Intel chiefs questioned the laptop story. What do they say now? When the New York Post revealed that it had obtained emails from Hunter Biden's laptop, which a Delaware repair-shop owner said he had abandoned, much of the media did not quickly follow. One reason was that news organizations could not get their own copies of the hard drive. Another reason was that there were fears these were hacked materials. Indeed, more than 50 former senior intelligence officials, including five CIA chiefs, had signed a letter saying the release of the emails "has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation." The letter was first reported by Politico with the explosive headline: "Hunter Biden story is Russian disinfo, dozens of former intel officials say." That allowed Joe Biden, in the final 2020 presidential debate, to dismiss the laptop as "a Russian plan," adding that former intel officials called it "a bunch of garbage." Now House Republicans are demanding many of the signers submit to interviews about the origin of the letter. We dug into the issue this week, interviewing some signers and doing a line-by-line analysis of what the letter said. The results may surprise you. Click the link to read more. Enjoy this newsletter? Forward it to someone else who'd like it! If this email was forwarded to you, sign up here. Did you hear something fact-checkable? Send it here; we'll check it out. Biden's incomplete statement on covid and crime We quickly fact-checked various claims in the president's address to Congress last week, but there's usually something that requires a bit more digging. That's the case with this line: "Covid left its scars, like the spike in violent crime in 2020 — the first year of the pandemic." Crime data often takes a long time to collect — and trends that cause crime rates to fluctuate are not readily apparent. Even three years after much of the world shut down their economies to halt the spread of the virus, analysts still are examining what might have sparked an upswing in violent crime. The culprits could include economic turmoil from the pandemic, consequences of social justice unrest after the killing of George Floyd and a sharp increase in gun purchases — or a combination of all three. We dug into the data to help readers understand what was missing from the president's framing. We're always looking for fact-check suggestions. You can reach us via email, Twitter (@GlennKesslerWP and @AdriUsero) or Facebook. Read about our process and rating scale here, and sign up for the newsletter here. Scroll down to read other crime-related fact checks. | 
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