Ex-CIA Director Linked To Clinton Smear Effort

Clear Facts

• Mike Morell, ex-acting CIA director, orchestrated the notorious 2020 Hunter Biden laptop letter dismissing it as Russian disinformation.
• Evidence shows Morell performed a similar political operation for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign, pushing the false Trump-Russia narrative.
• Congressional investigations and newly declassified documents reveal coordination among Clinton campaign officials, intelligence veterans, and the media.

Revelations continue to emerge about how former CIA acting director Mike Morell played a pivotal role in politically motivated intelligence campaigns impacting recent American presidential elections. Recent findings underscore Morell’s repeated willingness to insert himself into Democrat operations—first in 2016 for Hillary Clinton, then four years later for Joe Biden.

In 2020, Mike Morell famously spearheaded the letter, signed by 51 ex-intelligence officials, claiming the explosive Hunter Biden laptop story was part of a Russian disinformation plot. That coordinated effort provided then-candidate Joe Biden with political cover during critical debates, framing legitimate news reporting as nothing more than foreign interference. Morell later admitted in congressional testimony that giving Biden a “talking point” was a chief motivation, under direct prompting from key advisers within the Democrat campaign.

But Morell’s activist streak didn’t begin there. During the 2016 campaign, he used his former CIA credentials to amplify the Clinton campaign’s effort to tie Donald Trump to Vladimir Putin. In August 2016, Morell wrote a New York Times op-ed, shocking the political landscape by accusing Trump of being an “unwitting agent” of Russia. Clinton and her surrogates seized on these unsubstantiated claims, echoing them throughout the campaign trail and in official statements.

Jennifer Palmieri, Clinton’s communications director, openly described how the campaign actively sought Morell’s involvement after the 2016 Democratic National Convention to bolster their anti-Trump messaging:

“I remember my jaw dropping as I sat in our Brooklyn campaign headquarters and read the op-ed Morell submitted to the New York Times in early August [2016].”

Clinton’s subsequent campaign memoir and public remarks show just how closely coordinated these intelligence-driven smears were with her top strategists and media allies. Documents declassified since reveal the FBI had already been warned that Clinton’s team planned to manufacture ties between Trump and Russia, a strategy determined to distract from her own email server scandal.

Pressed after the 2016 election, Clinton tried to dismiss the mounting evidence of her campaign’s machinations as “Russian disinformation.” Yet the facts are now clear: Clinton’s team, with Morell’s help, engineered an elaborate attempt to brand Trump as a Russian asset—without proof, but with tremendous media amplification.

In September 2016, Morell again led a public letter, signed by over 50 former national security officials, smearing Trump’s business interests as Russian-driven and raising baseless alarm about Moscow’s supposed influence over him. Clinton’s staff and Democrat surrogates referenced Morell’s authority repeatedly, cementing the talking points across networks and newsrooms.

Trump fired back in a blunt tweet repudiating Morell’s credibility:

“Michael Morell, the lightweight former Acting Director of CIA, and a man who has made serious bad calls, is a total Clinton flunky!”

[EMBED TWEET: https://x.com/realDonaldTrump/status/762425371874557952]

The 2016 campaign’s efforts didn’t stop at one letter or op-ed. Morell’s phrase—the claim that Trump was “an unwitting agent” of Russia—was splashed across television, news articles, and the lips of Democrat leaders. Harry Reid, then the Senate’s top Democrat, cited Morell’s claim in a letter to then-FBI Director Comey, opening the door for a prolonged media circus around Trump-Russia collusion theories. These narratives would fuel years of investigations that ultimately found no evidence of criminal conspiracy.

Morell himself, when pressed after the election, conceded that despite all the smoke, there was “no fire,” conceding the lack of proof for collusion even as he had fanned the flames throughout the campaign.

Clinton’s campaign allied with foreign assets, including hiring British ex-spy Christopher Steele, to push the infamous and discredited “dossier” used to justify endless investigations and media attacks. FBI documents and special counsel reports have since confirmed the so-called Clinton Plan: create a Russia narrative to damage Trump, regardless of evidence.

After Clinton’s defeat, Morell went further, publicly comparing Russian election interference (which he insisted was aimed at getting Trump elected) to the terror attack of 9/11, calling it “the political equivalent of 9/11.”

These dramatic claims continued to be echoed by Democrat operatives and friendly media outlets intent on blaming Trump’s victory on Russia rather than the failures of Hillary Clinton’s own campaign and policies.

In the Trump administration, awareness grew of the political weaponization of intelligence by partisan actors. Following President Trump’s return to office, a 2025 executive order revoked security clearances for individuals like Morell who had signed the discredited Hunter Biden laptop letter, noting the “willful politicization” of intelligence for election interference.

For Americans who value integrity in government and the media, these revelations are sobering. The same former spy chief who discredited real evidence for political convenience in 2020 was running the same playbook four years earlier, collaborating with Clinton allies to smear political opponents under a cloak of intelligence expertise.

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