Democrats whine on and on about “The Big Lie.” In their minds, this phrase summarizes President Donald J. Trump’s argument that vote fraud, ballot irregularities and ninth-inning rules changes sank his 2020 re-election bid.
However, Democrats are mum about the Big Lie that slimed Joe Biden into the White House.
Former CIA Acting Director Michael Morrell recently sang like a sparrow to the House Intelligence and Judiciary committees. He explained how he, Biden’s presidential campaign and top U.S. spies bamboozled the American people less than three weeks before Election Day — even as voters cast early ballots.
Biden’s Big Lie was decisive. In its absence, polls show, he would not occupy the Oval Office. Instead, Biden would be in Delaware, driving the 1967 Corvette that he parked in the garage of his Wilmington mansion, right beside boxes of illegally stored classified records.
On Oct. 14, 2020, a New York Post exclusive exposed Hunter Biden’s so-called “Laptop from Hell.” Abandoned at a Delaware computer-repair shop, its e-mails and other contents uncovered Hunter’s international influence peddling and dodgy deals while his father was vice president.
That Oct. 17: Biden campaign adviser Antony Blinken, now U.S. secretary of state, rang Morrell to discuss the Post’s scoop. Morrell swiftly orchestrated “A Public Statement on the Hunter Biden Emails.”
Oct. 19: This communique, signed by Morrell and 50 other former intelligence leaders, said: “…the arrival on the US political scene of emails purportedly belonging to Vice President Biden’s son Hunter, much of it related to his time serving on the Board of the Ukrainian gas company Burisma, has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.” It added: “If we are right, this is Russia trying to influence how Americans vote in this election…” (Their emphasis.) The regime media echoed loyally, as Politico’s headline typified: “Hunter Biden story is Russian disinfo, dozens of former officials say.”
Oct. 22: In the second of two presidential debates, Biden deployed the Blinken-Morrell statement to rebuff Trump’s accusations of Hunter’s (and, thus, Joe’s) corruption.
“Look, there are 50 former national intelligence folks who said that what this, [sic] he’s [Trump’s] accusing me of is a Russian plan,” Biden said. “They have said that this has all the characteristics — four — five former heads of the CIA, both parties, say what he’s saying is a bunch of garbage.”
Morrell testified that Biden campaign chairman Steve Ricchetti soon phoned him: “Steve thanked me for putting the statement out.”
The “Russian disinformation” label was a Big Lie. In a Feb. 1, 2023 letter, Hunter’s attorney Abbe Lowell conceded that the Laptop from Hell stored “hundreds of gigabytes of Mr. Biden’s personal data.” CBS News and the Washington Post also authenticated the laptop as Hunter’s.
This rancid scheme fueled Biden’s closing argument. He presented Morrell-Blinken’s falsely exculpatory statement as organic rather than perpetrated on his behalf.
Trump’s charges were not “a bunch of garbage.” They were the truth.
Alas, Biden’s Big Lie, based on a letter filled with lies, convinced millions of voters that Trump was hallucinating or, even worse, helping Russia steal the White House.
The regime media used Morrell-Blinken’s phony missive to justify their widespread non-coverage of the New York Post’s 10-megaton laptop revelations.
Twitter, Facebook, and other social-media giants cited Morrell-Blinken to censor online discussion of the laptop and squelch customers who shared this story. For 15 days, Twitter even padlocked the account of the New York Post, America’s oldest living newspaper, which Alexander Hamilton founded in 1801.
Mission accomplished: The Laptop from Hell got zipped into a digital body bag. Aside from Fox News viewers and those who actively sought the Post’s updates, most Americans heard little to nothing about Hunter’s computer and its explosive contents.
Biden’s Big Lie got him elected.
According to a Nov. 24, 2020, Media Research Center/Polling Company survey of 1,750 Biden voters in seven swing states, 45.1% were unaware of Hunter’s laptop. Among these voters, 9.4% said that such knowledge would have switched their votes from Biden to Trump, a third-party candidate, or nobody.
Had Biden lost these votes, Trump would have secured Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin; 311 Electoral College votes, and four more years in the White House.
Last December, TIPP Insights polled 501 adults who followed the Biden-graft story. TIPP asked: “Would knowing the laptop contents were real and not ‘disinformation’ have changed your vote?”
“Very likely,” 28% replied.
Assuming, logically, that Hunter’s laptop would have cost Biden votes, losing 28% of his ballots (or even 14%) would have crushed Biden’s chances.
These surveys confirm that Biden’s Big Lie worked. Antony Blinken’s nudging the CIA’s former chief to recruit 50 more top spies to smear the Post’s laptop story as a Russian hoax was, itself, a hoax. It deceived enough Americans to back Biden and boot Trump.
This cynical, naked, bald-faced Big Lie is the putrid foundation beneath Biden’s presidency.
Deroy Murdock is a Manhattan-based Fox News contributor.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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