VIDEO-Hunter Biden 'disinformation' claim causes meltdown at Senate hearing

December 16, 2020 | 12:53pm | Updated December 16, 2020 | 2:12pm

WASHINGTON — A Senate hearing on irregularities in the 2020 election on Wednesday got heated when GOP Sen. Ron Johnson berated a fellow member for accusing him of spreading “disinformation.”

Johnson (R-Wis.), chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, exploded at Ranking Member Gary Peters (D-Mich.) for criticizing his probe into Hunter Biden’s overseas business dealings and accusing him of “laundering” a foreign influence campaign designed to wound President-elect Joe Biden, Hunter’s father.

“I have to talk about Russian disinformation. The people peddling it are not on my side of the aisle,” Johnson said, accusing Peters of leaking “a false intelligence report” to the media that charged he and veteran Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) were “disseminating Russian disinformation.”

“Fifty people associated with the intelligence community, after our Hunter Biden investigation and the revelations of the Hunter Biden computer, said, ‘Oh, this is Russian disinformation,'” Johnson went on, referring to The Post’s bombshell reporting on Hunter Biden’s shadowy overseas business dealings.

“Now we find out it’s a real investigation by the Justice Department,” Johnson said, acknowledging the federal tax probe into Joe Biden’s scandal-scarred son.

“I can’t sit by here and listen to this and say that this is not disinformation, this hearing today. This is getting information. We have to take a look at [it] to restore confidence in our election integrity,” he said.

Peters pushed back, telling Johnson: “You say I’m putting out information. I had nothing to do with this report.”

“You lied repeatedly! You lied repeatedly in the press. That I was spreading Russian disinformation,” Johnson shot back.

(From left) Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) and Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) speak to Trump campaign attorneys James Troupis and Jesse Binnall.

REUTERS

Attorneys James R. Troupis and Jesse Binnall talk with Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) prior to testifying before a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing to examine claims of voter irregularities in the 2020 election.

REUTERS

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“I told you to stop lying and you continued to do it,” the Republican lawmaker went on.

“Mr. Chairman, this is not about airing your grievances,” Peters retorted.

“You talked about Russian disinformation,” Johnson griped.

“Mr. Chairman, you can’t make those allegations and drop it there,” Peters said.

The men were arguing about a July letter from Democratic leaders to FBI Director Christopher Wray in which they claimed members of Congress were being targeted by a foreign influence campaign to change the outcome of the 2020 election.

According to a Politico report, Democrats argued that Johnson’s Hunter Biden investigation had become a vehicle for “laundering” disinformation.

At Wednesday’s hearing, lawyers for President Trump’s re-election campaign said they had found hundreds of thousands of examples of dead people and non-citizens voting and people casting multiple ballots.

Chris Krebs, the fired director of the Trump administration’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, repeated his claim that the 2020 election was the most secure in history.

“We should all be taking a victory lap celebrating a job well done,” he said.

Trump fired the top election official Nov. 17 after he openly dismissed the president’s allegations of fraud in the election.