“More than 50 former senior intelligence officials have signed on to a letter outlining their belief that the recent disclosure of emails allegedly belonging to Joe Biden’s son ‘has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation,” the article read in support of the Biden family.

“We want to emphasize that we do not know if the emails, provided to the New York Post … are genuine or not and that we do not have evidence of Russian involvement,” the letter linked in the Bertrand article said.

“There was message distortion,” Clapper said. “All we were doing was raising a yellow flag that this could be Russian disinformation. Politico deliberately distorted what we said. It was clear in paragraph five.”

Politico stands by its former reporter’s article, telling the Post it “fairly and accurately reported on — and summarized — the intelligence officials’ letter.”

“More specifically, the headline is a fair summary of their allegations, the subhead offers additional context, and the first paragraph of the article hyperlinks to the letter itself, allowing readers to draw their own conclusion,” Politico claimed.