In other words, the "Hunter Biden laptop is Russian Disinformation - Trust Us!" story was a conscious lie by those 51 much-hyped intelligence professionals, a lie told with the explicit goal of influencing the 2020 election.

EDIT: the conscious lie was by Blinken (currently US Secretary of State) and Morrell. The remaining signatories can claim plausible deniability. I thank Literal Mussolini, sincerely.