Public Statement on the Hunter Biden Emails

In October 2020, a controversy emerged involving data from a laptop that belonged to Hunter Biden that was abandoned at a computer shop in 2019. On October 19, 2020, a group of 51 former senior intelligence officials, who had served in four different administrations, including the Trump administration, released an open letter stating that the release of the alleged emails "has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation".

During an interview with Fox News on October 19, 2020, Trump's National Intelligence Director John Ratcliffe said the emails were "not part of some Russian disinformation campaign" and accused Adam Schiff of mischaracterizing the views of the intelligence community by describing the alleged emails as part of a smear campaign against Joe Biden. Schiff's spokesman accused Ratcliffe of "purposefully misrepresenting" Schiff's words.

Signatories
In addition, nine additional former IC officers who cannot be named publicly also supported the arguments in this letter.