To undermine recent evidence that former Vice President Joe Biden was involved in his son’s shady overseas business dealings, top Democrats are arguing that reports about the Bidens’ corruption are “Russian propaganda.”
The New York Post published email evidence that Biden, during his tenure as vice president, met with an executive with Ukrainian gas company Burisma while his son Hunter was on Burisma’s board.
The emails, which were obtained by President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, indicate that Joe Biden played at least some role in Hunter’s business dealings.
But Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., and Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., have dismissed this evidence as misinformation planted by the Russians.
Joe Biden – and all of us – SHOULD be furious that media outlets are spreading what is very likely Russian propaganda.
1/ I’ve seen the intel. The mainstreaming of misinformation is Russia’s 2020 goal. Here’s what we know, and why we can’t take it lying down.
— Chris Murphy (@ChrisMurphyCT) October 17, 2020
Murphy went on, without evidence, to call Giuliani a “Russian asset,” and claimed that it is “almost certain that any anti-Biden info he has is fed to him by … Russian intel.”
Schiff — also without evidence — made similar claims during an interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer.
“Well, we know that this whole smear on Joe Biden comes from the Kremlin. That’s been clear for well over a year now that they’ve been pushing this false narrative about the vice president and his son,” Schiff said. “But I guess at this point we can’t be shocked by anything this administration does, no matter how craven. But, clearly, the origins of this whole smear are from the Kremlin, and the president is only too happy to have Kremlin help and try to amplify it.”
Schiff even said that Trump is working with the Russians to hurt Biden and win the November election.
“Well, look, I think we know who the driving force behind this smear has been all along and it’s been the president and the Kremlin. The Kremlin has an obvious interest in denigrating Joe Biden. They want Donald Trump to win,” he said.
Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe, however, shot down Schiff’s conspiracy theory and made it clear that the intelligence community has absolutely no reason to believe “that Hunter Biden’s laptop is part of some Russian disinformation campaign,” he told Fox News. “It is simply not true.”
“And this is exactly what I said I would stop when I became director of national intelligence, and that is people using the intelligence community to leverage some political narrative, and in this case, apparently Chairman Schiff wants anything against his preferred political candidate deemed as not real and is using or attempting to use the intelligence community to say there’s nothing to see here,” Ratcliffe continued. “Don’t drag the intelligence community into this. Hunter Biden’s laptop is not part of some Russian disinformation campaign.”
