Former Attorney General William Barr says he believes the suppression of revelations regarding Hunter Biden by Big Tech and the legacy media “probably affected the outcome” of the 2020 election in a new interview.
Barr made his comments in regards to reports at the time from legacy media outlets that, instead of digging deeper into the allegations which were first reported by the New York Post and were based on materials found on the hard drive of a laptop Hunter Biden abandoned at a repair shop in Delaware, they instead relied on a letter signed by 51 intelligence community officials who strongly suggested the revelations were part of a “Russian disinformation” campaign.
The Washington Examiner notes further:
The 51 former spy officials who signed a letter suggesting Russia was involved with the laptop saga are now largely silent about why they weighed in on the story weeks before the election. Despite offering no proof, President Joe Biden’s 2020 campaign, along with many in the media, dismissed the October 2020 laptop story as being part of a Russian disinformation operation, with Biden citing the letter in a debate with then-President Donald Trump, which Barr critiqued.
Conservative radio show host Hugh Hewitt asked Barr on Tuesday about four “interventions” in presidential elections and which was most “material” to the outcome.
Hewitt’s examples were Iran-Contra prosecutor Lawrence Walsh issuing an indictment against former Reagan Defense Secretary Caspar Willard Weinberger just four days before the election between then-President George H.W. Bush and future President Bill Clinton in 1992, debate moderator Candy Crowley inserting herself on President Barack Obama’s side during a debate with then-candidate Mitt Romney, Russian influence efforts in the 2016 race between Trump and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and Facebook and Twitter censoring stories about the laptop just before the 2020 election.
“Well, the ones that stick with me are Walsh and the laptop — the intelligence officials suggesting that it was Russian disinformation in order to essentially keep a cork in it until after the election,” Barr responded.
“I do think that that, given how close the election was, you know, I think that that probably affected the outcome, or at least there is a very distinct probability of that. The same, I think, with Walsh,” Barr added.
During the 2020 campaign, then-Democratic nominee Joe Biden called the laptop reporting “garbage” and part of a “Russian plan” before going on to cite the intelligence community letter. At the time, 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.”
Even the headline of the story was misleading, however, because the intel officials never actually called the laptop Russian “disinformation.” Rather, the letter said that the laptop “has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation,” but they admitted that “we do not have evidence of Russian involvement.” The letter also referred to “our view that the Russians are involved in the Hunter Biden email issue.”
A recent report from the New York Times said emails from the laptop were authentic — but multiple other outlets had previously arrived at that conclusion.
Barr addressed all of this on Monday as well during an interview on Fox News to also talk about his new book, “One Damned Thing After Another.”
“I was very disturbed during the debate when candidate Biden lied to the American people about the laptop,” Barr said. “He was squarely confronted with the laptop, and he suggested that it was Russian disinformation and pointed to the letter written by intelligence people that was baseless, which he knew was a lie. And I was shocked by that.”
Barr added: “So when you’re talking about interference in an election, I can’t think of anything more than that kind of thing.”
