Ron Johnson says Blinken told a ‘boldface lie’ to Congress by claiming he didn’t email
Sen. Ron Johnson accused Antony Blinken of telling a ‘boldface lie’ to Congress about his communications with Hunter Biden after it his emails with the first son were revealed.
The Wisconsin Republican revealed that Blinken, when he was still working for the Biden campaign in December 2020, had come in to sit for a transcribed interview with his team. He was then aiming for the secretary of State job, a Senate-confirmed position.
‘Now, because of more information that’s come out, we know that he lied boldface to Congress about never emailing Hunter Biden,’ Johnson told Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo.
‘My guess is he told a bunch of other lies that hopefully we’ll be able to bring him and his wife back in, tell them to preserve their records. You cannot trust Joe Biden. You cannot trust Hunter Biden.’
Sen. Ron Johnson accused Antony Blinken of telling a ‘boldface lie’ to Congress about his communications with Hunter Biden after it his emails with the first son were revealed
Emails from Hunter’s abandoned laptop show Blinken and his wife Evan Ryan have long had contact with the first son
Asked if he believed Blinken lied under oath, Johnson said: ‘Yes, he did.’
‘He said he did not email Hunter Biden, and now we have those emails. We also know that his wife, using her private email address when she was a[n] employee of the State Department, was basically a conduit between her husband and Hunter Biden as well,’ Johnson continued.
The Wisconsin Republican said Blinken needs to be subpoenaed, but without Democrat support he would not have the authority to do so.
‘If he wants to proclaim his innocence, I doubt he’ll do that, but he must and she must preserve their records, their personal emails. When you get to the bottom of this, we need to show how corrupt these individuals are.’
The Functional Government Initiative, a government watchdog group, obtained a trove of emails from Blinken during his time in the Obama administration showing Blinken and Hunter Biden writing to each other and setting up personal meetings through his private AOL account during his time as deputy secretary of state.
Emails obtained by Fox News showed that Blinken met with Hunter Biden at the State Department in 2015 while Hunter was on the board of Burisma.
Emails from Hunter’s abandoned laptop show Blinken and his wife Evan Ryan have long had contact with the first son. On multiple occasions, Hunter forwarded communications about setting up meetings with Blinken to fellow board members of Burisma.
Meanwhile, Mike Morell last week told the House Judiciary Committee that he was asked by Blinken – who at the time was a senior member of the Biden campaign – to help discredit the laptop reporting.
Morell was a former acting CIA director, serving for two months in 2011 and four months from 2012 to 2013. He retired from the CIA in September 2013.
He coordinated a letter from former intelligence chiefs claiming that Hunter Biden‘s laptop was Russian disinformation because he wanted to help Joe Biden‘s presidential campaign.
The Judiciary Committee, led by Jim Jordan, is currently investigating Hunter Biden’s laptop, as well as the Biden family businesses.
Morell ‘recently’ conducted a transcribed interview with Jordan’s team and was asked about the Biden campaign’s response to the laptop.
Mike Morell was acting CIA director for several months in 2011 and again in 2012-13. He was asked by the Biden campaign in October 2020 to help recruit other former intelligence chiefs to discredit reporting on the contents of Hunter Biden’s laptop
Hunter Biden is seen with his father Joe and aunt Valerie in Dublin on April 14
The laptop, which had been left in a Delaware repair store, was touted by Rudy Giuliani, Donald Trump’s lawyer, as providing evidence of supposed corruption among the Biden family.
The Biden campaign said the efforts to publicize the contents of the laptop bore the hallmarks of a Russian disinformation campaign.
The laptop included explicit photos of the troubled Hunter Biden naked, with prostitutes, and taking drugs, as well as multiple emails and texts between the 53-year-old and his father.
Morell said that he was asked by Blinken to rally former intelligence chiefs to agree that the laptop looked like a smear campaign.
He carried out ‘a little bit of my own research,’ and then reached out to retired CIA senior operations officer Marc Polymeropoulos for assistance in compiling the letter.
The letter was ultimately signed by 51 former intelligence officials, including himself and four other former CIA directors, including John Brennan and Leon Panetta.
The letter was published by Politico five days after The New York Post first reported on the contents of the laptop.
The headline for Politico’s story, on October 19, 2020, was: ‘Hunter Biden story is Russian disinfo, dozens of former officials say.’
The letter alleged that The New York Post story ‘has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.’
Several media outlets, including DailyMail.com, have since confirmed the contents of the laptop and that it belonged to Hunter Biden.
Photo of a laptop owned by Hunter Biden that was left with a computer repair shop
A photo found on the laptop abandoned by Hunter Biden. Jordan and other House Republicans feel the claims from the letter signed by Morell were a ‘concerted effort’ to discredit the damning information found on Hunter’s laptop
Hunter Biden is pictured on July 7, 2022 inside the White House
Joe Biden used the letter during the October 22 debate against Donald Trump, saying he thought the reporting around his son’s abandoned computer was the work of Russia.
Morell was thanked for his work in coordinating the letter, with Steve Ricchetti, chairman of the Biden campaign, telephoning him after the debate to say thank you.
He was then said to be in consideration for the role of CIA director – a job that ultimately went to William Burns.
Morell, who has been a consultant, strategist, lecturer and author since his resignation almost a decade ago, said he was never formally in talks for the role.
On Thursday, Jordan and Michael Turner, the chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence, wrote to Blinken requesting his communications with Morell around the laptop.
They issued a statement accusing Morell and the other intel chiefs of ‘concerted effort to minimize and suppress’ information harmful to the Biden campaign.
‘Based on Morell’s testimony, it is apparent that the Biden campaign played an active role in the origins of the public statement, which had the effect of helping to suppress the Hunter Biden story and preventing American citizens from making a fully informed decision during the 2020 presidential election,’ they wrote.
‘Although the statement’s signatories have an unquestioned right to free speech and free association—which we do not dispute—their reference to their national security credentials lent weight to the story and suggested access to specialized information unavailable to other Americans.
‘This concerted effort to minimize and suppress public dissemination of the serious allegations about the Biden family was a grave disservice to all American citizens’ informed participation in our democracy.’