CNN debate moderator Dana Bash’s ex-husband Jeremy was an operative for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) when he signed the infamous 2020 letter to Politico discrediting the Hunter Biden laptop as Russian election interference.
On Tuesday, the House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government published a blockbuster report on the CIA’s role coordinating the deep state smear campaign aimed at electing President Joe Biden four years ago. According to the Judiciary Committee, which had been investigating the CIA’s involvement with the letter to Politico since December, several of the 51 signatories were contractors for the premier intelligence agency when they sought to dismiss Hunter Biden’s discovered hard drive as Kremlin disinformation. Michael Morell, the former acting director of the agency, and former Inspector General David Buckley were both on CIA payroll at the time the letter was published.
Jeremy Bash was also highlighted in the report as an “independent contractor” for the CIA, and he apparently held a “green badge” clearance from April 2, 2019, to April 1, 2022. Jeremy renewed his clearance on Aug. 22, 2022, which will expire in August this year. The intelligence official was the CNN anchor’s first husband, and they married in 1998. The pair divorced in 2007, and Dana married CNN anchor John King a year later. Dana and King remained together until 2012.
According to the New York Post, which reported exclusively on the House findings before they were made public, “Morell flatly denied he was a contractor when contacted.”
“If you write that, you would [be] wrong,” Morell wrote in an email to the New York paper.
“Morell doubled down in a second email,” the Post added, “writing that ‘I can’t’ speculate on why he was listed as such by the agency he once led and insisting: ‘It’s wrong.’”
A House source delivered the CIA document showing Morell’s involvement to The Federalist Tuesday evening. Robert Dugas, the CIA deputy general counsel for litigation and investigations, wrote to House Republicans that Morell was contracted with the CIA at the time of the letter.
“The evidence in our report speaks for itself and it seems that the spy who lied is continuing to do so,” Russell Dye, a spokesman for the House Judiciary Committee, told The Federalist in a statement.
House Republicans had escalated their investigation into the CIA’s election interference for months after committee testimony suggested the agency solicited signatures last year. In March, GOP Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan of Ohio pressed the CIA on whether officials had even interfered with federal investigations into the president’s son. Whistleblowers from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) told House investigators that Justice Department officials suddenly moved to block an interview with a critical witness after they were summoned to CIA headquarters in Virginia.
In their latest report published Tuesday, lawmakers reported “High ranking CIA officials, up to and including then-CIA Director Gina Haspel, were made aware of the Hunter Biden statement prior to its approval and publication.” Once the statement was made public in Politico, “CIA employees internally expressed concern about the statement’s politicized content, acknowledging it was not ‘helpful to the Agency in the long run.’”
“Even Michael Morell — before the Committees learned of his contract with the CIA,” the report continued, “acknowledged, ‘It’s inappropriate for a currently serving staff officer or contractor to be involved in the political process.'”
Another report from independent Substack journalists has raised questions about whether the FBI’s raid on former President Donald Trump’s residence in Florida was also a ploy to protect the public integrity of the intelligence agency.
On the Substack called “Public,” Michael Shellenberger, Matt Taibbi, and Alex Gutentag reported in February that “multiple sources believe that Trump’s possession” of a material revealing the CIA’s role to hatch the original Russia hoax “led the FBI to raid his home in Mar-a-Lago, which led to the prosecution of Trump by Justice Department special prosecutor Jack Smith.”
