A group of former senior Trump administration officials filed a lawsuit against the Federal Election Commission for refusing to charge President Biden’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee over the 2020 election.
America First Legal’s complaint accuses the campaign and the DNC of failing to disclose their involvement with a now-discredited letter by 51 former federal intelligence officials about Hunter Biden’s laptop.
The group says that because the Biden campaign used its resources to generate and disseminate the public statement, and because the public statement was disseminated in the media at the request of the Biden campaign, federal law requires the public reporting of the costs and beneficiaries of such coordinated communications.
“The facts speak for themselves: 79 percent of Americans believe that had there been accurate coverage of the Hunter Biden laptop, Trump would have won the election,” America First Legal Vice President Dan Epstein said in a statement.
“Foreseeing this electoral benefit, the Biden for President campaign organized 51 former intelligence officials to claim that the Hunter Biden laptop story was ‘Russian disinformation.’ The law requires this type of coordination and electoral benefit to be reported to the Federal Election Commission for the public to see,” he said.
The FEC declined to comment to The Washington Times, saying the agency does not discuss pending litigation.
The AFL lawsuit cites an interim report from last May produced jointly by the House Judiciary and Intelligence committees fingering former acting CIA Director Mike J. Morell, a letter signatory.
According to the committees’ report, Mr. Morell coordinated with the Biden campaign to find other notables to sign the letter, to gain clearance from the CIA for its publication, and to promote it through the media.
During testimony before the House Judiciary Committee last year, Mr. Morell said that an Oct. 17, 2020, call with Antony Blinken, who was then a top campaign adviser and now serves as secretary of state, had “absolutely” triggered him to draft the letter.
“There were two intents. One intent was to share our concern with the American people that the Russians were playing on this issue; and, two, it was [to] help Vice President Biden,” he said.
Mr. Blinken previously disputed Mr. Morell’s account after the release of the congressional report, and claimed he was not behind the letter, which was published in the final weeks of the 2020 campaign and cited by Mr. Biden himself in a presidential debate against Mr. Trump.
“One of the great benefits of this job is that I don’t do politics, don’t engage in it,” Mr. Blinken said on Fox News. “But with regard to that letter – it wasn’t my idea, I didn’t ask for it, didn’t solicit it.”
The Times also reached out to the DNC, the current Biden presidential campaign, and the offices of Mr. Morell and Mr. Blinken, but none immediately responded.
Another Washington-based watchdog organization, Judicial Watch, filed a Freedom of Information ACT lawsuit against the CIA back in August to get records from the top spy agency to reveal the process used to “clear” the former intelligence officials’ letter.