By: Fred Lucas
An alleged campaign finance violation could ensnare Secretary of State Antony Blinken and 51 former senior intelligence officials who asserted without evidence in 2020 that the Hunter Biden laptop was Russian disinformation.
America First Legal, a conservative organization run by former Donald Trump White House aide Stephen Miller, filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission in late October, alleging a "coordinated communication" and an unreported in-kind contribution to the Joe Biden presidential campaign and related entities, in violation of federal law.
"[The] evidence suggests that the respondents failed to disclose coordinated expenditures constituting in-kind donations with respect to the infamous ‘Letter of 51’ former intelligence officials claiming that the Hunter Biden laptop story had ‘all the classic earmarks’ of Russian disinformation," says the 13-page AFL complaint, with 110 accompanying pages of evidence.
The FEC complaint claims that the Biden for President campaign in 2020, the Biden Victory Fund, the Democratic National Committee, and the Biden Action Fund should have reported on coordinating efforts.
The "Letter of 51" was released on Oct. 19, 2020, weeks before the Nov. 8 presidential election between Biden and Trump.
The Obama administration officials who signed included former Central Intelligence Agency Director John Brennan, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, and former CIA director and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta. Former George W. Bush DNI Michael Hayden, a vocal Trump critic, also signed.
The complaint notes that Panetta and Clapper donated to the Biden Victory Fund and the Biden for President campaign in 2020.
In March, former CIA Deputy and Acting Director Michael Morrell testified to the House Judiciary Committee and House Intelligence Committees that on Oct. 17, 2020, then-Biden campaign adviser Blinken contacted him to discuss the Hunter Biden laptop story first reported by the New York Post.
The complaint cited an April statement from the House Judiciary Committee that summarized the Morrell testimony.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/fec-complaint-alleges-coordinated-disinformation-campaign-bidens-2020-run