A conservative group, American First Legal, is suing the Federal Elections Commission for its lack of response to a now-debunked letter from 51 former intelligence community officials who claimed just days before the 2020 election that the Hunter Biden laptop was manufactured by the Russian government. America First Legal says that the letter represented a “contribution” to the Biden campaign that should have been reported to the FEC. 

“The FEC decided we’re not going to act on this,” the vice president of America First Legal, Daniel Epstein, told Fox News Digital. “So, what the district court will do, our hope, is that it will order the FEC to investigate and take this seriously.” Mr. Epstein said that the FEC would be “effectively encouraging disinformation to the public that may influence the election” should they not take action. 

The letter — released on October 19, 2020 — claimed that Mr. Biden’s laptop had been manufactured in Russia and passed along to Mayor Giuliani in an attempt to hinder the Biden campaign. 

Before the letter was even released, Congressman Adam Schiff, who at the time was chairman of the Intelligence Committee, said that the laptop clearly came from the Kremlin.

“We know that this whole smear on Joe Biden comes from the Kremlin,” Mr. Schiff said. “That’s been clear for well over a year now that they’ve been pushing this false narrative about the vice president and his son … Clearly, the origins of this whole smear are from the Kremlin, and the President is only too happy to have Kremlin help and try to amplify it.”

One of the signatories to that letter, former acting CIA director Mike Morrell, told the House Judiciary Committee in 2023 that the idea for a letter refuting the legitimacy of the laptop came from Secretary Blinken, who at the time was serving as a top national security advisor to the Biden campaign. 

The Judiciary Committee report found that those 51 officials who signed the letter “came together to insert themselves into the thick of the presidential campaign.”

America First Legal — which filed an administrative complaint with the FEC about the issue in October — says that the letter represented a financial contribution to the campaign and significantly hampered President Trump’s ability to win reelection. The group says that it wants the FEC to admit its 2020 mistake and ensure that it does not happen again.