In December of 2022, The Gateway Pundit reported that Politico’s Natasha Bertrand lied in the title of her still-published Politico Biden campaign cover story: “Hunter Biden Story is Russian Disinfo, Dozens of Former Intel Officials Say.”
The basis of Gateway Pundit’s article at the time was derived from DNI John Ratcliffe’s statements refuting the Russian ties and corroborated by the FBI at the time, as per a tweet from (at the time) Deputy DNI Cliff Sims.
Oct. 19, then-@politico reporter @NatashBertrand preps a story about 50 former Intel officials claiming the Biden laptop story is Russian disinfo.
I warn her that it is NOT and point her to Ratcliffe’s statements.
She writes it anyway and gives Democrats the headline they want. pic.twitter.com/W3otv7GUTy
— Cliff Sims (@Cliff_Sims) December 15, 2022
This morning, however, the Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government released their interim report on the “Spies Who Lie” letter. In it, we find that Politico was the third news outlet that former Deputy Chief of Staff to John Brennan, Nick Shapiro, reached out to to run the Blinken-inspired rebuttal to the NY Post story on Hunter Biden’s laptop at the request of Michael Morrell.
In that report, we learned that Michael Morrell, the “organizer” of the “Spies Who Lie” letter, didn’t believe DNI Ratcliffe, who had access to classified information as the top spy chief in the United States at the time. Morrell made this assessment based on him having “much more experience” and “internet searches” on the topic.
However, despite Morrell’s denial of Ratcliffe’s assessment (the FBI claimed they had “nothing to add at this time” to Ratcliffe’s statement), Morrell emailed Shapiro, who then sent it to Bertrand, with explicit instructions that “Off The Record: We are not making a call on whether the materials are true or not, just that we believe Moscow played a role in getting the information out.” 
Once the disinformation Politico piece was published, not only was there no known effort to correct Bertrand on the article, the “Spies who Lie” actually celebrated their accomplishment, specifically citing the “nice job” Politico did on the article!
The Politico disinformation article was spread by Jen Psaki and other supporters of the Biden campaign. None were censored for spreading false information.
While the Federal Government and other non-profits continue an effort to silence “Mis- and disinformation” from conservative sites such as The Gateway Pundit, blatant disregard of statements and claims directly from the source is ignored by a Politico writer in a seeming effort to garner views and promote a political agenda.
It is likely that an article titled “Hunter Biden Story is Russian Disinfo” had an impact on the American populace in regards to the 2020 Election. Polls have claimed that as much as 17% of Biden voters wouldn’t have voted for him had the Hunter laptop been confirmed and not suppressed. Rep. Elise Stefanik claims that number is as high as 53%.
“Fortified.”
