NEW: White House Press Secretary Implicated In Hunter Biden Laptop Coverup

On Wednesday, the House Oversight Committee released a report suggesting that one of Joe Biden’s deputy press secretaries, Andrew Bates, was in contact with former CIA senior adviser Nick Shapiro, who played a key part in the coverup of Hunter Biden’s laptop scandal.

According to the report, Shapiro was the mastermind behind the now-discredited letter signed by 51 former intelligence officials that attempted to paint the laptop as a Russian operation in October 2020.

Shapiro drafted a media pitch for the letter and shopped it around to various media outlets, including the Associated Press, The Washington Post, and Politico. He even forwarded the letter to the Biden campaign, adding “This is what I gave them.” The Biden campaign then tweeted, “Hunter Biden story is Russian disinfo, dozens of former intel officials say,” sharing Politico’s story.

“Giving this to you exclusively first if you guys want to run with it,” Shapiro wrote in the email on Oct. 19, 2020.

“You can also use this on the record from me Nick Shapiro, describing what this is: ‘A large group of former career intelligence officers, many specializing in Russia, joined by a group of former intelligence community leaders, are all saying that they believe the Russians were somehow involved here.’”

Biden officials Bates and Jen Psaki tweeted the false article in 2020:

"Hunter Biden story is Russian disinfo, dozens of former intel officials say" https://t.co/IxbSzPbtSG

— Andrew Bates (@AndrewBatesNC) October 23, 2020

Hunter Biden story is Russian disinfo, dozens of former intel officials say https://t.co/zRdHxTxVsl

— Jen Psaki (@jrpsaki) October 20, 2020

Fox News reports:

Indeed, Biden brought up the letter during his final debate against former President Donald Trump, saying the laptop was a “Russian plant” and a “bunch of garbage.”

“There are 50 former national intelligence folks who said that what he’s accusing me of is a Russian plant,” Biden said at the time. “… Five former heads of the CIA, both parties, say what he’s saying is a bunch of garbage. Nobody believes it except his good friend Rudy Giuliani.”

Biden still pushed the Russian theory that December, telling Fox News’ Peter Doocy, “Yes, yes, yes,” when asked if he believed the laptop was Russian disinformation.

The White House and Shapiro did not respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.

The New York Post was the first to report on the laptop just three weeks before the 2020 presidential election, leading to widespread censorship of the article on social media platforms, including Twitter, which was working closely with the FBI at the time, Elon Musk’s “Twitter Files” have shown.

The House Oversight Committee Republicans’ report sheds light on the sinister motives behind the coverup of the Hunter Biden laptop scandal. The report reveals how Shapiro tried to manipulate the media to make it appear as though the laptop was part of a Russian disinformation campaign.