A top investigator on the House Select Committee on Jan. 6 has a history of fabricating baseless claims to smear political dissidents.
David Buckley, who formerly served as the CIA inspector general, is now leading House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s probe of the Capitol riot as the committee’s staff director. In October 2020, Buckley was among the dozens of former intelligence officials who sought to delegitimize stories from Hunter Biden’s abandoned Delaware laptop, which implicated then-candidate Joe Biden in his son’s potentially criminal overseas business activity, as Russian disinformation.
Despite rare on-the-record statements from the FBI, Department of Justice, director of national intelligence, and the Department of State rejecting claims the laptop was a vehicle of Russian interference weeks prior to the election, legacy media ran with the false narrative from Democrats until months after Biden was elected.
“The laptop lie did enormous damage to the credibility of ‘ex-intelligence officials,’ just like the J6 witch-hunt has hurt the credibility of congressional investigations,” Indiana Republican Rep. Jim Banks told The Federalist in a statement. “Speaker Pelosi blocked me from serving on the Committee because of ‘ridiculous’ statements I made. Meanwhile, the committee’s staff director intentionally lied to the public to keep President Trump out of the White house.”
While claims of Russian disinformation about the laptop were delegitimized with forensic analyses of its hard drive, it wasn’t until September of last year that Politico acknowledged the computer’s authenticity. The New York Times took longer, waiting until last week to follow suit. The only thing that changed to cause legacy outlets to acknowledge the laptop’s legitimacy was Joe Biden’s status change from Democrat candidate for president to commander in chief.
The idea the laptop was a tool of Kremlin election meddling, however, was fueled by the more than 50 intelligence officials who said so because they felt like it.
“Our experience makes us deeply suspicious that the Russian government played a significant role in this case,” they wrote.
Candidate Biden even regurgitated Buckley’s talking points during the final presidential debate when confronted by President Trump.
“Russia is wanting to make sure that I do not get elected the next President of the United States, because they know I know them, and they know me,” Biden said on stage 18 months before President Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Since its inception, the Jan. 6 Committee has taken the shape of the Democrats’ latest hoax to excuse the state-sponsored investigation of political enemies, complete with public show trials in prime time. While ostensibly constructed to probe the Capitol riot, less than 10 percent of the committee’s more than 100 subpoenas have targeted individuals associated with the turmoil. That riot’s totaled damages are estimated to cost 66 times less than the explosive carnage from nationwide Black Lives Matter riots seven months prior.
Earlier this month, committee members conceded to the Washington Post its work was all about the midterms, as opposed to investigating the security failures that forced a joint session of Congress to seek shelter. Doing so would require investigation into Pelosi’s own culpability, which the committee’s members, appointed by Pelosi, have pledged to avoid. Instead, the probe operating with two Republicans hand-picked by the speaker, Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., and Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., has even targeted individuals with no association with the Jan. 6 events whatsoever, who are focused on unseating the committee’s vice chair in Wyoming.
“Buckley’s disgraceful record of intimidating, harassing, and lying perfectly qualifies him to lead the committee’s staff,” Banks told The Federalist. “He had a lot of practice before joining Democrats’ norm-destroying witch hunt.”
