Tag Archives: DNC Leak

Featured, Foreign Policy, Government Accountability, International, Politics, US

Congressman Says Assange Has “Physical Proof” Russia Did Not Hack DNC

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Washington, D.C. — In a recent interview with Breitbart Radio, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), who reportedly visited the Ecuadorian embassy in London in August 2017 and met with WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange, said that Assange has physical evidence to prove that Russia did not provide WikiLeaks with Democratic National Committee (DNC) emails during the 2016 US presidential campaign.

“By now, everybody knows that this idea that Trump was colluding with the Russians in order to get them to do things like steal the DNC emails and then release them through WikiLeaks, the public knows that’s just total baloney,” Rohrabacher said. “I knew the one man who could prove that it was all baloney was Assange. So I went to see him in London, and he confirmed for me that the Russians did not give him the DNC emails. He had physical proof of that, and he was going to let me see that and have that, but only once, I found an agreement so he wouldn’t get arrested when he leaves the Ecuadorian embassy in London.”

Rohrabacher added:

Unfortunately, this was in the middle of having a special prosecutor, [and] any discussion with Trump and myself that mentions Russia will be used as an excuse by that special prosecutor to just quadruple all the areas of investigation into me and into Trump. So it is standing there. I’ve been waiting because I know that we’re not going to give this special prosecutor any more ammunition than he needs to try to destroy this president.

Rohrabacher claimed that Assange had evidence and was willing to provide it in exchange for US/UK authorities agreeing not to arrest him upon leaving the Ecuadorian embassy in London, where the WikiLeaks co-founder has been “arbitrarily detained” under threat of arrest since 2012.

[Read more: UK Judge Refuses to Revoke Assange Arrest Warrant]

Assange first sought political asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy after the UK sought to arrest him on a Swedish warrant that has since been lifted. British authorities, thought to operating covertly at the behest of the US— due to a purported secret federal grand jury indictment in the US for Assange— insist they will arrest him if he attempts to leave the embassy for violating the terms of his bail. It is believed that once arrested for the bail violation in the UK, Assange would likely be extradited to the US under the sealed indictment.

Following his meeting with Assange, Rohrabacher was denied access to President Trump by White House Chief of Staff John Kelly due to Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Trump-Russia collusion during the 2016 US presidential election. In February, Rohrabacher “said he was told by Kelly that meeting with Trump could put the president in unnecessary legal jeopardy,” according to a report from The Intercept. Rohrabacher also claimed that Assange “did not want to release the evidence publicly” because he wanted to avoid exposing “his sources and methods.”

The DNC and Hillary Clinton have continually accused WikiLeaks as acting as a “Russian cutout” during the 2016 election, after the transparency organization published private emails from Clinton campaign chair John Podesta as well as internal DNC emails. Assange says WikiLeaks never releases sources, but has emphatically denied that the organization was supplied the emails by Russia.

Craig Murray— former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan and “close associate” of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange— publicly stated in a December 2016 interview with The Daily Mail that the Democratic National Committee’s emails were obtained by WikiLeaks from a “disgusted” DNC operative who had legal access to them, not Russia.

“Neither of [the leaks] came from the Russians,” Murray said. “The source had legal access to the information. The documents came from inside leaks, not hacks.”

Murray said the leakers were motivated by “disgust at the corruption of the Clinton Foundation and the tilting of the primary election playing field against Bernie Sanders.”

The Daily Mail reported that Murray said he “retrieved the package from a source during a clandestine meeting in a wooded area near American University, in northwest D.C. He said the individual he met with was not the original person who obtained the information, but an intermediary.”

An investigation into the alleged hack performed last year by Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) claimed that the “data was leaked (not hacked) by a person with physical access to DNC computers.” VIPS findings were presented to CIA Director Mike Pompeo last November, reportedly at the direction of President Trump.

Assange has been unable to publicly comment on Rohrabacher’s statements, as the Ecuadorian government has barred him from receiving visitor and suspended his internet access for the past month.

Government Accountability, Politics, US

Kim Dotcom: DNC Hack Was Leak From an “Insider With a Memory Stick”

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Washington, D.C.— Following a tweet by President Trump on February 18th, Kim Dotcom responded by adding further details to previous statements which implied that the DNC hack during the 2016 US presidential election was actually a leak, and specifically claimed that the information was leaked by an “insider with a memory stick.”

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/965202556204003328

“Let me assure you, the DNC hack wasn’t even a hack. It was an insider with a memory stick. I know this because I know who did it and why,” Dotcom tweeted, alleging that “Special Counsel Mueller is not interested in my evidence. My lawyers wrote to him twice. He never replied. 360 pounds!” The 360 pounds is clearly a retort to Trump’s “400 pound genius” comment.

Dotcom’s claims of attempting to provide evidence to Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller, who has allegedly failed to respond to Dotcom’s lawyers, may raise questions about the impartiality and veracity of the Mueller investigation.

[RELATED: Kim Dotcom Lawyers Appealing Extradition Decision]

The assertion that the DNC data was not hacked, but leaked from an insider with a memory stick, is reportedly supported by an analysis from a researcher going by the alias of the Forensicator, who determined that the 22.6 MB/s copy speed of the DNC files was “virtually impossible” to attain from overseas, but a typical speed for a transfer to a thumb drive. These results were supported in a July 2017 memo to President Trump from a group of intelligence veterans that includes former NSA intelligence official William Binney.

The local transfer theory, if proven, would lend credibility to the notion that the DNC data was not hacked, but instead, was leaked. Dotcom’s claims could also explain why the DNC refused to allow the FBI to inspect its servers, and instead, relied on the analysis of a private company, CrowdStrike.

Crowdstrike’s CTO and co-founder Dmitri Alperovitch is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, a think tank with openly anti-Russian sentiments that is funded by Ukrainian billionaire Victor Pinchuk, who happened to donate at least $10 million to the Clinton Foundation. Furthermore, in 2013, the Atlantic Council awarded Hillary Clinton their Distinguished International Leadership Award, and in 2014, the Atlantic Council hosted an event with former Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, who took over after pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych was ousted in early 2014.

On May 18, 2017, Dotcom tweeted that if the case of Seth Rich would be included in the Congressional probe of Russian collusion/election meddling, he would provide written testimony to Congress, including evidence that Seth Rich was WikiLeaks’ source of the DNC emails.

Then, two days later, Dotcom tweeted, “I knew Seth Rich. I know he was WikiLeaks’ source. I was involved.”

A few days later, Dotcom released a statement, saying “I KNOW THAT SETH RICH WAS INVOLVED IN THE DNC LEAK,” adding:

I have consulted with my lawyers. I accept that my full statement should be provided to the authorities and I am prepared to do that so that there can be a full investigation. My lawyers will speak with the authorities regarding the proper process.

If my evidence is required to be given in the United States I would be prepared to do so if appropriate arrangements are made. I would need a guarantee from Special Counsel Mueller, on behalf of the United States, of safe passage from New Zealand to the United States and back. In the coming days we will be communicating with the appropriate authorities to make the necessary arrangements. In the meantime, I will make no further comment.