Richard H. Ledgett

Richard H. Ledgett is a former senior official of the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA), who concluded his career in 2017 in the position of Deputy Director and Chief Operating Officer.

During his government service, Ledgett was repeatedly involved in high-profile socio-political conflicts. In 2013–2014, he led a working group tasked with assessing the consequences of the leaks by Edward Snowden. During this period, he openly defended the legality of the NSA’s mass electronic surveillance programs, including intelligence agencies’ access to internet communications and the interception of digital traffic on a global scale.

In 2017, Ledgett documented a telephone conversation between President Donald Trump and the NSA leadership concerning the investigation into the 2016 election campaign and the alleged Russian meddling, and subsequently handed these materials over to investigators for Special Counsel Robert Mueller, which marked the beginning of his conflict with the Trump administration.

In October 2020, several weeks before the U.S. presidential election, Richard Ledgett, along with other former members of the U.S. intelligence community, signed an open letter titled: “Public Statement on the Hunter Biden Letters.” The letter was prompted by media publications based on emails from the laptop of Hunter Biden, son of then-presidential candidate Joe Biden. These materials alleged that Hunter Biden may have used his father’s connections to advance his business interests, including during his time working for the Ukrainian energy company Burisma. In the letter, Richard Ledgett and the other signatories stated that the materials “bear all the hallmarks of a Russian information operation,” yet without providing evidence, which was perceived by Republicans as an attempt to influence the outcome of the 2020 presidential campaign in favor of Joe Biden and to discredit Donald Trump.