Rep. Claudia Tenney (R-NY) joins "Forbes Newsroom" to explain why she sent a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland and FBI Director Christopher Wray demanding they open an investigation into the over 50 former intel officials who signed a letter in Oct. 2020 stating that the emails found on Hunter Biden's laptop showed "all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation."
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NewsTranscript
00:00Hi, everybody. I'm Brittany Lewis with Forbes Breaking News. Joining me now is Congresswoman
00:07Claudia Tenney. Congresswoman, thank you so much for joining me.
00:10Well, thank you for having me on.
00:12Congresswoman, I do want to talk about where we are right now, but the story really does
00:16start about four years ago. In October 2020, over 50 former Intel officials signed a letter
00:22dismissing emails found on Hunter Biden's laptop. They said that these emails showed,
00:26quote, all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation. So fast forward to
00:31this year, the laptop was used as evidence in Hunter Biden's gun case. You're now calling
00:35on Attorney General Merrick Garland, as well as FBI Director Christopher Wray, to investigate
00:40those who signed this letter. So talk about that for us. Where are you and what was in
00:45that letter?
00:46Yeah, what I did was after looking at the whole incident with the laptop and seeing
00:51what happened in 2020, as you described, that this laptop was assembled and put together
00:56allegedly by current Secretary of State Antony Blinken and numerous other CIA agents, former
01:03agents, contractors, people working in the agency, people still retaining high-level
01:09security clearances with the CIA. So presumably still under the umbrella of the rules provided
01:16by the Agency for Employees. And that's where a little bit of the gray area is. But what
01:21I wanted to do is find out why would these people come forward? I know a lot of them
01:25are political partisans. They definitely were not supporters of President Trump. But all
01:29of this content was used and manipulated. And the FBI actually shut down a lot of it.
01:34They shut down the New York Post site when Miranda Devine put out the information about
01:39the laptop. And they came up with these letters. And my concern is, does this violate the Hatch
01:44Act? And is it election interference? Is it politicization of the agency or this information?
01:51And then later to say that they've all reversed their positions. And now we're using the contents
01:56of this laptop to prosecute Hunter Biden after years have passed. And the statute of limitation
02:02has been allowed to expire on a number of claims, particularly some of the information
02:06that came out that could have corroborated a lot of the work done by the Department of
02:10Justice over the IRS scandals and the IRS problems that Hunter Biden has and his link
02:16to Joe Biden when we're dealing with Burisma and dealing with these other entities that
02:21are linked to Joe Biden, Hunter Biden, Jim Biden and the family. And so I want a full
02:26investigation from Merrick Garland. Open this up. I want to see all the information, all
02:30the evidence as to why they did not prosecute or why and tell me that all of these 51 former
02:37intelligence agents, people who are still have high security clearances, many of whom
02:42are still contractors with government and presumably under the same rubric. How are
02:47these people not committing a false statement? And secondarily, how are they not violating
02:52the Hatch Act? And why isn't Merrick Garland, the Attorney General? And why isn't Christopher
02:57Wray? And why aren't the CIA isn't the head of the CIA doing something about this? And
03:01that's what I asked for is a look into this under those two particular sections of federal
03:06criminal law. The letter, in part, did read this, quote, We want to emphasize that we
03:11do not know if the emails provided to The New York Post by President Trump's personal
03:16attorney, Rudy Giuliani, are genuine or not. And we do not have the evidence of Russian
03:20involvement. Just that our experience makes us deeply suspicious that the Russian government
03:25played a significant role in this case. So they said explicitly in this letter that they
03:29weren't certain about Russian involvement. You're saying that caveat isn't enough. Well,
03:35they've continued to go on and call their act of what they did patriotic. Patriotic
03:40in what way? What do they mean by patriotic? Patriotic because they were trying to obstruct
03:45the election of Donald Trump. Patriotic because polls actually showed that had this the contents
03:51of this laptop been allowed to be disseminated to voters and people across the United States,
03:58particularly in those swing states where it was cut off by the FBI, where the FBI actually
04:02had an interaction with the former owner of then Twitter, now X, saying that we need
04:08to this story can't be this is disinformation. It's an attempt to undermine a democratic
04:13process. These are all things that were put on Twitter and on social media to prevent
04:18this information from going to the American public. And yet polls showed had the people
04:22known about this type of information and the Hunter laptop was valid, there was damning
04:28information in there and potentially criminal information in there against Hunter Biden,
04:33linking him to Joe Biden, that they would have voted for someone other than Joe Biden,
04:36they would have potentially voted for Donald Trump. And with an election in 2020, that was
04:41decided by less than 44,000 votes. If you take the three swing states, that is consequential.
04:47And that is an interference of the election under the Hatch Act, which is the second provision
04:51that I claimed interference and politicization of someone that should be working within
04:57government. Do you think without this letter signed at all back in 2020, that would have
05:02altered the course of this election? Or rather, I mean, it's hard to say the polling shows
05:09that had people thought that this was credible. And by the way, the CIA director testified
05:16under oath that this document was put together to help Joe Biden in a debate that it was
05:23used in a debate. Joe Biden said 51 intelligence agents wrote it, wrote a letter stating that
05:28the laptop was Russian disinformation. I mean, that was that was deliberate. It was done,
05:34you know, for the sole purpose of giving Joe Biden a political edge in the debate. How
05:39is that not a Hatch Act violation? And how is that not something that could be potentially
05:44a false statement? They're knowingly deceiving the public by doing this. And that's my concern.
05:51So you wrote this letter to Ryan Garland. What do you want from them? And when do you
05:56want it?
05:57I will. I asked for a time date certain that they would get back to me on what they're
06:01going to be doing and pursuing some kind of investigation, opening it up, looking into
06:06this and seeing what's really happening. You know, this is undermines the credibility of
06:10the U.S. government. When people think that there is a politicization, when people are
06:14using politics, when people are taking a position and wearing jerseys, I think people understand
06:20when you've been appointed by a secretary, you know, by the by the president of the United
06:24States, whether it's Christopher Wray, whether it's Merrick Garland and the CIA director,
06:30you still owe an allegiance to the United States. You owe an allegiance to the people
06:35to be as as as clear and as unbiased as you can be in light of the circumstances. And
06:42this has been historically a problem with these agencies. They're the most powerful
06:47agencies in our government, along with the IRS. And yet all of these agencies have been
06:51corrupted by politics. We see the IRS agents, again, the same issue that we saw where they're
06:57obstructing the investigation by DOJ, by these whistleblowers that came forward under the
07:04IRS to show that there was there were documents and money and money exchange with Hunter Biden.
07:09And yet some of those charges, the worst of them, were not allowed to go forward because
07:13of slow walking, the ability to get those materials had they had access to this laptop
07:19and had they had access to a storage unit that was allowed to be closed when agents
07:23were able informed the Biden administration that they were on to something and they were
07:28able to get to this storage storage unit that had documents that presumably could have been
07:34damning damning for the Biden administration or for Biden and his son. Those were shut
07:38down. And yet the statute of limitations was able to toll. So therefore, these claims
07:43were not charged against Hunter Biden. You know, we continue to have, you know, whether
07:46it's the IRS, the CIA, the Department of Justice, the FBI. These are powerful agencies that
07:51have become very partisan and the American people don't trust them. That's why you see
07:55so much disbelief in what they're doing. But yet they can take away the rights of citizens
08:01without having any kind of, you know, accountability. And that's why I want to see some accountability
08:07out of these agencies. That's why I wrote the letter. Start an investigation. Let's
08:12look into it. Let's get all of this flushed out. Let's get the truth. What's in this laptop?
08:17What was slow walked? What did people say? What was the intention of these agents? Were
08:21they misleading? Were these false statements and were they violating their oath of office
08:26or in this case, in many of them, their contract with the government? Or were they violating
08:31this high level, top level security clearance that is reserved for a very select few? Were
08:36they doing that? And were these violations and should these people be considered for
08:39prosecution? Congresswoman, I know I only have you for just another minute. So I do
08:44just want to ask a question. Pivot to President Biden. Now, he had a historic debate two weeks
08:50ago against former President Donald Trump. Since then, he's been facing mounting calls
08:54to drop out of the race. Yesterday, he held a press conference. What do you make of the
08:59whole situation? Do you think President Biden should drop out of the race? I think the Democrats
09:04are in chaos. I think it's a political impossibility for President Biden to drop out at this point.
09:10There are delegates that are have already had people who have already cast their vote.
09:13You know, when the Democrats talk about undermining democracy, nothing is a bit bigger slap on
09:19democracy than to undermine your own primary process. People voted for Joe Biden for now
09:23for him to come out. And why they want him out. They want him out because he's not leading
09:27in the polls. So it's pure politics. So whenever you hear the Democrats say our democracy,
09:32you should fill in the blank with our power. They are worried about power and that President
09:37Biden will not deliver them the White House and majorities in the Senate and in the House
09:41of Representatives. That's the only reason that they're gunning against him. That's the
09:44only reason Hakeem Jeffries had a secret meeting or a meeting with President Biden last night.
09:49They have to get through this convention because if they open up the convention, you could
09:53have anybody in there. And that's exactly how they undermine their own primary process,
09:57their own democratic process in 2020, when they forced Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg
10:03out because they knew that Bernie Sanders could potentially be their nominee, not a
10:08Democrat, not someone who could beat Donald Trump. They forced them out and forced in
10:12Joe Biden. They have to reap what they sow. This is who they've got. And they've got a
10:16problem and they've got chaos. But I think they're going to be stuck with Joe Biden,
10:19at least through the convention.
10:22Congresswoman Claudia Tenney, I appreciate you coming on today. Thank you so much for
10:25the conversation.
10:26Thank you. I appreciate it. Thanks, Brittany.