EspañolIt’s been a year since the Democratic National Committee e-mail system was first allegedly hacked. The biggest suspect for the incident was and still is Russia, which in turn led to claims of a link with then-presidential candidate Donald Trump. On August 3, the first summons was issued by Special Prosecutor Roberto Mueller for allegations of treason, which has led the media to a non-stop discussion of Trump’s possible impeachment. Nevertheless, multiple experts in both the intelligence and computer science fields have argued the emails were not compromised by hacking, but rather leaked from the inside.

On August 9, The Nation published an analysis of a report by the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) — which consists of 30 retired experts from the NSA and other intelligence agencies — claiming that there was no evidence of hacking.

The VIPS customarily draft an open letter to the President of the United State, which it has done three times about the DNC incident, all of which were first published by Robert Parry on Consortium News. On July 24, they published an article from all members maintaining that there was no hack, but rather a leak, and provided the details to prove it. On January 17, however, just days before his departure from the White House, they wrote a letter to Barack Obama, as the alleged attack took place during his tenure, saying that known programs of the NSA were capable of capturing all electronic data transfers.

The letter stated:

“We strongly suggest that you ask NSA for any evidence it may indicate that the results of Russian hacking were given to WikiLeaks … If the NSA cannot produce such evidence — and quickly — this would probably mean it does not have any.”

The recent report from VIPS said that “forensic studies of the Russian hacking on National Democratic Committee computers last year reveal that on July 5, 2016, data was leaked (not hacked) by a person with physical access to the data that was published by someone with the pseudonym Guccifer 2.0, and sent to the media and WikiLeaks, run by Julian Assange. Independent cyber researchers have concluded that someone copied data within the DNC on an external storage device.

As no federal agency is providing data, more and more alternative reports are emerging. These reports are gaining strength because they are successful in finding patterns for diffusing information. For example, the website Disobedient Media published information submitted by independent analysts, such as “Forensicator.”

On July 9, they published an analysis of the volume and transfer rate of the material that was allegedly “hacked.” According to experts, on the afternoon of July 5, 2016, 1,976 megabytes of data was downloaded from the DNC server. The operation took 87 seconds. This produces a transfer rate of 22.7 megabytes per second. However, that doesn’t coincide with available technology. The supposed author, “Guccifer 2.0” stated that he did it from Romania, but a download of that magnitude could not have been done remotely from there in just over a minute, suggesting that it had to have been done in person, since it included what is known as “general delivery expenses.”

Additionally, time stamps in the metadata indicated that the download occurred somewhere on the east coast of the United States, not in Russia or Romania. The DNC officers are located on the east coast.

Former intelligence agents said that in addition to not providing any evidence of their own, the FBI neglected to conduct any independent forensic investigation into the “Guccifer 2.0” case. They said that “the reason the United States government lacks conclusive evidence of a transfer of a ‘Russian hack’ to WikiLeaks is because there was no such transfer.”

They concluded:

On July 5 of last year there was no hack into the National Democratic Committee system by Russians, or anyone else. Hard science now proves that it was a leak: a locally run download with a USB drive or a portable data storage device. In short, it was an internal job by someone with access to the DNC system. This casts serious doubt on the initial “hack,” as was alleged, which led to the very consistent publication of a large number of documents from WikiLeaks last summer.

Forensic investigations of documents published two weeks before the July 5 leak by the person or entity known as Guccifer 2.0 show that they were fraudulent: Before Guccifer published them, they were copied and pasted into a blank template that had Russian as the default language. Guccifer assumed responsibility for the June 15 leak that the DNC reported on June 14. They also confessed to their association with WikiLeaks. This incident is vital to the official narrative used by the mainstream media involving Russia, which they claim was a major hack. This new forensic evidence devastates this narrative.

Former technical director of the NSA for Global Geopolitical Analysis and Military William Binney signed the report, in addition to Larry C Johnson, CIA retiree and Kirk Wiebe, senior analyst at SIGINT, an automated research center at the NSA, among others.

According to Binney, under the pretext of discretion and secret information to protect the NSA, agencies and institutions linked to the investigation have hidden their lack of evidence to keep the hacking story alive. Even in an interview he said “they are playing the Wizard of Oz.”

But this is not something new. Just a few years ago, under the argument that “the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence,” former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld justified the invasion of Iraq, based on the existence of weapons of mass destruction that never existed. Under this premise, accusations of this kind can be made, declaring another nation as our enemy, accusing them of spying, linking the then-presidential candidate and current President with impunity despite the lack of proof.

The case is currently being called Russiagate, nicknamed with a nod to the Watergate scandal that incriminated President Nixon and which led to his subsequent resignation. The hacking narrative has the same motive in mind for Trump — they’re seeking his resignation or removal from office at all costs.