West Virginia’s Top Election Official Demands Congress Give DHS An Ultimatum: Fire 2020 Election Meddlers Or No Funding
West Virginia’s top election official is demanding House Republicans withhold funding from the Department of Homeland Security until the agency fires its recent hires who interfered in the 2020 election to help then-candidate Joe Biden.
In a letter sent to House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Rep. Kay Granger, R-Texas, the chair of the House Appropriations Committee on Tuesday, West Virginia Secretary of State Mac Warner called on House Republicans to put the kibosh on DHS funding until the agency fires former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, former CIA Director John Brennan, and Paul Kolbe, a former CIA operations officer, for signing their names to the debunked letter from 51 former intelligence officials that falsely claimed the Hunter Biden laptop was Russian disinformation.
“Perhaps the strongest tool the US Constitution gives the US House of Representatives is the power of the purse,” Warner wrote. “For the sake of national government integrity, I call on you to refuse funding of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) as long as Secretary Mayorkas employs John Brennan, James Clapper, Paul Kolbe, and any others who falsely claimed in writing that the contents of the Hunter Biden laptop were likely Russian disinformation.”
Warner’s letter comes in response to an announcement from DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas last week that the agency launched a Homeland Intelligence Experts Group “comprised of private sector experts who will provide their unique perspectives on the federal government’s intelligence enterprise.” According to a DHS press release, this group — which includes journalists, “human rights” advocates, and “former senior intelligence officials” such as Clapper, Brennan, and Kolbe — will coordinate with the agency’s Intelligence and Analysis (I&A) division and Office of the Counterterrorism Coordinator.
These so-called “experts” will also purportedly “provide input” on the I&A’s “most complex problems and challenges, including terrorism, fentanyl, transborder issues, and emerging technology.”
“Such dishonest people should not be granted access to sensitive government information, nor rewarded with high-ranking positions and salaries funded with taxpayer dollars,” Warner wrote. “They have shamed themselves, dishonored their respective institutions, and vastly decreased trust in our election system.”
Contrary to legacy media’s dismissal of the subject, the letter signed by 51 former intel officials represented a coordinated effort between America’s intelligence agencies and the Biden campaign to interfere in the 2020 election to benefit Biden. Earlier this year, a former CIA official who signed the debunked letter testified that then-Biden campaign adviser and now-Secretary of State Antony Blinken played a role in the creation of the document.
In his testimony, Michael Morell, a former deputy director of the CIA, claimed “on or around October 17, 2020,” Blinken — who, at the time, served as a Biden campaign adviser — “reached out to him to discuss the Hunter Biden laptop story,” which had been published in the New York Post on Oct. 14.
According to Morell, Blinken’s outreach “set in motion the events that led to the issuance of the public statement,” baselessly asserting the laptop was part of a Russian disinformation operation. The former CIA official also claimed he had no intention of writing the letter until after he spoke with Blinken, confirming the call “absolutely” pushed him to write it and that one of the intentions behind releasing the letter was to “help Vice President Biden.”
These revelations prompted Warner and several other Republican secretaries of state to issue a letter in July calling on Blinken to resign if found guilty of leading the aforementioned efforts.
[RELATED: CIA Solicited Signatures For Hunter Biden Laptop Letter, Congressional Testimony Shows]
But intel officials’ election interference didn’t stop there. The FBI, which authenticated the laptop as early as November 2019, was warning Big Tech platforms such as Twitter and Facebook to be on the lookout for “Russian propaganda” and “hack-and-leak operations” by state actors in the months leading up to the 2020 election.
Without missing a beat, these same companies immediately censored the Post’s reporting upon its release. On Twitter, users were not permitted to share the story, even via direct message. The platform further removed links and posted warnings that it may be “unsafe.”
Meanwhile, Facebook announced it would be “reducing [the story’s] distribution” pending verification by third-party “fact-checkers.” Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg later admitted during an interview on “The Joe Rogan Experience” that Facebook’s decision to algorithmically suppress the story was based on the FBI’s warning.
Shawn Fleetwood is a staff writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He previously served as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood
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