The Los Angeles Times has reported that at the time of his death, Rolling Stone reporter Michael Hastings was working on a story about then-CIA director John Brennan.

Hastings was killed in a fiery one-car accident in 2013 which puzzled crash experts and Hastings' friends. Hastings' new leased Mercedes C250 SUV went up in a fireball as it hit a tree in central Los Angeles after speeding at four in the morning.

After the crash, former Bush national counter-terrorism czar Richard Clarke told the Huffington Post:

"...in the case of Michael Hastings, what evidence is available publicly is consistent with a car cyber attack."

Emails leaked in 2012 by Wikileaks paint a portrait of CIA Director John Brennan as a fierce partisan for the Obama administration who was behind "witch hunts of investigative journalists" while he was a White House national security advisor during Obama's first term.

The CIA is the primary agency now suggesting that Russia hacked the US election, without ever addressing evidence that the 2016 Democratic primary nomination was hacked by supporters of Hillary Clinton.

The Wikileaks emails were from a private intelligence contractor with strong ties to the US intelligence community.

The leaked email communication from an executive of Stratfor says that, as Deputy National Security Advisor in 2010 to Obama, Brennan and the White House were determined to:

"go after anyone printing materials negative to the Obama agenda."

Stratfor has been dubbed the "Shadow CIA." It is part of what observers of the national security decision-making process call the "military-intelligence complex."

In an email written by Stratfor President Fred Burton to work colleagues, Burton wrote on November 21, 2010:

"Brennan is behind the witch hunts of investigative journalists learning information from inside the beltway sources. Note -- There is specific tasker from the WH to go after anyone printing materials negative to the Obama agenda (oh my.) Even the FBI is shocked. The Wonder Boys must be in meltdown mode..."



Brennan's previous experience in the CIA includes station chief of Saudi Arabia. He advised President Obama on intelligence issues during the 2008 presidential campaign and transition. When he was tapped for CIA director in 2013, his Senate confirmation was filibustered for 13 hours by Republican Senator Rand Paul over his role in planning drone strikes abroad, and the administration's refusal to rule out drone strikes on Americans on US soil.

Brennan was well-known as being one of the prime movers and shapers of what has become known as the Executive Branch "Disposition Matrix," a list of alleged terrorists targets instituted by the Obama administration who are slated for summary execution, wherever they are found, without trial.

The final selection of targets has become a weekly ritual at the White House which became known as "Terror Tuesdays."

In October of 2012 The Washington Post reported:

"To many in the international legal community and among human rights and civil liberties activists, Brennan runs a policy so secret that it is impossible for outsiders to judge whether it complies with the laws of war or U.S. values — or even determine the total number of people killed."

Michael Hastings' death was investigated in-depth by San Diego 6 reporter Kim Dvorak, who labeled the death "suspicious."

Also by this author: After Russiagate, Are Congress and the Media Even Relevant Anymore?