RussiaGate Redux Part One: Introduction

By Adam Carter - November 14th, 2017

see also: RussiaGate Redux: Part Two | RussiaGate Redux: Part Three

A little over a week ago, something strange happened...

After months of focusing on "TrumpRussia collusion" and the apparent abandonment of the topic of the DNC hack (to the point it almost seemed like the press had an allergy to the topic), suddenly, out of nowhere, there were multiple articles on the subject appearing throughout the mainstream press.

We saw the Associated Press (AP) article about the data collected by Secureworks in relation to APT28 and a few others echoing the same story. We've seen news about 6 Russians being blamed for hacking in relation to the DNC. An article about BuzzFeed (which we'll give some attention later in this article for another reason) serving a subpoena on the DNC in relation to the DNC being hacked. There were multiple articles that conceded that Guccifer 2.0 manipulated his documents but only mentioning that he apparently added the word "CONFIDENTIAL" to one, which was claimed by many of the articles to be evidence of WikiLeaks having altered documents. There were other articles too.

It was stunning... why had all these articles appeared suddenly (some recycling old information and others spreading disinformation)?

For context on what was reported between 2nd and 9th of November:

Secureworks reported on their discoveries back in 2016. AP, for whatever reason, appears to have chosen to resurrect the story.





The story about the 6 Russians doesn't name the Russians, doesn't cite the evidence against them and is broadly speculative. We are presented with references to the world-famous and highly-regarded expert group "people familiar with" and the anonymous supposition that they have to offer.





Guccifer 2.0 was not WikiLeaks' source and Guccifer 2's editing of a document demonstrates nothing about the veracity of what was published by WikiLeaks. Matthew Rosza and Salon's editor(s) should be ashamed of themselves. I also have to ask what is the point of "citizenlab" if they go on about "tainted leaks" while completely ignoring the most significant and controversial tainting involved?





The article in Foreign Policy is about a subpoena from BuzzFeed because BuzzFeed has been sued by someone that was named in the Steele dossier (aka the "dodgy dossier"). BuzzFeed's subpoena is driven by self-interest.

Fortunately, on the topic of the Guccifer 2.0 and WikiLeaks conflation, Glenn Greenwald set the record straight in an article he published at The Intercept that also covers several other false claims that were recently propagated by others in the media.

RussiaGate Resurrection! Why Now?

I wondered what could be the cause of this sudden flurry of RussiaGate reporting as it was fairly clear this was out of keeping with what had been observed in the press over recent months.

On 7th November, the answer came in an Intercept article, titled "CIA Director Met Advocate of Disputed DNC Hack Theory" that briefly covered a meeting between William Binney (former technical director of the NSA, who spent more than three decades at the agency) and Mike Pompeo (CIA Director).

As I started to read through the article, I noticed how slanted it was, I could see Binney was clearly being smeared. I then found a few more articles on the topic. These were also slanted quite badly against Binney.

The more I thought about the timing of the articles and the hit-pieces on Binney, the more obvious it seemed to me that someone (or some people) must have become aware of the meeting, fearful that undistorted reporting on it could end up with people perceiving the 'mainstream' narrative on Guccifer 2.0 as disputed (which it is) and so may have set about coercing articles to be written that reinforced the 'official' conspiracy theory and worked to encourage negative perceptions of Binney ahead of this.

The following day, 8th November, while pondering how much involvement CrowdStrike could possibly have in instigating any of the recent news, a new article emerged, this time at BuzzFeed, titled "He Solved The DNC Hack. Now He's Telling His Story For The First Time".

Sure enough, it was a new story about CrowdStrike from someone who briefly worked for them in 2016 and one that, to some extent, attempts to rewrite history and tries to reinforce flawed perceptions.

Part Two: BuzzFeed's "He Solved The DNC Hack" Article

Part Three: Smears & Distortions