Providing testimony that appears to turn a key theme of the 2020 election on its head, former CIA Director John Brennan reportedly told the House Judiciary Committee that a letter from 51 current and former intelligence officials suggesting that the Hunter Biden laptop was the product of a Russian disinformation campaign was, in reality, a partisan political ploy, according to Fox News.

The substance of what Brennan told the panel was revealed by Republican committee chair Jim Jordan (OH-04) during an appearance on Fox News' Jesse Watters Primetime, adding to prior admissions from former acting CIA Director Mike Morrell about how the now-infamous letter took shape.

“All Political”

Speaking to Watters about questioning for which Brennan sat on Thursday, Jordan declared, “He sat for [a] four-hour interview, Jesse. He further confirmed that this thing was all political.”

The Ohio lawmaker went on to assert that current Secretary of State Antony Blinken – who was, at the time, working as a Biden campaign adviser – served as the “impetus” behind the creation of the letter, though he has since denied playing such a role.

Aiding in the overall effort, according to Jordan, was Morell, who appeared before the panel earlier this month and corroborated that Blinken had sparked his interest in recruiting signatories for the document that was ultimately used by the Biden campaign to blunt the effects of a New York Post report on the damning contents of the abandoned computer.

During his chat with Watters, Jordan also criticized the response of Democratic panel member Rep. Daniel Goldman (NY-10) to his pursuit of information from Brennan, denying his colleague's contention that the former CIA head was a private citizen at the time of the letter's creation by noting that the signatories used their government titles along with their names.

“Shazam!”

Jordan continued to drive home his point to Watters that the laptop letter was the product of a highly coordinated, improperly partisan effort to bolster the Biden campaign at the expense of then-President Donald Trump that should never have taken place.

“We expect public servants not to use their title to influence an election,” Jordan opined.

The congressman further wondered why Biden supporters and campaign operatives believed such a “talking point” as provided by the letter was even necessary, given their supposed belief that the laptop was a hoax or a fraud.

Speaking to the manner in which Biden used the letter during an eleventh-hour debate with Trump, Jordan observed, “And he presented it as if it was all organic – just shazam! It just happened out of the goodness of all these individuals' hearts. They wanted to do this as if there was no political motivation whatsoever, and we know that was not accurate.”

CIA Solicitation Effort

Jordan's expressions of frustration did not end there, as he also spoke to Watters about evidence that has emerged regarding internal CIA efforts to recruit individuals to lend their names to the laptop letter, as the Washington Examiner notes.

“A current employee of the CIA was actively soliciting people to sign on to this letter that was used in a total political fashion with all their names associated so Joe Biden would have a talking point in the debate,” Jordan said.

That remark was an apparent reference to testimony provided by former CIA analyst David Cariens, who was in the process of publishing a memoir when the letter was produced and said that an employee with the agency's Prepublication Classification Review Board (PCRB) asked if he would lend his name to the effort, as the New York Post reported.

“When the person in charge of reviewing my book called to say it was approved with no changes, I was told about the draft letter. The person asked me if I would be willing to sign...I agreed to sign,” recalled Cariens.

Clapper on Deck?

Jordan further revealed to Watters that his committee intends to seek an interview with former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, who, according to emails reviewed by the panel, also played a significant role in the production of the letter, as the Federalist reported.

Republican committee member Rep. Kat Cammack (FL-03) said on Thursday that though the panel's Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government remains in the fact-finding stage of its probe, what has already been revealed presents an alarming picture of what went on during the run-up to the 2020 election, according to the New York Post.

“[W]hat we're really getting at is painting an irrefutable picture that the intelligence community – along with the law enforcement agencies, the DOJ and others, at the highest levels – have been working to weaponize their agencies against the American people and certainly for political gain,” Cammack stated, while also suggesting that more details are still likely to emerge.

Clapper's aforementioned interview is reportedly slated to occur Wednesday, and precisely what new light he might be able to shed on the process underlying the intelligence community's apparent efforts to boost Biden's political prospects, only time will tell.