hunter biden election night
© Jim Bourg/ReutersHunter Biden celebrates onstage at the election rally, after the news media announced that Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election over President Donald Trump, in Wilmington, Del., November 7, 2020.
At least one of the 51 former intelligence officials who signed an open letter suggesting that the leaked Hunter Biden emails amounted to foreign disinformation was not aware that he had been listed as a signatory.

Gregory F. Treverton — a professor in international relations at the University of Southern California and former chairman of the National Intelligence Council — is listed as a signatory on the letter, which was first published in Politico roughly two weeks before the presidential election. The letter was prompted by a series of New York Post articles based on emails and photos taken from the hard drive of a laptop allegedly belonging to Hunter Biden.

The Post reported that it obtained the hard drive from President Trump's attorney, Rudy Giuliani, after Hunter left it in a Delaware computer repair shop and never retrieved it.

Former CIA directors or acting directors John Brennan, Leon Panetta, General Michael Hayden, John McLaughlin, and Michael Morell, and former director of National Intelligence Jim Clapper are listed among the signatories. The letter also includes "nine additional former IC officers who cannot be named publicly."

On Wednesday, National Review reached out to Treverton to ask whether the recent news that Hunter Biden has been under federal investigation for over a year had changed his assessment that the contents of Hunter's laptop, which is in the FBI's possession, were the product of foreign disinformation.

"Thanks, this is the first I've seen of this but happy to sign. You can list me as Former Chair, and Former Vice Chair, National Intelligence Council. Cheers, and thanks, Greg," was his emailed response.

When National Review followed up to make clear that Treverton was not being asked to sign a letter and to point out that he had already been listed as a signatory, Treverton said he had never agreed to sign the letter but would not have objected had he received the request.

"I may have missed a note. In any case, I'm fine with signing," he said, adding that "I haven't looked at" the federal probe into Hunter Biden.

Treverton then apparently acknowledged reports that Attorney General Bill Barr kept the investigation under wraps in the buildup to the election.

"I supposed can't [sic] given that it's done in secret," he stated. "I suspect we'll just have to wait to see what comes out."

So far, National Review has been unable to determine whether any of the other people mentioned in the letter were unaware that they had been listed as signatories.

The letter itself argues that the intelligence background of its authors
"makes us deeply suspicious that the Russian government played a significant role" in the dissemination of the emails, though they also admit that "we do not know if the emails . . . are genuine or not and that we do not have evidence of Russian involvement."
The same day of its publishing, Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe said that "there is no intelligence that supports" the theory that the leaked emails "are part of a Russian disinformation campaign." In late October, the Daily Caller handed over a copy of the first email published by the Post to a cyber-forensics expert, who subsequently confirmed its authenticity.

Politico's Natasha Bertrand, who broke the letter in a story titled "Hunter Biden story is Russian disinfo, dozens of former intel officials say," stated that "Nick Shapiro, a former top aide under CIA director John Brennan, provided POLITICO with the letter."

Shapiro — who also signed the letter — is quoted as saying that "the IC leaders who have signed this letter worked for the past four presidents, including Trump. The real power here however is the number of former, working-level IC officers who want the American people to know that once again the Russians are interfering."

President-elect Biden referenced the letter in his final debate with President Trump on October 22, saying that "there are 50 former national intelligence folks who said that what he is accusing me of is a Russian plant."

"Five former heads of the CIA, both parties, say what he's saying is a bunch of garbage," Biden continued. "Nobody believes it except him and his good friend Rudy Giuliani."

In an email to National Review, Shapiro stressed that "the letter does not say it was a disinformation operation."

"The letter makes clear that we don't know whether the emails are true or not," he explained. "What the letter says is that the Russians may have played a role in accessing them and releasing them and almost certainly played a role in spreading them. This was the case when I signed the letter, and it remains the case today."

Shapiro also denied that he orchestrated the letter, though he did not dispute sending it to Politico to be published. "I don't know who was initially behind it — I saw it being sent around and agreed to sign on because I believe the Russians played a role in it, either first accessing Hunter's emails and/or spreading them," he said.