozy relationship with Vladimir Putin, outlined why he’s unfit for the job as Commander-in-Chief, and denounced his refusal to condemn Russia’s state-sponsored cybersecurity attacks.”

The campaign highlighted Morell first and prominently, quoting him as saying that “I think that Trump's motivation here to play into Putin's hands is driven by one thing for sure and one thing that I'm deeply concerned about. The thing that I'm sure about is that Trump is cozying up to Putin because Putin has played him like a fiddle. Putin has figured out what makes Donald Trump tick, and he's playing to it.”

Clinton gave a Halloween 2016 speech at Kent State University in the swing state of Ohio — and she cited Morell in her closing argument to the American people.

“What’s most striking about all of this — and I would argue most important for voters to consider — is the relationship between Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin… Michael Morell, who ran the CIA and grew up just a few miles from here, has said that Putin is manipulating Donald,” Clinton said. “Putin is a trained intelligence officer from the old KGB. He knows he can use flattery to get into Donald's head — to make Donald the Kremlin's puppet. And it seems to be working.”

Morell hammers Trump over Russia through November

Morell would spend the months after his New York Times opinion piece repeatedly tying Trump to Putin.

“Look at it from Putin's perspective, right. He's a trained intelligence officer, worked for the KGB, very talented, manipulated people much smarter than Donald Trump. He played this perfectly, right,” Morell told ABC’s This Week a couple days after his Times opinion piece. “He saw that Donald Trump wanted to be complimented. He complimented him. That led Donald Trump to then compliment Vladimir Putin and to defend Vladimir Putin's actions in a number of places around the world.”

Morell added: “And Donald Trump didn't even understand, right, that Putin was playing him. So, in Putin's mind, I have no doubt that Putin thinks that he's an unwitting agent of the Russian Federation, although Putin would never say that. From Mr. Trump's perspective, right, he simply heard Putin compliment him. He then responded by complimenting him. He never thought that he might be being played.”

Morell spoke with Charlie Rose just a few days after his Times piece, saying that “I would like to see him [Trump] just stand up and denounce Putin.”

When asked why he thought Trump didn’t denounce Putin, Morell replied, “The single thing in my op-ed that got the most attention was I said this guy’s been recruited… an unwitting agent of the [Russian] Federation. He’s been recruited by Putin. That’s why he has taken the positions he has taken.”

Morell and another future Hunter Biden laptop letter signer — Vickers — soon penned an “open letter” to Trump published in the Washington Post in early September 2016, writing, “Mr. Trump, with all due respect to you as the presidential nominee of the Republican Party, you cannot credibly serve as commander in chief if you embrace Russian President Vladimir Putin.”

Morell again called Trump an “unwitting agent” of Putin on CNN the next day, claiming that Putin “wants Donald Trump to win this election, in part because of the romance that we’ve seen between the two.”

The New York Times did a lengthy Q&A with Morell in mid-August 2016 about his endorsement of Clinton. The outlet said that his opinion piece the week prior had “jump-started a new conversation about foreign policy in this election — one that received a further boost on Monday, when 50 Republican foreign policy leaders signed a letter condemning Mr. Trump on similar grounds.”

Morell praised Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state and downplayed her use of an illicit private email server to send classified information during the interview as he harshly criticized Trump.

“Donald J. Trump’s rhetoric undermines America’s image overseas, damaging our influence and our global leadership. ... The extent to which these engagements served the national security interests of the United States depended, more than anything else, on the personal relationships and trust I built with these individuals. Our nation’s leaders get things done overseas largely through such relationships,” Morell said.

“These relationships are in our interest and require a great deal of time and effort to keep strong. In my view, it is impossible to have a relationship, let alone one of trust, if you say the kinds of things that Mr. Trump has frequently said about our closest allies and partners. The people overseas who work with us — and whom we rely on to help keep us safe — might not do so in the face of such a person," he added.

Morell did not pass up opportunities to attack Trump during the campaign. Trump was asked during an NBC forum in early September 2016 about what he had learned from an intelligence briefing he had recently been given.

“What I did learn is that our leadership, Barack Obama, did not follow what our experts, and our — truly, when they call it intelligence, it’s there for a reason — what our experts said to do,” Trump said. “And I was very, very surprised. In almost every instance, and I could tell — I’m pretty good with the body language — I could tell they were not happy. Our leaders did not follow what they were recommending.”

Morell criticized Trump over this, reportedly telling the Washington Post that Trump’s comments “show that he’s got zero understanding of how intelligence works.”

Morell penned a letter-style opinion piece for the Akron Beacon Journal in the swing state of Ohio in late October 2016. The former CIA chief, who was born in northeast Ohio, again tying Trump and Putin together.

“I fear Trump’s need to have his ego stroked would make it easy for foreign leaders to manipulate him — as Russian President Putin has already done. I fear that Trump’s overreaction to perceived slights and his shoot-from-the-hip decision-making style would be dangerous during a foreign policy crisis,” Morell wrote. 

Morell  spoke with students at the University of Chicago law school on the eve of the November 2016 election, where he again linked Trump and Putin.

“World leaders tend to be more narcissistic than your average person, and Donald Trump is the most narcissistic person I have ever seen in my life,” Morell said. “Narcissistic people are easy to manipulate, and Vladimir Putin saw that.”

Morell added that “this is the first time that the United States government has accused another government of trying to interfere in our election.” He said “that’s huge — it’s the heart of our democracy, it’s the heart of who we are.”

It was reported by CNN in early November 2016 that Morell was on the likely shortlist to be Clinton’s CIA director. It was not meant to be.

“Political Equivalent of 9/11”

After Clinton’s loss, Morell would soon argue that Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election was the “political equivalent of 9/11” — a framing which many Democrats would quickly embrace.

The Washington Post reported in early December 2016 that “the CIA has concluded in a secret assessment that Russia intervened in the 2016 election to help Donald Trump win the presidency, rather than just to undermine confidence in the U.S. electoral system.”

Now-Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard released a report in July 2025 criticizing the leaks to the Washington Post in December 2016.

“Deep State officials in the IC begin leaking blatantly false intelligence to the Washington Post, as proven by the unpublished PDB and previous IC products, claiming that Russia used ‘cyber means’ to influence ‘the outcome of the election.’ … Later that evening, another leak to the Washington Post falsely alleges that the CIA ‘concluded in a secret assessment that Russia intervened’ in the election to help President Trump,” the ODNI report from last month said. “At this point, there is no official IC assessment that contains that conclusion.”

Back in late 2016, Morell jumped on the leaks about the CIA having allegedly already concluded by then that Russia had sought to help Trump defeat Clinton, labeling Russian meddling “the political equivalent of 9/11” during an interview with the Cipher Brief.

“What was new in The Washington Post story, if it’s right — we still don’t know whether it’s right … but that the CIA believes the intent of the meddling was to help Mr. Trump and hurt Mrs. Clinton’s chances. That meddling went way beyond just stealing the DNC and [Podesta] information and giving it to WikiLeaks, that’s what’s new,” Morell said. “But what’s important to me is, it’s less important that they had picked the winner and loser, which I thought all along they had done. What’s most important is that they did indeed meddle.”

Morell continued: “[W]e need to see this for what it is. It is an attack on our very democracy. It’s an attack on who we are as a people. A foreign government messing around in our elections is, I think, an existential threat to our way of life."

Morell’s comparison of Russian election meddling to 9/11 was quickly cited by numerous media outlets, including Politico, the Huffington Post, Business Insider, Forbes, USA Today, The Independent, NPR, NBC News, Forbes, and others.

Podesta also touted Morell’s 9/11 comments in a mid-December 2016 opinion piece in the Washington Post seeking to blame Clinton’s loss on the FBI and Russia.

“The more we learn about the Russian plot to sabotage Hillary Clinton's campaign and elect Donald Trump, and the failure of the FBI to adequately respond, the more shocking it gets,” Podesta wrote. “The former acting director of the CIA has called the Russian cyberattack ‘the political equivalent of 9/11.’ Just as after the real 9/11, we need a robust, independent investigation into what went wrong inside the government and how to better protect our country in the future.”

Clinton herself cited Morell in her book, What Happened, when arguing that she had lost because of Comey and Russia.

“The second big factor that caused the bottom to fall out at the end of the race was the Russian plot to sabotage my campaign and help elect Trump,” Clinton wrote. “Michael Morell, the former acting director of the CIA, has described it as ‘the political equivalent of 9/11.’ … Because no evidence has emerged yet of direct vote tampering, some critics insist that Russian interference had no impact on the outcome at all. This is absurd. The Kremlin’s information warfare was roughly equivalent to a hostile super PAC unleashing a major ad campaign, if not worse. Of course it had an impact.”

Morell and other future Hunter Biden laptop letter signers such as ex-CIA Director Leon Panetta and former intelligence official Michael Vickers signed an early January 2017 letter calling for an investigation into Russian election meddling.

"To understand fully and publicly what happened, how we were so vulnerable, and what we can do to protect our democracy in future elections, we the undersigned strongly encourage the Congress to create an independent, bipartisan commission to investigate efforts by the Russian Federation to influence or interfere with the U.S. presidential election in 2016,” the letter said. "This inquiry should occur immediately. Anything less than a swift investigation will leave us vulnerable to another attack and, possibly worse, permit and normalize future interference."

Morell would declare in March 2017 that “on the question of the Trump campaign conspiring with the Russians here, there is smoke, but there is no fire, at all,” according to NBC News. Morell added, "There’s no little campfire, there’s no little candle, there’s no spark. And there’s a lot of people looking for it."

Morell spends Trump’s first term attacking him over Russian meddling

Despite shooting down claims of Trump-Russia collusion, which he had clearly encouraged for months, Morell would then spend the next four years hammering Trump over Russia.

Morell and others weighed in on a lawsuit which alleged that the Trump campaign engaged in a conspiracy with Russian agents and WikiLeaks to publish hacked Democratic emails. The lawsuit was eventually dismissed in 2018, despite Morell signing on to a friend of the court brief the year before.

The amicus brief was filed with the court in December 2017 and was signed by Morell as well as other future Hunter Biden laptop letter signers such as John Brennan, James Clapper, former NSA director Michael Hayden, and former CIA officer John Sipher. Julianne Smith also signed the amicus brief, as did future Kamala Harris national security adviser Phil Gordon and future Biden director of national intelligence Avril Haines.

“Russia conducted cyber espionage operations against targets associated with the 2016 presidential election starting during the Republican primaries, and distributed information obtained through those operations — as well as a wide range of propaganda and disinformation — to undermine faith in the U.S. democratic process and, in the general election, influence the results against Secretary Hillary Clinton,” the brief signed by Morell and the others said.

Morell also penned a December 2017 opinion piece for the Washington Post with former House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Mich., where the duo lamented alleged ongoing Russian influence efforts.

“The United States has failed to establish deterrence in the aftermath of Russia’s interference in the 2016 election,” the article co-authored by Morell said. “We know we failed because Russia continues to aggressively employ the most significant aspect of its 2016 tool kit: the use of social media as a platform to disseminate propaganda designed to weaken our nation.”

The duo wrote: “Russia's information operations tactics since the election are more numerous than can be listed here. But to get a sense of the breadth of Russian activity, consider the messaging spread by Kremlin-oriented accounts on Twitter, which cybersecurity and disinformation experts have tracked as part of the German Marshall Fund's Alliance for Securing Democracy.”

One example cited by the men was that “Moscow used these accounts to discredit the FBI after it was revealed that an agent had been demoted for sending anti-Donald Trump texts.” Morell and his co-author had linked to a story about disgraced FBI special agent Peter Strzok displaying anti-Trump bias when working on the Clinton emails investigation and the Crossfire Hurricane inquiry.

Morell seemingly lays groundwork for the Hunter Biden laptop letter

Marc Polymeropoulos, a former CIA operations officer and a future co-author of the Hunter Biden laptop letter, appeared on Morell’s Intelligence Matters podcast in October 2019. Morell said during the podcast appearance that “people need to know that you and I are friends and our families are friends.” 

Morell asked Polymeropoulos if he had seen evidence of the “narrative” that the CIA “wants to influence politics here” in the United States. Polymeropoulos called the idea an “utterly absurd accusation” and said that the “narrative is deeply insulting.”

Morell and Polymeropoulos wrote an opinion piece for the Washington Post in August 2020 entitled, “The Russians infiltrated Trump’s 2016 campaign. We may never know exactly what happened.”

“​​When Russian intelligence officers score big wins against the United States, they are typically rewarded with medals. We are certain that a lot of medals were handed out in Moscow after the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign," Morell and Polymeropoulos wrote. “While we will never know to what extent Russia actually swung votes in Trump’s favor, we can put to rest forever that Putin’s motivation was to do just that.”

Polymeropoulos later admitted in late 2020 that he and Morell helped put the laptop letter together.

A review by the Washington Examiner found that at least 17 of the 51 laptop letter signers appeared on Morell’s podcast over the years, with six of them joining the podcast in 2020, including two in the days leading up to the letter. The podcast appearances highlight the close relationship between Morell, Brennan, and many of the laptop signatories and shed light on how the 51 former officials came to sign the letter just before the 2020 election.

Brennan appeared on Morell’s Intelligence Matters podcast a week before the New York Post published stories on Joe Biden’s son’s shady business dealings in China and Ukraine. This was also less than two weeks before dozens of ex-intelligence officials, led by Morell and organized in part by longtime Brennan aide Nick Shapiro, signed a letter making evidence-free claims of Russian involvement in the Hunter Biden laptop saga.

Brennan joined the CBS News podcast in early October 2020, where Morell began by noting that “you and I are friends” and called him “one of the most ethical people I know.” Brennan was on the show to promote his book, Undaunted, which was highly critical of Trump. Morell told everyone to read it.

The ex-Obama CIA director was particularly upset on the show because Ratcliffe had declassified Russia investigation documents days prior, including handwritten notes from Brennan showing he briefed Obama in the summer of 2016 on the Russian intelligence report claiming that Clinton planned on tying then-candidate Trump to Russia’s hack of the DNC to distract from her use of a private email server.

“I think it was an outrageous, appalling, and blatant act of politicization,” Brennan said, arguing that Ratcliffe and former DNI Richard Grenell “have abused their authority in the position of the director of national intelligence in order to promote the very personal and partisan and craven objectives of Donald Trump.”

Morell claimed that “thanks to the rhetoric and to the actions of President Trump and those who enable him is that a significant percentage of Americans now see the intelligence community, to include the CIA, as the deep state. And that’s not going to just go away with an election of a President Biden. … So how would you advise the leadership of the IC going forward?”

Brennan replied by saying that Trump is “dismissive of intelligence and denigrates” the intelligence community and said, “It is incumbent on the future leaders of the intelligence community to speak out.” If Joe Biden won, there would be “much greater respect” for the intelligence community.

David Priess, a former CIA officer and daily intelligence briefer, had joined Morell on the show days before Brennan at the end of September 2020.

Priess warned about potential intelligence briefings to Joe Biden being “politicized” in the lead-up to the 2020 election. The former CIA briefer also lamented that Trump was “publicly chastising his own intelligence agencies or publicly undermining conclusions that they have reached.” Priess said he was “very worried” about a Trump reelection, claiming that the U.S. intelligence community was “under threat because of this very different presidency.”

Priess also claimed that “most of the signs are positive that Joe Biden understands the role of intelligence in a democratic society.”

John McLaughlin, a former acting CIA director under President George W. Bush, appeared on Morell’s podcast in April 2020, contending that “I don’t want to get overly political” before criticizing the Trump administration’s foreign policy. McLaughlin had also appeared on the podcast in May 2018.

Morell writes Hunter Biden laptop letter to give Biden a “talking point” against Trump

The October 2020 laptop letter contributed to the baseless narrative that the Hunter Biden laptop stories were nothing but a product of Russian disinformation — a narrative happily seized upon by Joe Biden’s 2020 campaign and spread by some of the laptop letter signers.

Morell said future Secretary of State Antony Blinken “triggered” him to craft it. Morell had Blinken on his podcast in January 2019 and September 2020.

Morell told House investigators that prior to his mid-October 2020 phone call with Blinken, he had no intention to write the Hunter Biden laptop letter, and testified “yes” and “absolutely” when asked if the call with Blinken, who was then a top advisor for Joe Biden’s 2020 campaign, was what “triggered that intent in you.”

Morell said it was his “guess” that Blinken called him to talk about the Hunter Biden laptop because the future secretary of state wanted it “out” in public that “the Russians were somehow involved” in the saga.

Republicans in Congress said Morell received a call from then-Biden campaign chairman Steve Ricchetti after the late October 2020 presidential debate to thank him for “putting the statement out.”

The phone call to Morell had come from Jeremy Bash, another Hunter Biden laptop letter signer, who then got Ricchetti on the line.

Morell said one of the reasons he crafted the letter was to help Joe Biden since he “wanted him to win the election” against Trump.

The recruitment email that Morell had sent to prospective signatories made that clear: “Marc and I drafted the attached because we believed the Russians were involved in some way in the Hunter Biden email issue and because 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.”

Joe Biden said during the October 2020 debate with Trump, “There are 50 former national intelligence folks who said that what he’s accusing me of is a Russian plan. They have said this is, has all the — four, five former heads of the CIA. Both parties say what he’s saying is a bunch of garbage.”

He was referring to a Politico report about the letter in an article titled “Hunter Biden story is Russian disinfo, dozens of former intel officials say.”

Biden ended up winning the race a few weeks later. CNN reported in late November 2020 that Morell was under consideration to be Biden’s choice for CIA director, but that there was pushback from some Senate Democrats. He didn’t end up being picked.

Morell loses security clearance

Trump signed an executive order on Inauguration Day this year ordering the revocation of the security clearances of anyone who signed the Hunter Biden laptop letter — including Morell.

“In the closing weeks of the 2020 Presidential campaign, at least 51 former intelligence officials coordinated with the Biden campaign to issue a letter discrediting the reporting that President Joseph R. Biden’s son had abandoned his laptop at a computer repair business,” Trump’s directive said. “Signatories of the letter falsely suggested that the news story was part of a Russian disinformation campaign… The signatories willfully weaponized the gravitas of the Intelligence Community to manipulate the political process and undermine our democratic institutions.”

The executive order mentioning Morell made no mention of the former CIA official’s role in the 2016 election — though it will likely get more attention now in light of the declassified Clinton Plan intelligence.