White House accuses Jim Jordan of ‘highly misleading’ leak on Hunter Biden

by Lauren Sforza - 04/21/23 9:19 PM ET

White House spokesperson Ian Sams accused House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) of a “highly misleading” leak about Hunter Biden on Twitter Friday.

The House Judiciary GOP tweeted a letter sent to Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Thursday that included excerpts of a testimony from Michael Morell, a former deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), about the Hunter Biden laptop story published by the New York Post ahead of the 2020 election. The letter contained leaked data reportedly obtained from a laptop belonging to Hunter Biden.

It states that the committee was looking into a public statement signed by former intelligence officials who denounced the laptop story, and accused Blinken of having a role in it by calling Morell about the statement at the time.

Sams disputed this claim and suggested that the excerpts from Morell’s testimony revealed a “misleading” leak from Jordan, Rep. Michael Turner (R-Ohio) and the Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee.

“Wow. Fuller transcript newly released by @HouseJudiciary reveals this was a highly misleading selective leak by @Jim_Jordan, @RepMikeTurner and @JudiciaryGOP,” Sams tweeted Friday.

He also tweeted a portion of the testimony that was not included in the letter that showed the committee asking Morell: “When he called you, did he direct, suggest, or insinuate in any way that you should write a letter or statement on this topic?”

According to the excerpt, Morell responded: “My memory is that he did not, right. My memory is that he asked me what I thought.”

When pressed further by the committee about whether Blinken, who was a campaign advisor at the time, had said “the campaign could use some help on this,” Morell responded that Blinken “did not say that.”

“Think about this: instead of working with President Biden on solutions to real problems Americans care about — like lowering costs or tackling gun violence — House Republicans keep weaponizing their power to re-litigate the 2020 election in a wacky strategy to get on Fox News,” Sams tweeted Thursday in response to the letter.