Guccifer 2.0 turns four years old today and the great diversion he took part in becomes clearer by the day, writes Ray McGovern.
By Ray McGovern
Special to Consortium News
Four years ago today, on June 15, 2016, a shadowy Internet persona calling itself “Guccifer 2.0” appeared out of nowhere to claim credit for hacking emails from the Democratic National Committee on behalf of WikiLeaks and implicate Russia by dropping “telltale” but synthetically produced Russian “breadcrumbs” in his metadata.
Thanks largely to the corporate media, the highly damaging story actually found in those DNC emails — namely, that the DNC had stacked the cards against Bernie Sanders in the party’s 2016 primary— was successfully obscured.
The media was the message; and the message was that Russia had used G-2.0 to hack into the DNC, interfering in the November 2016 election to help Donald Trump win.
Almost everybody still “knows” that — from the man or woman in the street to the forlorn super sleuth, Special Counsel Robert Swan Mueller III, who actually based indictments of Russian intelligence officers on Guccifer 2.0.
Blaming Russia was a magnificent distraction from the start and quickly became the vogue.
The soil had already been cultivated for “Russiagate” by Democratic PR gems like Donald Trump “kissing up” to former KGB officer Vladimir Putin and their “bromance” (bromides that former President Barack Obama is still using). Four years ago today, “Russian meddling” was off and running — on steroids — acquiring far more faux-reality than the evanescent Guccifer 2.0 persona is likely to get.
Here’s how it went down:
1 — June 12: WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange announced he had “emails related to Hillary Clinton which are pending publication.”
2 — June 14: DNC contractor CrowdStrike tells the media that malware has been found on the DNC server and claims there is evidence it was injected by Russians.
3 — June 15: Guccifer 2.0 arises from nowhere; affirms the DNC/CrowdStrike allegations of the day before; claims responsibility for hacking the DNC; claims to be a WikiLeaks source; and posts a document that forensic examination shows was deliberately tainted with “Russian fingerprints.” This to “corroborate” claims made by CrowdStrike executives the day before.
Adding to other signs of fakery, there is hard evidence that G-2.0 was operating mostly in U.S. time zones and with local settings peculiar to a device configured for use within the U.S., as Tim Leonard reports here and here.)
Leonard is a software developer who started to catalog and archive evidence related to Guccifer 2.0 in 2017 and has issued detailed reports on digital forensic discoveries made by various independent researchers — as well as his own — over the past three years. Leonard points out that WikiLeaks said it did not use any of the emails G2.0 sent it, though it later published similar emails, opening the possibility that whoever created G2.0 knew what WikiLeaks had and sent it duplicates with the Russian fingerprints.
As Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) told President Trump in a memorandum of July 24, 2017, titled “Was the ‘Russian Hack’ an Inside Job?”:
“We do not think that the June 12, 14, & 15 timing was pure coincidence. Rather, it suggests the start of a pre-emptive move to associate Russia with anything WikiLeaks might have been ready to publish and to ‘show’ that it came from a Russian hack.”
We added this about Guccifer 2.0 at the time:
“The recent forensic studies fill in a critical gap. Why the FBI neglected to perform any independent forensics on the original ‘Guccifer 2.0’ material remains a mystery – as does the lack of any sign that the ‘hand-picked analysts’ from the FBI, CIA, and NSA, who wrote the misnomered ‘Intelligence Community’ Assessment dated January 6, 2017, gave any attention to forensics.”
Guccifer 2.0 Seen As a Fraud
In our July 24, 2017 memorandum we also told President Trump that independent cyber investigators and VIPS had determined “that the purported ‘hack’ of the DNC by Guccifer 2.0 was not a hack, by Russia or anyone else. Rather it originated with a copy (onto an external storage device – a thumb drive, for example) by an insider. Information was leaked to implicate Russia. We do not know who or what the murky Guccifer 2.0 is. You may wish to ask the FBI.” [Emphasis added.].
Right. Ask the FBI. At this stage, President Trump might have better luck asking Attorney General William Barr, to whom the FBI is accountable — at least in theory. As for Barr, VIPS informed him in a June 5, 2020 memorandum that the head of CrowdStrike had admitted under oath on Dec. 5, 2017 that CrowdStrike has no concrete evidence that the DNC emails published by WikiLeaks on July 22, 2016 were hacked — by Russia or by anyone else. [Emphasis added.] This important revelation has so far escaped attention in the Russia-Russia-Russia “mainstream” media (surprise, surprise, surprise!).
Back to the Birth of G-2
It boggles the mind that so few Americans could see Russiagate for the farce it was. Most of the blame, I suppose, rests on a thoroughly complicit Establishment media. Recall: Assange’s announcement on June 12, 2016 that he had Hillary Clinton-related emails came just six weeks before the Democratic convention. I could almost hear the cry go up from the DNC: Houston, We Have a Problem!
Clinton at the 2016 convention. (Wikimedia Commons)
Here’s how bad the problem for the Democrats was. The DNC emails eventually published by WikiLeaks on July 22, 2016, just three days before the Democratic convention, had been stolen on May 23 and 25. This would have given the DNC time to learn that the stolen material included documents showing how the DNC and Clinton campaign had manipulated the primaries and created a host of other indignities, such that Sanders’ chances of winning the nomination amounted to those of a snowball’s chance in the netherworld.
To say this was an embarrassment would be the understatement of 2016. Worse still, given the documentary nature of the emails and WikiLeaks’ enviable track record for accuracy, there would be no way to challenge their authenticity. Nevertheless, with the media in full support of the DNC and Clinton, however, it turned out to be a piece of cake to divert attention from the content of the emails to the “act of war” (per John McCain) that the Russian “cyber attack” was said to represent.
The outcome speaks as much to the lack of sophistication on the part of American TV watchers, as it does to the sophistication of the Democrats-media complicity and cover-up. How come so few could figure out what was going down?
It was not hard for some experienced observers to sniff a rat. Among the first to speak out was fellow Consortium News columnist Patrick Lawrence, who immediately saw through the Magnificent Diversion. I do not know if he fancies duck hunting, but he shot the Russiagate canard quite dead — well before the Democratic convention was over.
Magnificent Diversion
Patrick Lawrence
In late July 2016, Lawrence was sickened, as he watched what he immediately recognized as a well planned, highly significant deflection. The Clinton-friendly media was excoriating Russia for “hacking” DNC emails and was glossing over what the emails showed; namely, that the Clinton Dems had pretty much stolen the nomination from Sanders.
It was already clear even then that the Democrats, with invaluable help from intelligence leaks and other prepping to the media, had made good use of those six weeks between Assange’s announcement that he had emails “related to Hillary Clinton” and the opening of the convention.
The media was primed to castigate the Russians for “hacking,” while taking a prime role in the deflection. It was a liminal event of historic significance, as we now know. The “Magnificent Diversion” worked like a charm — and then it grew like Topsy.
Lawrence said he had “fire in the belly” on the morning of July 25 as the Democratic convention began and wrote what follows pretty much “in one long, furious exhale” within 12 hours of when the media started really pushing the “the Russians-did-it” narrative.
Below is a slightly shortened text of his article:
“Now wait a minute, all you upper-case “D” Democrats. A flood light suddenly shines on your party apparatus, revealing its grossly corrupt machinations to fix the primary process and sink the Sanders campaign, and within a day you are on about the evil Russians having hacked into your computers to sabotage our elections …
Is this a joke? Are you kidding? Is nothing beneath your dignity? Is this how lowly you rate the intelligence of American voters? …
Clowns. Subversives. Do you know who you remind me of? I will tell you: Nixon, in his famously red-baiting campaign — a disgusting episode — … during his first run for the Senate, in 1950. Your political tricks are as transparent and anti-democratic as his, it is perfectly fair to say.
I confess to a heated reaction to events since last Friday [July 22] among the Democrats, specifically in the Democratic National Committee. I should briefly explain …
The Sanders people have long charged that the DNC has had its fingers on the scale, as one of them put it the other day, in favor of Hillary Clinton’s nomination. The prints were everywhere — many those of Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who has repeatedly been accused of anti-Sanders bias. Schultz, do not forget, co-chaired Clinton’s 2008 campaign against Barack Obama. That would be enough to disqualify her as the DNC’s chair in any society that takes ethics seriously, but it is not enough in our great country. Chairwoman she has been for the past five years.
Last Friday WikiLeaks published nearly 20,000 DNC email messages providing abundant proof that Sanders and his staff were right all along. The worst of these, involving senior DNC officers, proposed Nixon-esque smears having to do with everything from ineptitude within the Sanders campaign to Sanders as a Jew in name only and an atheist by conviction.
Wasserman fell from grace on Monday. Other than this, Democrats from President Obama to Clinton and numerous others atop the party’s power structure have had nothing to say, as in nothing, about this unforgivable breach.They have, rather, been full of praise for Wasserman Schultz. Brad Marshall, the D.N.C.’s chief financial officer, now tries to deny that his Jew-baiting remark referred to Sanders. Good luck, Brad: Bernie is the only Jew in the room.
The caker came on Sunday, when Robby Mook, Clinton’s campaign manager, appeared on ABC’s “This Week” and … CNN’s “State of the Union” to assert that the D.N.C.’s mail was hacked “by the Russians for the purpose of helping Donald Trump.” He knows this — knows it in a matter of 24 hours — because “experts” — experts he will never name — have told him so. …
What’s disturbing to us is that experts are telling us that Russian state actors broke into the DNC, stole these emails, and other experts are now saying that Russians are releasing these emails for the purpose of helping Donald Trump.
Is that what disturbs you, Robby? Interesting. Unsubstantiated hocus-pocus, not the implications of these events for the integrity of Democratic nominations and the American political process? The latter is the more pressing topic, Robby. You are far too long on anonymous experts for my taste, Robby. And what kind of expert, now that I think of it, is able to report to you as to the intentions of Russian hackers — assuming for a sec that this concocted narrative has substance?
Making lemonade out of a lemon, the Clinton campaign now goes for a twofer. Watch as it advances the Russians-did-it thesis on the basis of nothing, then shoots the messenger, then associates Trump with its own mess — and, finally, gets to ignore the nature of its transgression (which any paying-attention person must consider grave).
Preposterous, readers. Join me, please, in having absolutely none of it. There is no “Russian actor” at the bottom of this swamp, to put my position bluntly. You will never, ever be offered persuasive evidence otherwise.
Reluctantly, I credit the Clinton campaign and the DNC with reading American paranoia well enough such that they may make this junk stick. In a clear sign the entire crowd-control machine is up and running, The New York Times had a long, unprofessional piece about Russian culprits in its Monday editions. It followed Mook’s lead faithfully: not one properly supported fact, not one identified “expert,” and more conditional verbs than you’ve had hot dinners — everything cast as “could,” “might,” “appears,” “would,” “seems,” “may.” Nothing, once again, as to the very serious implications of this affair for the American political process.
Now comes the law. The FBI just announced that it will investigate — no, not the DNC’s fraudulent practices (which surely breach statutes), but “those who pose a threat in cyberspace.” … it is the invocation of the Russians that sends me over the edge. My bones grow weary …
We must take the last few days’ events as a signal of what Clinton’s policy toward Russia will look like should she prevail in November. … Turning her party’s latest disgrace into an occasion for another round of Russophobia is mere preface, but in it you can read her commitment to the new crusade.
Trump, to make this work, must be blamed for his willingness to negotiate with Moscow. This is now among his sins. Got that? Anyone who says he will talk to the Russians has transgressed the American code. … Does this not make Hillary Clinton more than a touch Nixonian?
I am developing nitrogen bends from watching the American political spectacle. One can hardly tell up from down. Which way for a breath of air?”
A year later Lawrence interviewed several of us VIPS, including our two former NSA technical directors and on Aug. 9, 2017 published an article for The Nation titled, “A New Report Raises Big Questions About Last Year’s DNC Hack.”
Lawrence wrote, “Former NSA experts, now members of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), say it wasn’t a hack at all, but a leak—an inside job by someone with access to the DNC’s system.”
And so it was. But, sadly, that cut across the grain of the acceptable Russia-gate narrative at The Nation at the time. Its staff, seriously struck by the HWHW (Hillary Would Have Won) virus, rose up in rebellion. A short time later, there was no more room at The Nation for his independent-minded writing.
Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington. His 27-year career as a CIA analyst included preparing and briefing The President’s Daily Brief and leading the Soviet Foreign Policy Branch. In retirement he co-founded Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity.
I am in awe of the patience of VIPS members with one Mr. Ray McGovern being one of the most patient.
Thank you Ray for all you do for us.
Ray, have you read Scott Ritters latest Consortium article on Papadopoulos? What is your opinion on who Joseph Mifsud is and who he was working for
When a Washington propaganda narrative finally gets officially accepted as the truth—no matter how many lies went into the making of it—you can be sure that some “authoritative” representative of the Blob has finally stepped in and put his seal of approval on it. That dangerous nonsense about Russian hackers and Julian Assange was a bullshit story when it was created, and it’s still a bullshit story. And I am certain that the VIPS weren’t the only people on the planet for whom it made no sense at all.
But the narrative was finally accepted as official evidence against those “powerful” threats, the Russians when the Council on Foreign Relations published a piece on it in their mag, Foreign Affairs. From that point on, the matter was settled, and Mueller could cite it in his report, knowing that no one would challenge it again—except perhaps Ray and the VIPS. Thank you, Ray!
At moments like this, I have to wonder if the American political class will ever get over its anti-communist paranoia complex. Starting Cold War 2.0 was, of course, a stretch, since Russia hasn’t been a communist country for four decades, and those guys who, every May Day, used to line up atop Lenin’s tomb, are all dead now—except Gorbachev, a true Cassandra figure if there ever was one. But now, that paranoia complex is turned on those other “commies,” the Chinese. This time it should be an easier job for the Department of Propaganda, given that China is no faint ghost of a former Soviet empire.
Gee, I wonder what the world will be like when a critical mass of Americans finally reaches the obvious conclusion that communism is not ipso facto a special threat to the greatest liberal democracy on Earth—a threat that needs a propaganda war to get it stamped out—but rather, one way of many a country can organize its political life.
When a Washington spun propaganda narrative finally gets officially accepted as the truth–no matter how many lies went into the making of it–you can be sure that the Council on Foreign Relations has stepped in a put its seal of approval on it. That whole piece of dangerous nonsense about the Russians hacking the Hillary campaign and then giving what they’d seized to Julian to publish was a bullshit story from beginning to end.
But it was finally accepted as official evidence against those dastardly Russians when the Council on Foreign Relations published a piece in the establishment Foreign Affairs. From that point on, the matter was settled, and Mueller could cite it in his report, knowing that no one would challenge it again–except perhaps Ray and the VIPS.
At moments like this, I have to wonder if America will ever get over its anti-communist paranoia complex. Starting Cold War 2.0 was, of course, a bit of a stretch, since Russia hasn’t been a communist country for four decades. But now, that paranoia complex is turned on those other “commies,” the Chinese. Gee, I wonder what the world will be like when a critical mass of Americans reaches the boring conclusion that communism is just another way a nation organizes its political life, not ipso facto a threat that needs a propaganda war to get it stamped out.
Thanks for this article, Ray, and keep hammering away at it.
Although Russia is no longer a communist country, they dare to claim independence from Empire. Putin put an end to the rape, pillage, and plunder the Empire enjoyed during the Yeltsin era. It isn’t paranoia, it’s greed , pure and simple. Acting in the best interests of your own citizenry is unforgivable to Empire, and has been for decades.
BTW- Many thanks to Sam and Ray for their lengthy exchange.
OK – so this is obvious.
What next?
I have a plan.
Do you?
The Clinton’s will get what they deserve. I just think that is true.
I think it is on its way. Could be really close.
The DNC will get what it deserves and perhaps it should be the first party out. But the RNC is a close second.
So, is Guccifer 2.0 the pseudonym of Robbie Mook or Dmitri Alperovitch? Or was it a larger effort? One would think such actions dangerous to national security would have repercussions?
We saw the disdain and contempt Hillary Clinton showed for the Black Lives Matter woman who ponied up $100 to get into Clinton’s private fundraiser in order to ask her a serious question and was rudely brushed off by the queen of hearts.
That’s how Clinton and the rest of the power elite think of the rest of us.
Serving Power and Money is all they know or care about. Guarding their personal cog in that wheel. Corrupt to the core.
Excellent essay by Ray, as per usual. One key detail to add: When Crowdstrike announced a probable “Russian hack” on June 14th, they also indicated that the hackers had stolen a Trump oppo research document. This was intended as a set up for G2.0’s appearance a day later, in which he posted Trump oppo research with “Russian fingerprints” in its metadata. This evidently was intended to establish his bona fides as the Russian hacker. (We now know, however, that the document that he posted was actually an attachment to one of Podesta’s emails, and wasn’t from the DNC. Oops.) But in Crowdstrike’s subsequent congressional testimony, they denied having evidence of Russia exfiltrating documents from the DNC. Oops again. Their set up for G2.0 was an evident lie.
Although the four years of Russiagate hysteria has been a mind-bending trial for all of us, one can only imagine what poor Patrick Lawrence has gone through, having sniffed out the sheer fraudulence of it from the very start!
One problem with this narrative is that the DNC contacted Crowdstrike on April 30, who worked throughout May to identify the intrusion and analyze the data. Then over the weekend of June 10 – 13, more than 100 DNC staffers were called in to turn in their laptops to complete the scrubbing and block the intruders.
So the chronology you present above doesn’t quite work. Not only that, but in the June 12 ITV Assange interview, he says he has more Clinton emails — not DNC emails. And that’s a material distinction since in March, Wikileaks had released 30,000+ Clinton emails. So there is no public connection between Assange’s June 12 announcement and the DNC.
I’m sorry, but facts are facts. And we should be more careful in how we present them.
Sam,
Thanks for your comment. I could not agree more that facts are facts. Pat Moynihan famously noted that everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not to their own facts. We all have strong opinions.
In order to refresh my memory, I did a good bit of research before preparing my 4th birthday article on Guccifer 2.0. You are entitled to your opinion, but not facts. During that important interview with itv’s Robert Peston on June 12, 2016, Julian Assange told Peston that WikiLeaks had obtained “emails related to Hillary Clinton which are pending publication” — not “Clinton emails”.
As a sort of aside, it seems to me Assange, understandably, would have chosen his words carefully, partly to maintain some ambiguity as to what exactly was pending publication and, perhaps also, to give his source added protection. As you are aware, the leading insider suspect was still alive for four more weeks.
And, in an unprecedented allusion to WikiLeaks possible sources, Assange mentioned him by name just four weeks after he was murdered. Fortunately, this extremely neuralgic issue is now in the courts with testimony under oath. One discoverable is why the FBI initially lied in saying it had no information on Seth Rich; another is whether NSA has, and will hand over, any information on Rich’s alleged communications with WikiLeaks.
Pardon the digression: As you may know, you were not the only one confused by what was said, and not said, at the Robert Peston interview of Assange on June 12, 2016. The NY Times’ Charlie Savage, while correctly quoting the key phrase “emails related to Hillary Clinton which are pending publication”, addressed the confusion in an article six weeks later:
( See: hXXps://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/27/us/politics/assange-timed-wikileaks-release-of-democratic-emails-to-harm-hillary-clinton.html .)
“Mr. Assange’s remarks last month received only scattered attention, in part because in the interview Mr. Peston appeared to mistakenly assume that WikiLeaks had obtained still-undisclosed emails from the private server Mrs. Clinton had used while secretary of state, and kept cutting Mr. Assange off to ask about it.
“But it now seems clearer that Mr. Assange was trying to talk about the Democratic National Committee emails.
“The confusion stemmed in part because Mr. Assange said in the interview [on June 12] that WikiLeaks had ‘published’ her State Department emails. But it made a copy of ones the Department posted on its website and made them easier to search.”
(The State Department emails referred to here are the ones WikiLeaks had published in March 2016, and they had been acquired via an FOIA.)
Regarding your: “One problem with this narrative is that the DNC contacted Crowdstrike on April 30, who worked throughout May to identify the intrusion and analyze the data:
The malware discovered was never shown to have interacted with the DNC emails, despite CrowdStrike’s identification of intrusions and its analysis of data. Oddly, Special Counsel Mueller, who relied on CrowdStrike’s output, seems to have missed when the DNC emails were first being exported. How to explain that?
Re your: “Then over the weekend of June 10 – 13, more than 100 DNC staffers were called in to turn in their laptops to complete the scrubbing and block the intruders.” (I would add that DNC contractors were asked to do the same.). But I’m not sure how “wiping the laptops” invalidates our findings in any way. Not to be “conspiratorial”, but there are other entirely understandable reasons why DNC/CrowdStrike would want to do that at that point.
In this general connection, it is worth remembering that CrowdStrike founder Dmitri Alperovitch made two separate, inconsistent claims regarding when CrowdStrike discovered “the Russians”: April 30 and May 6. One intriguing unanswered question is why CrowdStrike waited until June 10 to do what any competent cybersecurity firm would have done at least a month earlier? Do you have any take on that, Sam?
Last, but hardly least, what’s your take on the Dec. 5, 2017 sworn testimony of CrowdStrike’s head Shawn Henry — secret testimony until published on May 7, 2020, and the reality that today, almost six weeks later, the story has found neither air nor print in Establishment media? The following extract is, I think, instructive:
Schiff: Mr. Henry, do you know the date on which the Russians exfiltrated the data from the DNC?
Henry: I do. I have to just think about it. I do know. I mean it’s in our report that I think the committee has.
Schiff: And, to the best of your recollection, when would that have been?
Mr. Henry: Counsel just reminded me that, as it relates to the DNC, we have indicators that data was exfiltrated from the DNC, but we have no indicators that it was exfiltrated (sic). … There are times when we can see data exfiltrated, and we can say conclusively. But in this case, it appears it was set up to be exfiltrated, but we just don’t have the evidence that says it actually left.
(When you are under oath, it sure helps to have “counsel” sitting beside you.)
Sam, as I see it, those are the facts we have to work from — in addition to many other facts — many of them technical but not hard to understand — and “concrete evidence” that Bill Binney and other VIPS have been publishing on since December 2016.
Opps. I am now having a bad flashback to former CIA director John Brennan’s May 23, 2017 reply to Republican Rep. Trey Gowdy, who was grilling him on what evidence he had given the FBI to catalyze its investigation of Trump-Russia collusion.
Brennan: “We don’t do evidence.”
I can’t tell you how glad I am Brennan was not director during the 27 years I plied our intelligence analysis trade under the “quaint, obsolete” ethos that then obtained. That’s what we did — EVIDENCE, to the extent we could find it, intercept it, cajole it, steal it. Evidence was the coin of the realm. Facts, and interpretation of them, was our stock in trade.
If I screwed up on any of that, I would not have been allowed to brief, and handle questions about, the President’s Daily Brief downtown for four years under Reagan — or write/edit those PDBs under Nixon and Ford. Much less would I have been allowed to lead the Soviet Foreign Policy Branch, or to chair National Intelligence Estimates.
My second-career job as a journalist for Consortium News turned out to involve equally rigorous fact-based standards. Never would I dare mess with facts or evidence when drafting pieces to submit to your father, from whom I learned a whole lot about journalism. He set, mostly by example, VERY high standards, and I am extremely pleased that we have been able to follow his fearless and intergrity-infused legacy since. Like all thinking persons, he had opinions. But he never let them color the facts he reported with courage and integrity. As Julian Assange puts it in connection with WikiLeaks, Robert Parry’s record is 100 percent for veracity/authenticity.
I would be remiss were I not to thank you sincerely for your key instrumental role in conceiving and creating Consortium News 25 years ago. Hope you will agree that we have a good thing going here 25 years later. Thanks for helping it get started.
Needless to say, other VIPSers, and/or I, would be happy to discuss any/all of this with you further.
Best regards,
Ray McGovern
I believe there is forensic proof that the DNC emails published by Wikileaks were stolen on May 23rd and May 25th. I don’t see how that has anything to do with Crowdstrike being contracted April 30th. There were most likely many parties who were interested in accessing those emails. The crux of the issue is who provided them to Wikileaks. I see no problem with the timeline outlined in the article.
“One problem with this narrative is that the DNC contacted Crowdstrike on April 30, who worked throughout May to identify the intrusion and analyze the data. Then over the weekend of June 10 – 13, more than 100 DNC staffers were called in to turn in their laptops to complete the scrubbing and block the intruders. So the chronology you present above doesn’t quite work.”
What Crowdstrike was doing or not doing before June 12 has no impact on Ray’s timeline , nor what that timeline suggests : That Assange’s announcement on June 12 likely set off the fire alarm that triggered the Russiagate/Guccifer hoax.
“Not only that, but in the June 12 ITV Assange interview, he says he has more Clinton emails — not DNC emails. And that’s a material distinction since in March, Wikileaks had released 30,000+ Clinton emails. So there is no public connection between Assange’s June 12 announcement and the DNC. ”
Wrong. Listen to the interview. Assange is careful about what he says. He says nothing about having more Clinton emails , whether from the private server or from the DNC. He says , as accurately quoted by Ray above , that he had “emails RELATED TO Hillary Clinton which are pending publication.” ( emphasis mine )
Your comment adds nothing to this conversation , and your “facts” , such as they are , seem designed only to muddy the water , not clarify it.
I appreciate the opportunity to engage in this conversation. These are really important issues and important to get right. As you replied in detail, I’m going to return the favor :-)
The problem is that even if you take Assange’s words exactly as he spoke them, how is one to infer he meant DNC emails?
The clear implication in your story is that on June 12, Assange says he has more emails ready to post. Your assumption is DNC officials are first of all paying attention to his interview and secondly they conclude that even though he never mentions DNC, he means DNC emails. They then quickly pivot and in two days create a narrative out of thin air that Russians hacked DNC as a way to deflect from the content of the stolen emails, a small fraction of which revealed anti-Bernie bias among some DNC officials.
It already doesn’t add up. Think about the assumption — what if Assange didn’t have DNC emails at all but instead had Clinton campaign emails. Why would DNC invent a story about Russian hacking DNC emails if Assange might have meant any number of other sources of emails?
But, as I pointed out, DNC hired Crowdstrike on April 30th. Did the DNC somehow anticipate that Assange would claim a month and a half later that he had Clinton campaign related emails and hired Crowdstrike all those weeks earlier to be prepared with, as you claim, the false Russia hack narrative? That’s where the chronology you present really starts to crumble.
I think you’ve done a good job stringing together bits and pieces of information and constructing a narrative to run contrary to the Russia hack narrative. And for those who aren’t carefully and skeptically comparing your narrative against the evidence in the public record, it sounds plausible. But once you start to really dig in, the narrative you present doesn’t hold together under scrutiny.
I’m sure you’ve spent time reviewing the chronology and evidence presented by Crowdstrike, which by the way is not, as is often suggested on this site, in the tank for Democrats. They are a big, well-respected company with a lot of corporate clients and with both Democrats and Republicans. According to industry experts I’ve talked to, they are one of the best cyber-security firms in the business. Anyway, here’s their narrative:
hXXps://www.crowdstrike.com/blog/bears-midst-intrusion-democratic-national-committee/
Have you talked with Crowdstrike to challenge their narrative directly? Or have you talked with cyber-security experts to help assess Crowdstrike’s information/reputation? Wouldn’t that be part of a normal journalistic process to figure out what happened?
I have no problem with healthy skepticism and don’t think journalism works without skepticism. But if you are going to present the insider thumb drive theory, I think we need to nail down the evidence, chase down the facts and fill in the gaps.
For instance, have you wondered why the FBI contacted the DNC in September 2015 and several other times prior to April 2016? How does that fit into your narrative? Or are we saying all of those contacts were made up?
Why would DNC turn in all their laptops on June 10th two days before Assange’s ITV announcement? Have you talked with DNC staffers about this? Have you talked with DNC staffers about the phishing emails they received?
If you think Seth Rich was the insider thumb drive guy as you insinuate, what do you know about Seth Rich? For instance, do you know he interned for one of the most conservative Democrats in Congress? Do you know he worked in voter registration efforts and loved his job according to friends and family? Do you know he believed so strongly that everyone should vote — and that friends say he didn’t care if you vote Dem or Republican, just that people from all political persuasions should be engaged? Does that sound like a disgruntle Bernie supporter? Have you called any of his friends and family to discuss any of these issues to get their take on things? Have you investigated whether Rich even had access to all those emails and files? Do you even know if he showed up for work on July 5th? Do you know he was offered a job on the Clinton campaign and friends think he was likely to accept it and move to Brooklyn? Do you know that when he was murdered, he was on the phone with a close friend and was approached on the street by two men a little after 4 in the morning, scuffled with them and was shot and left alive on the scene — he was alive when the police showed up — does that sound like a sophisticated assassination attempt? Are you aware of any other times DNC officials hired a hit squad to murder someone? Do you really think DNC or Democratic party leaders would respond to potentially unflattering emails by killing someone?
I just don’t buy the Rich was the insider theory and I have seen no tangible evidence at all supporting that theory. To the contrary, the evidence suggests he wasn’t.
We could go on and on with this. For instance, if you look at the dates of the DNC emails on Wikileaks, the last one was sent on 5/25/16, which coincidentally is very consistent with the time frame Crowdstrike offers in their chronology of their work. Interestingly, their are a bunch of emails with a junk date stamp on them of 1/1/1970. But the oldest with a real date stamp is 9/16/2013. Then there is a trickle of emails from 2015. But the emails begin in earnest on 4/18/2016 and there are hundreds per day from that date through 5/25. Interesting pattern, don’t you think? Lots of possible explanations, but it’s hard not to see a correlation between those email date stamps and the Crowdstrike chronology.
It’s also curious how the July 5th thumb drive download date lines up with these days. So we are to assume that Rich or someone in the DNC had access to all those emails, downloaded them on July 5th, but restricted the email dates in this way? Again, there might be some explanations, but doesn’t that seem a little strange? Why not download emails through July 5th. Why cut them off more than a month earlier?
Another curious question — So we’re supposed to believe DNC conspired with Crowdstrike to invent the Russia hack story after more then a month working with Crowdstrike (and before that with the FBI, but put that aside) and announce two days after Assange’s vague mention of more Clinton campaign emails — but it’s not until July 5th that a DNC insider downloads the emails? And Assange says he has emails nearly a month prior? That’s pretty curious, isn’t it? If there’s an explanation, I’d love to hear it.
I could keep going. DNC makes up this Russia hack story and then Podesta gets hacked then Russians are involved in earned and paid social media efforts to target voters. I’m not going to claim those social media posts had an impact — that’s a debate for another time. But seems pretty coincidental, no?
Also keep in mind the Trump Tower meeting, which I admit seems to have amounted to nothing, took place on June 9th, basically according to the official narrative around the time Crowdstrike blocked the hackers from DNC servers. Just plot those dates and sort out what makes sense. May 1, Crowdstrike starts working with DNC. May 25, the last time stamp on a DNC email. June 9th, Trump Tower meeting. June 10, DNC laptops swapped out. June 12, Assange says he has Clinton Campaign emails. June 14, Crowdstrike announces they have blocked Russian hackers from DNC. Then July 5th is when supposedly a DNC insider downloaded emails on a thumb drive? Any way to stitch this together because I’m not seeing it.
But again, as I have suggested, come forward with a full account and answer these questions. If you can develop a narrative that matches these facts, I’d love to read it. And I promise to keep an open mind. Until then, I’m not seeing truth here.
Thank you for your consideration.
Sam,
Thanks for your reply to my reply. I could not agree more that, as you write, “These are really important issues and important to get right.” I’ll include below the text of your latest comment and will type my own comments in UPPER CASE. (Should you prefer a shortcut, you can go directly to my last few paragraphs at the end, where I include a list the most relevant, informative links.)
Your comment is copied in immediately below:
The problem is that even if you take Assange’s words exactly as he spoke them, how is one to infer he meant DNC emails? AN EASY INFERENCE, IN VIEW OF WHAT HAPPENED IN THE IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWING DAYS.
The clear implication in your story is that on June 12, Assange says he has more emails ready to post. CORRECT, “PENDING PUBLICATION”, TO BE MORE PRECISE.
Your assumption is DNC officials are first of all paying attention to his interview CORRECT and secondly they conclude that even though he never mentions DNC, he means DNC emails. AS NOTED IN MY JUNE 15 PIECE FOR GUCCIFER 2.0’s 4TH BIRTHDAY ( hXXps://raymcgovern.com/2020/06/15/how-an-internet-persona-helped-birth-russia-gate/ ), MUELLER GOT IT WRONG ABOUT WHEN THE DNC EMAILS WERE STOLEN. IT WAS ON MAY 23 AND 25, 2016.
ASSUMING THAT CROWDSTRIKE WAS NOT INCOMPETENT, I ADDED THAT “THIS WOULD HAVE GIVEN THE DNC TIME TO LEARN THAT THE STOLEN MATERIAL INCLUDED DOCUMENTS SHOWING HOW THE DNC AND CLINTON CAMPAIGN HAD MANIPULATED THE PRIMARIES AND CREATED A HOST OF OTHER INDIGNITIES, SUCH THAT SANDERS’ CHANCE OF WINNING THE NOMINATION AMOUNTED TO THOSE OF A SNOWBALL’S CHANCE IN THE NETHERWORLD [AND] THERE WOULD BE NO WAY TO CHALLENGE THEIR AUTHENTICITY.”
They then quickly pivot and in two days create a narrative out of thin air that Russians hacked DNC as a way to deflect from the content of the stolen emails, a small fraction of which revealed anti-Bernie bias among some DNC officials. THAT “SMALL FRACTION” WAS DEVASTATING — OR MIGHT HAVE BEEN, IF THE MEDIA HAD NOT QUICKLY PIVOTED TO BLAME RUSSIA.
It already doesn’t add up. Think about the assumption — what if Assange didn’t have DNC emails at all but instead had Clinton campaign emails. Why would DNC invent a story about Russian hacking DNC emails if Assange might have meant any number of other sources of emails?
THIS “WHAT IF” IS WHAT GRAMMARIANS CALL A “CONTRARY-TO-FACT-CONDITION”. ASSANGE DID HAVE THEM, YES? AND THE DNC/CROWDSTRIKE, AGAIN ASSUMING MINIMAL TECHNICAL COMPETENCE, WOULD HAVE KNOWN, OR AT VERY LEAST SUSPECTED, THAT WHAT HE HAD WAS DAMNING.
But, as I pointed out, DNC hired Crowdstrike on April 30th. Did the DNC somehow anticipate that Assange would claim a month and a half later that he had Clinton campaign related emails and hired Crowdstrike all those weeks earlier to be prepared with, as you claim, the false Russia hack narrative? That’s where the chronology you present really starts to crumble. AS YOU POINT OUT, SAM, THE DNC HAD ENCOUNTERED A NUMBER OF CYBER ATTACKS FOR MANY MONTHS.
I think you’ve done a good job stringing together bits and pieces of information and constructing a narrative to run contrary to the Russia hack narrative. NO. YOU SUGGEST A POLITICAL MOTIVE. I CONCEDE THAT IN THIS HIGHLY CHARGED POLITICAL ATMOSPHERE ONE IS ALMOST INEVITABLE. BUT IT JUST AIN’T SO, SAM. OUR MOTIVE IS TO GET AT THE TRUTH AND SPREAD IT AROUND, PURE AND SIMPLE.
And for those who aren’t carefully and skeptically comparing your narrative against the evidence in the public record, BY THE “PUBLIC RECORD” YOU MEAN THE ESTABLISHMENT MEDIA? THE FINDINGS OF VIPS HAVE BEEN SHUNNED BY ESTABLISHMENT MEDIA it sounds plausible. But once you start to really dig in, the narrative you present doesn’t hold together under scrutiny.
I’m sure you’ve spent time reviewing the chronology and evidence presented by Crowdstrike, which by the way is not, as is often suggested on this site, in the tank for Democrats. CROWDSTRIKE WAS WORKING FOR AND PAID BY THE DEMOCRATS; AND, SAM, YOU KNOW HOW CONTRACTORS WILL REGULARLY COME UP WITH THE WISHED FOR CONCLUSION. AND THEIR REPUTATION IS ON A PAR WITH THAT OF CHRISTOPHER STEELE, ALSO HIRED AND PAID FOR BY THE DNC.
AS CROWDSTRIKE BEGAN TO WORK FOR THE DNC, CROWDSTRIKE HAD JUST BEEN ADMONISHED BY THE GOVERNMENT OF UKRAINE FOR A REPORT CROWDSTRIKE HAD TO RETRACT; THE REPORT HAD CLAIMED THAT RUSSIA HAD HACKED THE UKRAINIAN MILITARY. EVEN VOA REPORTED ON THAT SCANDAL AT SOME LENGTH; THOSE DEPENDING ON THE ESTABLISHMENT MEDIA IN THE U.S. ALMOST CERTAINLY STILL DO NOT KNOW THAT. WHAT THEY “KNOW” IS THAT JAMES COMEY TOLD CONGRESS THAT CROWDSTRIKE IS A “HIGH-CLASS” OUTFIT. COMEY WAS SO PLEASED WITH CROWDSTRIKE THAT HE NEVER REQUIRED AN UNREDACTED FINAL REPORT FROM THEM. THAT SMELLS.
They are a big, well-respected company with a lot of corporate clients and with both Democrats and Republicans. According to industry experts I’ve talked to, they are one of the best cyber-security firms in the business. Anyway, here’s their narrative: hXXps://www.crowdstrike.com/blog/bears-midst-intrusion-democratic-national-committee/
Have you talked with Crowdstrike to challenge their narrative directly? VIPS’ BILL BINNEY WAS ABOUT TO HAVE A DISCUSSION WITH THEM SEVERAL MONTHS AGO. BILL’S WILLINGNESS TO SHARE HIS DATA AND ANALYSIS WITH THEM WAS NOT RECIPROCATED BY CROWDSTRIKE. THE DISCUSSION NEVER HAPPENED.
Or have you talked with cyber-security experts to help assess Crowdstrike’s information/reputation? OF COURSE; A LOT OF OUR MOST SOPHISTICATED SUPPORT CAME FROM INDEPENDENT, I STRESS INDEPENDENT, FORENSICS EXPERTS WHOSE MATERIAL VIPS’ TWO FORMER NSA TECHNICAL DIRECTORS AND OTHER SPECIALISTS WE ENLISTED FOR SUPPORT WERE ABLE TO VET. Wouldn’t that be part of a normal journalistic process to figure out what happened?
I have no problem with healthy skepticism and don’t think journalism works without skepticism. But if you are going to present the insider thumb drive theory, I think we need to nail down the evidence, chase down the facts and fill in the gaps.
For instance, have you wondered why the FBI contacted the DNC in September 2015 and several other times prior to April 2016? How does that fit into your narrative? IRRELEVANT. IF VARIOUS CYBER OPERATIONS, INCLUDING FOREIGN GOVERNMENT ONES, WERE NOT TRYING TO HACK THE DNC, THEY WERE REMISS.
THE QUESTION IS WHETHER ANYONE, THE RUSSIANS OR ANYONE ELSE, STOLE THOSE EMBARRASSING EMAILS VIA A HACK. WE HAVE BEEN SAYING NO, BASED ON TECHNICAL EVIDENCE. CROWDSTRIKE HEAD SHAWN HENRY TESTIFIED UNDER OATH ON DECEMBER 5, 2017 THAT CROWDSTRIKE HAD NO CONCRETE EVIDENCE THAT THE DNC EMAILS WERE HACKED (“EXFILTRATED OUT OF THE DNC). AND THE “CIRCUMSTANTIAL” EVIDENCE HE ADDUCED IS FAR FROM PERSUASIVE. IT WOULD BE GOOD TO KNOW WHAT YOU THINK OF THAT, AND WHY HIS TESTIMONY HAS STILL NOT BEEN REPORTED IN ESTABLISHED MEDIA.
Or are we saying all of those contacts were made up? NO; THEY ARE JUST, IN MY OPINION, IRRELEVANT.
Why would DNC turn in all their laptops on June 10th two days before Assange’s ITV announcement? PLEASE SEE ABOVE; THE DNC EMAILS WERE STOLEN ON MAY 23 AND 25 — QUITE ENOUGH TIME FOR CROWDSTRIKE TO DISCOVER AND TO TRY TO FIGURE OUT WHAT HAD BEEN READIED FOR EXFILTRATION (BUT NOT YET EXFILTRATED, AS HENRY TESTIFIED) BY INSPECTING SERVERS, LAPTOPS, YOU NAME IT. Have you talked with DNC staffers about this? Have you talked with DNC staffers about the phishing emails they received?
If you think Seth Rich was the insider thumb drive guy as you insinuate, what do you know about Seth Rich? INSINUATE IS NOT SOMETHING WE VIPS DO. AS YOU AWARE, WE BELIEVE CONSIDERABLE EVIDENCE POINTS TO A DNC INSIDER. AS I NOTED IN MY COMMENT TO YOUR COMMENT, “THE LEADING INSIDER SUSPECT WAS STILL ALIVE FOR FOUR WEEKS AFTER ASSANGE ANNOUNCED HE HAD THE “EMAILS RELATED TO HILLARY CLINTON WHICH ARE PENDING PUBLICATION.” AND ASSANGE MENTIONED HIM BY NAME FOUR WEEKS AFTER RICH WAS MURDERED.
ASSANGE’S WORDS ABOUT SETH RICH, PLUS WIKILEAKS’ OFFERING A $20,000 REWARD FOR INFO LEADING TO CAPTURE OF HIS KILLER(S), WAS VERY VERY UNUSUAL. (PERSONALLY, I INFERRED AT THE TIME THAT A SOURCE WHO WAS DEAD WAS PERHAPS DEEMED TO REQUIRE A LITTLE LESS IN THE WAY OF SOURCE PROTECTION.). BUT WE HAVE BEEN VERY CAREFUL TO DRAW A SHARP DISTINCTION BETWEEN WHAT WE KNOW (NO HACK) AND WHAT WE CAN ONLY SPECULATE ABOUT.
SINCE OUR CONCLUSION IS THAT AN INSIDER WAS THE KEY … WELL, WE HAVE THE NAME OF ONLY ONE SUSPECT —SETH RICH. AND THERE ARE MORE ANOMALIES AND TROUBLING QUESTIONS REGARDING WHAT HAPPENED TO HIM THAN YOU CAN SHAKE A STICK AT. THEN THERE IS THE FBI LYING IN INITIALLY SAYING IT DID NOT INVESTIGATE OR, INDEED, HAVE ANY MATERIAL AT ALL ON SETH RICH … WELL, AS I SAID IN MY PREVIOUS COMMENT, THIS IS IN THE COURTS NOW, SO WE CAN EXPECT, FINALLY, SOME SWORN TESTIMONY BEFORE TOO LONG.
For instance, do you know he interned for one of the most conservative Democrats in Congress? Do you know he worked in voter registration efforts and loved his job according to friends and family? Do you know he believed so strongly that everyone should vote — and that friends say he didn’t care if you vote Dem or Republican, just that people from all political persuasions should be engaged? Does that sound like a disgruntle Bernie supporter? Have you called any of his friends and family to discuss any of these issues to get their take on things? Have you investigated whether Rich even had access to all those emails and files? Do you even know if he showed up for work on July 5th? Do you know he was offered a job on the Clinton campaign and friends think he was likely to accept it and move to Brooklyn? Do you know that when he was murdered, he was on the phone with a close friend and was approached on the street by two men a little after 4 in the morning, scuffled with them and was shot and left alive on the scene — he was alive when the police showed up — does that sound like a sophisticated assassination attempt? Are you aware of any other times DNC officials hired a hit squad to murder someone? Do you really think DNC or Democratic party leaders would respond to potentially unflattering emails by killing someone? IT DOES NOT MATTER WHAT I THINK, SAM, LET’S SEE IF THE COURTS CAN SHED LIGHT ON ALL THIS. WILL THEY BE WILLING TO TAKE ON THE FBI AND ITS MANY MEDIA SYMPATHIZERS? REMAINS TO BE SEEN.
I just don’t buy the Rich was the insider theory and I have seen no tangible evidence at all supporting that theory. To the contrary, the evidence suggests he wasn’t. SAM, DO YOU HAVE A MORE PLAUSIBLE CANDIDATE? … ANY OTHER NAMES? WILL YOU BE OPEN TO CHANGING YOUR MIND IF A COURT COMPELS THE U.S. GOVERNMENT TO PRODUCE ALLEGED EMAIL EXCHANGES BETWEEN WIKILEAKS AND SETH RICH?
We could go on and on with this.
SAM, HERE’S A WAY TO AVOID HAVING TO GO ON AND ON WITH THIS. SUFFICE IT TO SAY THAT, AS FAR AS I CAN TELL, YOU INCORRECTLY RECALL THE CONCLUSIONS IN OUR KEY VIPS MEMO TO THE PRESIDENT OF JULY 24, 2017. LET ME SUGGEST THAT YOU READ IT AGAIN.
THE ISSUES DISCUSSED ARE SOMEWHAT TECHNICAL, BUT YOU SEEM WELL UP TO HANDLING THEM.
HERE’S WHAT WE PUT IN THE EXECUTIVE SUMMARY, IN ORDER TO MAKE AS IT CLEAR AS POSSIBLE FOR THE PRESIDENT AND HIS ADVISORS TO UNDERSTAND. (AND, AS YOU MAY RECALL, TRUMP TOLD THEN-CIA DIRECTOR POMPEO TO INVITE BINNEY FOR A TALK IF HE WANTED TO REALLY KNOW ABOUT RUSSIA-GATE. THAT TALK TOOK PLACE ON OCT. 24, 2017.)
HERE WAS OUR BEST EFFORT TO PUT THINGS CLEARLY IN THE EXEC SUMMARY OF: hXXps://consortiumnews.com/2017/07/24/intel-vets-challenge-russia-hack-evidence/ IT HAS TO DO WITH GUCCIFER 2.0 WHO WE SUSPECTED THEN, AND KNOW NOW, IS AN OUT-AND-OUT FRAUD.
BEGIN QUOTE OF A “NOTE” FROM EXECUTIVE SUMMARY OF VIPS’ MEMO OF JULY 24, 2017:
“NOTE: There has been so much conflation of charges about hacking that we wish to make very clear the primary focus of this Memorandum. We focus specifically on the July 5, 2016 alleged Guccifer 2.0 “hack.” … we conclude that the same inside-DNC, copy/leak process was used at two different times, by two different entities, for two distinctly different purposes:
-(1) an inside leak to WikiLeaks before Julian Assange announced on June 12, 2016, that he had DNC documents and planned to publish them (which he did on July 22) …
-(2) a separate leak on July 5, 2016, to pre-emptively taint anything WikiLeaks might later publish by “showing” it came from a “Russian hack.”
END OF QUOTE FROM VIPS MEMO (PLEASE SEE FURTHER SUGGESTIONS FROM ME BELOW, AT THE END OF MY COMMENT.)
For instance, if you look at the dates of the DNC emails on Wikileaks, the last one was sent on 5/25/16, which coincidentally is very consistent with the time frame Crowdstrike offers in their chronology of their work. Interestingly, their are a bunch of emails with a junk date stamp on them of 1/1/1970. But the oldest with a real date stamp is 9/16/2013. Then there is a trickle of emails from 2015. But the emails begin in earnest on 4/18/2016 and there are hundreds per day from that date through 5/25. Interesting pattern, don’t you think? Lots of possible explanations, NOT SURE HOW THIS RELATES IN ANY SUBSTANTIVE WAY TO THE ISSUES AT HAND. but it’s hard not to see a correlation between those email date stamps and the Crowdstrike chronology.
It’s also curious how the July 5th thumb drive download date lines up with these days. So we are to assume that Rich or someone in the DNC had access to all those emails, downloaded them on July 5th, but restricted the email dates in this way? Again, there might be some explanations, but doesn’t that seem a little strange? Why not download emails through July 5th. Why cut them off more than a month earlier?
Another curious question — So we’re supposed to believe DNC conspired with Crowdstrike to invent the Russia hack story after more then a month working with Crowdstrike (and before that with the FBI, but put that aside) and announce two days after Assange’s vague mention of more Clinton campaign emails — but it’s not until July 5th that a DNC insider downloads the emails? And Assange says he has emails nearly a month prior? That’s pretty curious, isn’t it? If there’s an explanation, I’d love to hear it.
I could keep going. DNC makes up this Russia hack story and then Podesta gets hacked then Russians are involved in earned and paid social media efforts to target voters. I’m not going to claim those social media posts had an impact — that’s a debate for another time. But seems pretty coincidental, no?
Also keep in mind the Trump Tower meeting, which I admit seems to have amounted to nothing, took place on June 9th, basically according to the official narrative around the time Crowdstrike blocked the hackers from DNC servers. Just plot those dates and sort out what makes sense. May 1, Crowdstrike starts working with DNC. May 25, the last time stamp on a DNC email. June 9th, Trump Tower meeting. June 10, DNC laptops swapped out. June 12, Assange says he has Clinton Campaign emails. June 14, Crowdstrike announces they have blocked Russian hackers from DNC. Then July 5th is when supposedly a DNC insider downloaded emails on a thumb drive? Any way to stitch this together because I’m not seeing it.
But again, as I have suggested, come forward with a full account*** and answer these questions. If you can develop a narrative that matches these facts, I’d love to read it. And I promise to keep an open mind. Until then, I’m not seeing truth here.
Thank you for your consideration.
+++++++++++++++++
*** OK; FOLLOWING IS A FULL ACCOUNT FROM ME (IN THIS CASE LACKING UPPER CASE:
Late last year DNC-related lawyers and Seth Rich’s brother Aaron were working overtime in what seemed to be an effort to put the kibosh on any speculation that Seth and/or Aaron were instrumental in the leak of the DNC emails. Giving people the benefit of the doubt, it seemed that it was simply impossible for most folks to believe there could be a thing called professional, bias-free analysis.
The challenge was clear but, we did not think, insurmountable. We went to the unusual step of including in the text of our key VIPS Memorandum For the President of July 24, 2017. Intel Vets Challenge ‘Russia Hack’ Evidence, ( hXXps://consortiumnews.com/2017/07/24/intel-vets-challenge-russia-hack-evidence/ ) this truth-in-advertising-type notice:
“Full Disclosure: Over recent decades the ethos of our intelligence profession has eroded in the public mind to the point that agenda-free analysis is deemed well nigh impossible. Thus, we add this disclaimer, which applies to everything we in VIPS say and do: We have no political agenda; our sole purpose is to spread truth around and, when necessary, hold to account our former intelligence colleagues.
“We speak and write without fear or favor. Consequently, any resemblance between what we say and what presidents, politicians and pundits say is purely coincidental. The fact we find it is necessary to include that reminder speaks volumes about these highly politicized times.”
SUBPOENA ENVY: Starting late last year, several VIPS members were served highly intrusive subpoenas on the Russian hacking issue. I confess that, for a couple of months I had a touch of subpoena envy. Then, alas, I was served — two subpoenas so far.
In my initial response last December to the first subpoena, I took some pains to lay out, as concisely as I could, what VIPS believes and why. And I added enough links to help anyone seriously interested in learning the longer story of VIPS’ conclusions. The subpoena and my response was posted on raymcgovern.com, my website (see hXXps://raymcgovern.com/?s=gottlieb )
Sam, please have a look at this, including the articles I linked at the end of my response to the subpoena. After that, if you still have unanswered questions, please let me know.
(See raymcgovern website, “Text of Ray’s Subpoena Response to Aaron Rich and DNC-Affiliated Lawyers”.
Ray McGovern
So either the “truth” will come out or it won’t. Place your bet.
I had a long stupid pontificating message here, but I decided to scrap it.
I want this whole stupid travesty to be exposed….then let the chips fall where they will.
Hi Ray,
Thanks for engaging in this conversation. And I will reiterate two points: 1) As a hero of mine once said, “I don’t care what the truth is. I just care what the truth is.” And 2) I have tried to piece together the different bits of evidence and facts on this matter, including reviewing and trying to understand the points made in the original VIPS memo. I have unfortunately never been able to square the thumb drive theory with the chronology of events. And I think the preponderance of evidence on the record supports the conclusion that emails were indeed hacked as the mainstream record suggests.
But I have an open mind and am certainly not a technical expert. Just trying to do my civic duty to understand the world around me and be an active participant in the political process.
While there is always much to debate and discuss, let’s hone in on the insider thumb drive theory to give it a chance. If you don’t mind, please address these 10 questions:
1) It is not in dispute that Assange said on June 12 he had “emails related to Hillary Clinton which are pending publication.” What emails was he referring to?
2) VIPS memo claims download speeds at the time were too slow for the data to have been downloaded in the time frame suggested in the Guccifer 2.0 metadata and that the files were downloaded in the Eastern Time Zone. I’ve read the memo several times and I’m not finding any other basis for the thumb drive theory. Is there something I’m missing? I ask because other technical experts dispute all of this, as you know.
3) Assange says he has Clinton-related emails on June 12. But according to the thumb drive theory, the data was downloaded on July 5. So again, what were the emails Assange claimed to have on June 12? And do we have the meta data analysis on the emails Assange had on June 12? Or was Assange potentially lying on June 12 — he either had emails or he didn’t. And if he was waiting on a July 5 thumb drive, why did he say he has emails on June 12?
4) Is it possible that data could have been hacked/downloaded before July 5 and then simply transferred to a thumb drive on July 5? In other words, what does download speed prove other than someone at some point saved files to a thumb drive? Please provide technical evidence.
5) Of course, as you’ve stated, Russians and Chinese and as Trump might argue any 400-pound guy living in a basement somewhere could have hacked into the DNC. So your point isn’t that Russians didn’t hack the DNC. It’s that they almost certainly did hack the DNC and would have been negligent if they had not. But your point is that in addition to the obvious and undeniable Russian hack of DNC, someone else actually downloaded the DNC files and gave them to Wikileaks. Right?
6A) Your theory is very specific — July 5th at around 6:46 pm EDT. That’s when you claim all the DNC AND DCCC and other campaign strategy files were downloaded all at once. Have you or anyone investigated Seth Rich’s whereabouts at that tiny moment of time?
6B) July 5th is more than two months since DNC hired Crowdstrike. Right? And it’s three weeks after all hell has broken loose on Russian interference. Just think — DNC laptops and other electronic equipment are turned in on June 10. The last date stamp on a DNC emails is two weeks prior, on May 25. And yet, your version of events is July 5 someone, anyone, downloads the emails we’ve been discussing.
6C) Already, according to your theory, this is not a disgruntled Bernie fan. This is an insider who has gone through the laptop exchange and what you acknowledge is Russian hacking (it would be dereliction of duty). And this “insider” has access to all these emails and campaign documents and in a tiny fraction of time downloads all of it onto a thumb drive on July 5 — even though the last time stamp on any document is May 25… This is a steep hill to climb.
7) DCLeaks?ElectionLeaks?
8) You seem really sure about Seth Rich. I just wonder why? And are you aware of a DNC or Clinton assassination squad? If so, do you care to provide any evidence?
9) Drop the snark. Drop the holier-than-though tone. Just clearly state your narrative.
10) Put names and dates into a story and string it together with details and documents and facts. For instance, you claim you’ve tried to get Crowdstrike on record. Keep TRYING!!! This is the crux of your story!!!! Nail them down. Stop playing games here. Declarative sentences — you want to report Seth Rich was the source — SAY IT!!!!! Build your chronology. Make the world respond to a clear narrative. Tell it true. Tell it straight. Drop the snark. What do you KNOW and HOW do you know it?
Otherwise your readers are left with more questions and no real substance.
I thank you for your consideration and look forward to your response.
Thanks,
Sam
Hi, Sam,
This will be a shorter reply to you, until you do due diligence, including becoming more familiar with VIPS’s record, as I asked you to do in my reply yesterday. And please do me the courtesy of replying to the very few questions I have asked you; like, what do you think of CrowdStrike’s belated admission that it has no concrete evidence that the DNC emails were hacked — by Russia or by anyone else.
You say you have “an open mind”. If I did not believe this to be the case I would not have devoted a lot of time to trying to answer what I assumed to be honest questions. I still believe your questions and your confusion to be sincere. What I cannot understand is why your continued questions totally ignore the answers I have already given you.
Your attempt to “to piece together the different bits of evidence and facts on this matter” is, of course, laudable. At the same time, you admit that you are “certainly not a technical expert”. A dose of humility, and a decent respect for the facts adduced by highly respected VIPS scientists who ARE technical experts, would warrant a more extensive review of what they have been saying — since December 2016.
And to get some feel for Bill Binney’s reputation as one of the most respected mathematicians ever to darken the doorstep of NSA, I’d suggest you see the 5-year old documentary “A Good American”. You can now watch it free on the Web; for some reason it has been banned from “a neighborhood theater near you”. (And don’t be embarrassed if you did not know who Binney really was. He does not seek the limelight. Even some our VIPS members showed they had little idea of Bill’s background and accomplishments.)
You refer to your attempt to understand the points made in the “original VIPS memo.” If by “original VIPS memo” you mean the one dated July 24, 2017, you need to be aware that a year and a half before that, namely on December 12, 2016, VIPS published a Memo to the President titled “US Intel Vets Dispute Russia Hacking Claims”. That was our first one on the issue; please read it; it embeds no fewer than eight very instructive NSA slides, courtesy, ultimately, of Ed Snowden. The Baltimore Sun ran a shortened version of it on January 5, 2017.
Just to complete the picture, we did another Memo to the (outgoing) President on January 17, 2017, a half-year before our July 24, 2017 one. The January 17, 2017 Memo was titled “A Demand for Russian Hacking Proof: A Key Issue That Still Needs to be Resolved.” And we did two Memos to the President after the one in July 2017; namely, “Mueller’s Forensic-Free Findings”, March 13, 2019; and “VIPS Fault Mueller Probe; Criticize Refusal to Interview Assange: The Fly in the Mueller Ointment”, April 16, 2019.
Regarding what you call “the thumb drive theory,” you really do need to read at least our December 12, 2016 memo, the gist of which shows why and how NSA would have had detailed, unambiguous evidence of a hack. Late yesterday I asked Bill Binney to try to help you out. Here’s what he wrote back:
___________________
“All 35,813 DNC emails (23, 25 May and 26 August 2016) had last modified times ending in even numbers as posted by Wikileaks. This demonstrates use of FAT (File Allocation Table) – a program that reads files to a storage device. FAT has nothing to do with the Internet or a hack. In other words, the DNC emails were copied to a storage device before they were published by WikiLeaks. Highly likely — an inside job.”
And here is what Bill added regarding Guccifer 2.0:
The download speeds as high as 49.1 Mbps (49.1 million characters per second) can not be transferred across the Atlantic to Europe via the WWW then available to hackers. We have challenged anyone to show how that can be done. So far, no one has suggested any path whereby that can be achieved. We even volunteered to assist in any effort. Our tests/attempts to transfer data to Europe only achieved 1/4th (12 Mbps) the highest speeds posted by Guccifer 2.0.
Further, if you ignore the day and hour of the Guccifer 2.0 files posted for 5 July and 1 September 2016, both files merge into one file, strongly suggesting Guccifer 2.0 is playing with the data – basically a fabrication of evidence trying to convince people it was a hack.
The first files G-2.0 made publicly available on 15 June 2016 had Russian fingerprints synthetically embedded. Five of those files were found by our collaborators in the UK to also be posted in the Podesta Wikileaks files. In the WikiLeaks files, however, there were no Russian fingerprints. This shows Guccifer 2.0 inserted those fingerprints.
No one — not NSA, CIA, FBI, DOJ — has addressed, much less challenged, these facts and the inferences based on these facts.
___________________
Sam, you said somewhere that you have read our July 24, 2017 Memo to the President several times. Still, you have “unfortunately never been able to square the thumb drive theory with the chronology of events.” So far as I can tell, this is because you have your own “chronology” and for some reason don’t seem to be able to understand what we wrote at the very end of the Executive Summary of that Memo. Please read it carefully:
“Obama’s admission [that the intelligence conclusions re how the DNC emails got to WikiLeaks were ‘inconclusive’] came as no surprise to us. It has long been clear to us that the reason the U.S. government lacks conclusive evidence of a transfer of a “Russian hack” to WikiLeaks is because there was no such transfer. Based mostly on the cumulatively unique technical experience of our ex-NSA colleagues, we have been saying for almost a year that the DNC data reached WikiLeaks via a copy/leak by a DNC insider (but almost certainly not the same person who copied DNC data on July 5, 2016).
From the information available, we conclude that the same inside-DNC, copy/leak process was used at two different times, by two different entities, for two distinctly different purposes:
-(1) an inside leak to WikiLeaks before Julian Assange announced on June 12, 2016, that he had DNC documents and planned to publish them (which he did on July 22) – the presumed objective being to expose strong DNC bias toward the Clinton candidacy; and
-(2) a separate leak on July 5, 2016, to pre-emptively taint anything WikiLeaks might later publish by “showing” it came from a “Russian hack”.
I included that yesterday in reply to your (second) Comment. Try to absorb it, Sam, and most of your questions will become moot.
As for Seth Rich, I simply wrote why he deserves mention. I don’t know how you can contend that I “seem really sure bout Seth Rich.” I’m not. And your talk about a “Clinton assassination squad” is reductio ad absurdum. As you said initially, these are serious issues. It never helps to distort what the other has said.
You have boldly urged me to “put names and dates into a story and string it together with details and documents and facts”? We have done that. That you say you are unaware of that and, at times, seem unable or unwilling to understand the facts we’ve laid out is beyond me.
You may recall that yesterday I tried to avoid having to respond one more time to your various “what-about-this-and this?”. I asked you to perform due diligence and pointed to where you, or anyone, can learn more. In other words, I had hoped you would do this before coming back with more questions that might have been readily answered by reading the relevant linked articles.
It seems clear that you did not do that. I have now given you still more links. Until you have become better informed — and are prepared to address the very few questions I have asked you, do not expect any future comments from me. I feel I have given this dialogue my best shot — more attention, perhaps, than it deserved.
Best regards.
Ray McGovern
Robert Mueller said there was no collusion.
Shawn Henry said there was no hack.
The government dropped the case against the Internet Research Agency.
What is left of this BS story?
THANK YOU FOR YOUR WORK AND INTEGRITY
Best wishes for continued health with family, friends and colleagues
Please see:
Project Proposal for the World Press Freedom Conference (WPFC) 2020
Journalism Without Fear or Favour
Theme: Journalism in a Culture of Fear, Concealment, and Manipulation of Media Misinformation and Disinformation:
Restoring Integrity by Opening a new Global Dialogue
Between Science (i.e.: knowledge), Truth and Society
see: paep.ca/doc/CIYL%20-%20World%20Press%20Freedom%20Conference%202020.pdf
WPFC Project Proposal has been compiled by:
Transdisciplinary Public Awareness Education Programs
for the Advancement of the Sciences, Humanities and Global Bioethics (PAEP – est. 1979) Accredited to: Forum UNESCO – World Heritage; Governing Council of the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA) for the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP); Global Alliance for Partnerships on Media and Information Literacy (GAPMIL); Member of Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), PEN International
REF.: PAEP MILLENNIOUM STATEMENT – MINDING OUR FUTURE
see:paep.ca/statement.php
Hans F. Schweinsberg
Signatory of the 1 July 2000 UNESCO Manifesto:
International Year for a Culture of Peace and Non-violence
see:paep.ca/doc/UNESCO%20-%20HFS%20-%202000%20-%20Culture%20of%20Peace.pdf
As a once credulous consumer of this bullshit, can I say thank you to you Ray and others like Binney for exposing this farce. As you say yourself, Trump is clearly an awful, mendacious manchild but this does not excuse what we have had to put up with from large swathes of the MSM for the last 4 years. It is still quoted as a fact that Russia hacked the DNC to this day by many media monkeys…
To Ray McGovern and the members of VIPS, thank you for bringing us the truth on a somewhat complicated subject.
Thanks Ray, most Democrats will never know, because they, like Republicans, believe what they hear from their dear leaders. I/we can shout this from the rooftops, and the response is “ oh, we can’t split the party!”
Karma’s a bitch, and we’re ALL paying for Hillary’s lies and those who carried that message….because we let them get away with it.
Thank you Mr. McGovern. I’ve been waiting a long time for someone to break the silence about what happened to Lawrence at The Nation. There is little doubt in my mind The Nation was under pressure from the DNC to oust a veteran journalist who exposed their ugly machinations. One only has to read the thinly veiled threat appended to the bottom of Lawrence’s Aug 9 column. The “staff rebellion” was orchestrated by DNC surrogates working at The Nation who to this day keep the magazine toeing the Establishment line. The Nation is a highbrow version of MSNBC…little better than a fake “lefty” propaganda rag for the Democrats. I watched all of this unfold as a former subscriber. Anyone paying half attention could see what had happened. Thank you for shining a light on this still stinking rot.
From the article a quote from Mr. Lawrence.
“Is this a joke? Are you kidding? Is nothing beneath your dignity? Is this how lowly you rate the intelligence of American voters? …”
It was not a joke and dignity has no place in American politics. You can go beneath what does not exist. Nor can we expect more from a credulous and distracted electorate.
Democrats. Keep in mind the reaction of now gone John McCain who spoke for more than a few Republicans.
And yes, black lives do matter as do white and brown lives and Syrian, Iraqi, Venezuelan and Iranian lives. We just don’t seem to raise a cry for justice for them. Not one that anyone would pay attention to, anyway.
Still, when you wake up to beautiful weather and see the rich greenery and the flowers all around, who can not feel we are blessed. We have enough to eat, the roof doesn’t leak and the grandchildren are a delight.
And how much we appreciate you, Mister McGovern.
What if…Julian Assange had not made a statement pertaining to Wikileaks’ possession of the DNC emails on June 12th 2016? Would the Guccifer 2.0 fraud/conspiracy have been set into motion in the same way? Further, it seems as if the intellectually disengaged, while vastly outnumbering the propagandists, are even more dangerous.
Marvelous, extremely well written reporting. Congratulations to Ray, again, and Patrick Lawrence, again. Talk about prescient judgment. One more thing- the vicious Red-baiting 1950 campaign of Richard Nixon has been well known to me ever since my father told me the story, pretty much as soon as he knew I would understand it. But what happened to Patrick reminds me of something else- the treatment of I.F. Stone, by the same publication- The Nation. What a horror show it all is.
Hillary is truly the Nixon of our time, supported by the Establishment (DNC/ MSM/ CIA) at every turn (and maybe still in the game). Not only did she use Russiagate to nullify the duly elected Trump, undercutting any changes in the Establishment’s corruption, she also tarred Jill Stein, Tulsi Gabbard and, finally, Bernie Sanders with that same brush (unbelievable how Sanders went along with the DNC fairy tale saying you have to believe our Intelligence Agencies right up until the CIA fingered him as being in Putin’s pocket).
Of course Putin paid the Clintons $500,000 for a “speech” in Moscow in 2010 when Hillary was Secretary of State (No Emoluments Clause for the Clintons!), and Russia and several other ex-Soviet States paid tribute to the Clinton Foundation with big donations. Similarly the Biden family destroyed Ukraine’s economy after setting up the neoNAZI regime as a thorn in Russia’s side. All these Forever Wars are critical to enrich Establishment politicians’ families and their donors (for example, Canadian Frank Giustra in the Clintons’ case). Trump is too stupid and insensitive to “soft corruption” (as the MSM praises it), and there have been no more Forever Wars started under him (despite Obama teeing several up for him with National Emergencies with sanctions); this is intolerable and the Establishment would destroy the economy to get rid of idiot Trump.
Thank you Ray McGovern and Consortium News for running such an important piece. There is nothing at all the the Russians could have possibly done (even if they did hack into the DNC data base) to make me not vote for one as poisonous as HRC, a Democrat, or, The Orange Horror, now a confirmed danger to all sanity and life on earth. I’d be willing to bet that if I showed this piece by Ray to any of my liberal-Democrat friends that they would not read it and / or the text and content therein would be all but invisible to them – they simply can’t accept that they’ve been had. They’ve taken the kool-aid that essentially turns off their ability to reason or see their souled-out party for what it really is. These same people express disgust with me because I won’t vote for Bye-done. And the game goes on and on and on.
Thank you Ray McGovern. However, I think it’s necessary to change your “And so it was” to “And so it goes” if you know what I’m saying…
“…The media was primed to castigate the Russians for “hacking,” while taking a prime role in the deflection….”
The whole entire lie was just too convenient and beneficial to our power elite. The military-industrial-complex gets its very lucrative villain, the corporate media get their enemy du jour that drives ratings, the Washington-NATO imperialists get to weaponize the whole charade to encroach on Russia’s Western flank, and the Wall Street DNC is able to divert everyone’s attention from their stealing the primary from the progressive Bernard Sanders.
“…How come so few could figure out what was going down? It was not hard for some experienced observers to sniff a rat. Among the first to speak out was fellow Consortium News columnist Patrick Lawrence…”
Many, many regular contributors to this comment section knew the story was b.s. from the start.
And, disgustingly, The Nation continues to call itself an independent news outlet instead of what it really is which is a wholly owned subsidiary of the DNC. Sorta like the old Pravda, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Russian communist party.