Re: Wikileaks: CIA's Brennan on 'witch hunt' when Hastings was killed

On 12/29/14, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@optonline.net> wrote:
> I have been waiting for this news story for a year and a half because I've
> never believed that Michael Hastings was killed in a simple car accident.
> My
> computer was down when it happened, but I remember hearing that he'd been
> working on a big story. I hope this reads OK because I couldn't get it into
> formatted text.
> Miriam
>
>
>
>
>
> http://www.digitaljournal.com/news/world/wikileaks-cia-s-brennan-on-witch-hu
> nt-when-hastings-was-killed/article/421913
>
>
> Wikileaks: CIA's Brennan on 'witch hunt' when Hastings was killed
>
> Posted Dec 26, 2014 by Ralph Lopez
>
> A 2010 email released by Wikileaks from a top-level CIA contractor asserts
> that CIA Director John Brennan, the subject of a story by now deceased
> journalist Michael Hastings, was on a "witch hunt" against "investigative
> journalists" perceived as hostile.
>
>
>
> Michael Hastings and Valerie Jarrett at McCormick Place in Chicago
>
> Michael Hastings and Valerie Jarrett at McCormick Place in Chicago
>
> John Santore
>
> Hastings, a reporter for the Rolling Stone who ruffled many feathers in his
> career, was killed in an unusual high-speed car accident in which the
> vehicle exploded on impact with a tree, and perhaps before. Hastings' wife
> confirmed to San Diego 6 News Television, soon after the uncharacteristic
> high-speed automobile crash, that Hastings' next "big story," as he called
> it, was to be on Brennan.
> The email,written by Stratfor President Fred Burton and reported by San
> Diego 6, reads:
> 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...
> The story on Brennan was never published.
> Stratfor was once called "The Shadow CIA"by Barron's. In 2012 WikiLeaks
> began publishing "The Global Intelligence Files," over five million e-mails
> from the Texas-based company.
> The email has never been disavowed by Stratfor. When San Diego 6 reporter
> Kim Dvorak asked the CIA for comment on the email in the context of the
> Hastings' death, in an August, 2013 report, a CIA spokesman responded:
> "Without commenting on information disseminated by WikiLeaks, any
> suggestion
> that Director Brennan has ever attempted to infringe on
> constitutionally-protected press freedoms is offensive and baseless."
> Michael Hasting was killed on June 18, 2013, when the new Mercedes C250 SUV
> he had just leased hit a tree after running numerous red lights at over 100
> mph in Los Angeles. A surveillance video at a pizza shop captured a fiery,
> violent explosion, which is uncharacteristic of high-speed impacts.
> Generations of advances in safety design have made accidents exhibiting
> these characteristics unheard of.
> Typically, high speed impacts, even in past generations of automobiles, are
> characterized by a violent, horrific-sounding crunching of metal and glass,
> but no gas explosion. Fire can follow, but ignition usually takes place
> after the initial impact, as fuel vapors heat up and come into contact with
> hot surfaces. According to the National Fire Protection Association, only
> 3%
> of cars catch on fire as the result of crash impacts, and impact explosions
> are not a statistical category.
> The pizza shop video shows a fireball which explodes outward for hundreds
> of
> feet in all directions and immediately lights up the night sky. Skeptics of
> the official LAPD conclusion, that no foul play was involved, cite a
> witness
> who saidthat "It sounded like a bomb going off in the middle of the night."
>
> Witnesses also reported the car was already on firebefore it hit the tree.
> Hastings crash video taken from pizza shop surveillance camera
>
>
>
> Hours before he died, Hastings sent out a series of frantic emails to
> friends and colleagues, indicating that be believed he was being
> investigated by the FBI and sounding "panicked," according to his friend
> Sgt. Joe Biggs, whom he had met in Afghanistan.
> In an in-depth interview with San Diego 6 reporter Kim Dvorak,and Hastings
> friend Sgt. Biggs, Biggs tells RT interviewer Abby Martin that he had
> received an email indicating that police had been present at Hastings'
> house
> that day, and that Hastings had been seen looking underneath his car. The
> San Diego journalist Kim Dvorak expresses her belief, after extensive
> investigation, that the Hastings crash was not a simple one-car accident,
> and may have involved foul play. She notes the police are withholding
> evidence such as the "black box" onboard the vehicles, which would have
> recorded all electronic events involving the car's controls.
> San Diego 6 report
>
>
>
> After Hastings' death, his notes on the Brennan story were suppressed,
> according to WesternJournalism.com, and in any event the Rolling Stone
> never
> published the story despite pledges to do so.
> After at first saying that"At no time was Michael Hastings, or anything
> related to his work as a journalist, ever under investigation by the FBI,"
> the FBI subsequently revised its statement to: "At no time was journalist
> Michael Hastings ever under investigation by the FBI." Freedom of
> Information Act requests from reporters revealed that the FBI had indeed
> cataloged some of Hastings' articles, and discussed him in heavily redacted
> documents.
> Brennan was architect of CIA "Disposition Matrix" capture/kill list
> CIA Director Brennanmade news during his confirmation hearings in early
> 2013, when he was nominated for the position by Obama. Of particular
> concern
> to some senators was Brennan's role in creating the "Disposition Matrix,"an
> Obama administration project started in 2010, described by government
> officials as a "next-generation capture/kill list."
> Brennan also served under the George W. Bush administration, first as
> chief-of-staff to CIA Director George Tenet, then as deputy executive
> director of the CIA.
> Of the "Disposition Matrix" run by the executive branch National
> Counterterrorism Center (NCTC,) and heavily shaped by Brennan in his role
> as
> Obama National Security Advisor, Glenn Greenwald for the UK Guardianwrote:
> What has been created here - permanently institutionalized - is a highly
> secretive executive branch agency that simultaneously engages in two
> functions: (1) it collects and analyzes massive amounts of surveillance
> data
> about all Americans without any judicial review let alone search warrants,
> and (2) creates and implements a "matrix" that determines the "disposition"
> of suspects, up to and including execution, without a whiff of due process
> or oversight.
> Before his Senate confirmation vote for CIA Director, Kentucky Senator Rand
> Paulmounted a filibuster against Brennan's confirmation, saying:
> "No one politician should be allowed to judge the guilt, to charge an
> individual, to judge the guilt of an individual and to execute an
> individual. It goes against everything that we fundamentally believe in our
> country."
> Brennan was eventually confirmed by a vote of 63-34.
> RT interview of San Diego 6 reporter Kim Dvorak and Hastings friend Sgt.
> Joe
> Biggs
>
>
>
> Similar concerns moved Oregon Senator Ron Wydento write a letter to Brennan
> asking him to clarify if he believed the extrajudicial assassination
> system,
> deemed unconstitutional by civil libertarians, applied to American citizens
> on American soil. Brennan wrote back that he believed it did not. This did
> not assuage the concerns of many on this issue, however, since the Obama
> administration gave a different answer when US Attorney General Eric
> Holderrefused to rule out the assassination of American citizens within the
> United States.
> Brennan has become controversial on other issues. Right-leaning sources
> accuse Brennanof being behind the US policy of running arms to Al
> Qaeda-linked Syrian rebels.
> In an unusual public comment on the case, former Bush national
> counter-terrorism czar Richard Clarke told the Huffington Post:
> it's relatively easy to hack your way into the control system of a car, and
> to do such things as cause acceleration when the driver doesn't want
> acceleration, to throw on the brakes when the driver doesn't want the
> brakes
> on...
> After denying he was a "conspiracy guy," the former top US
> counter-terrorism
> official went on to say:
> ...in the case of Michael Hastings, what evidence is available publicly is
> consistent with a car cyber attack.
> Typical high-speed cras
>
>
>
>
>
>
> http://www.digitaljournal.com/news/world/wikileaks-cia-s-brennan-on-witch-hu
> nt-when-hastings-was-killed/article/421913
>
>
> Wikileaks: CIA's Brennan on 'witch hunt' when Hastings was killed
>
> Posted Dec 26, 2014 by Ralph Lopez
>
> A 2010 email released by Wikileaks from a top-level CIA contractor asserts
> that CIA Director John Brennan, the subject of a story by now deceased
> journalist Michael Hastings, was on a "witch hunt" against "investigative
> journalists" perceived as hostile.
>
>
>
> Michael Hastings and Valerie Jarrett at McCormick Place in Chicago
>
> Michael Hastings and Valerie Jarrett at McCormick Place in Chicago
>
> John Santore
>
> Hastings, a reporter for the Rolling Stone who ruffled many feathers in his
> career, was killed in an unusual high-speed car accident in which the
> vehicle exploded on impact with a tree, and perhaps before. Hastings' wife
> confirmed to San Diego 6 News Television, soon after the uncharacteristic
> high-speed automobile crash, that Hastings' next "big story," as he called
> it, was to be on Brennan.
> The email,written by Stratfor President Fred Burton and reported by San
> Diego 6, reads:
> 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...
> The story on Brennan was never published.
> Stratfor was once called "The Shadow CIA"by Barron's. In 2012 WikiLeaks
> began publishing "The Global Intelligence Files," over five million e-mails
> from the Texas-based company.
> The email has never been disavowed by Stratfor. When San Diego 6 reporter
> Kim Dvorak asked the CIA for comment on the email in the context of the
> Hastings' death, in an August, 2013 report, a CIA spokesman responded:
> "Without commenting on information disseminated by WikiLeaks, any
> suggestion
> that Director Brennan has ever attempted to infringe on
> constitutionally-protected press freedoms is offensive and baseless."
> Michael Hasting was killed on June 18, 2013, when the new Mercedes C250 SUV
> he had just leased hit a tree after running numerous red lights at over 100
> mph in Los Angeles. A surveillance video at a pizza shop captured a fiery,
> violent explosion, which is uncharacteristic of high-speed impacts.
> Generations of advances in safety design have made accidents exhibiting
> these characteristics unheard of.
> Typically, high speed impacts, even in past generations of automobiles, are
> characterized by a violent, horrific-sounding crunching of metal and glass,
> but no gas explosion. Fire can follow, but ignition usually takes place
> after the initial impact, as fuel vapors heat up and come into contact with
> hot surfaces. According to the National Fire Protection Association, only
> 3%
> of cars catch on fire as the result of crash impacts, and impact explosions
> are not a statistical category.
> The pizza shop video shows a fireball which explodes outward for hundreds
> of
> feet in all directions and immediately lights up the night sky. Skeptics of
> the official LAPD conclusion, that no foul play was involved, cite a
> witness
> who saidthat "It sounded like a bomb going off in the middle of the night."
>
> Witnesses also reported the car was already on firebefore it hit the tree.
> Hastings crash video taken from pizza shop surveillance camera
>
>
>
> Hours before he died, Hastings sent out a series of frantic emails to
> friends and colleagues, indicating that be believed he was being
> investigated by the FBI and sounding "panicked," according to his friend
> Sgt. Joe Biggs, whom he had met in Afghanistan.
> In an in-depth interview with San Diego 6 reporter Kim Dvorak,and Hastings
> friend Sgt. Biggs, Biggs tells RT interviewer Abby Martin that he had
> received an email indicating that police had been present at Hastings'
> house
> that day, and that Hastings had been seen looking underneath his car. The
> San Diego journalist Kim Dvorak expresses her belief, after extensive
> investigation, that the Hastings crash was not a simple one-car accident,
> and may have involved foul play. She notes the police are withholding
> evidence such as the "black box" onboard the vehicles, which would have
> recorded all electronic events involving the car's controls.
> San Diego 6 report
>
>
>
> After Hastings' death, his notes on the Brennan story were suppressed,
> according to WesternJournalism.com, and in any event the Rolling Stone
> never
> published the story despite pledges to do so.
> After at first saying that"At no time was Michael Hastings, or anything
> related to his work as a journalist, ever under investigation by the FBI,"
> the FBI subsequently revised its statement to: "At no time was journalist
> Michael Hastings ever under investigation by the FBI." Freedom of
> Information Act requests from reporters revealed that the FBI had indeed
> cataloged some of Hastings' articles, and discussed him in heavily redacted
> documents.
> Brennan was architect of CIA "Disposition Matrix" capture/kill list
> CIA Director Brennanmade news during his confirmation hearings in early
> 2013, when he was nominated for the position by Obama. Of particular
> concern
> to some senators was Brennan's role in creating the "Disposition Matrix,"an
> Obama administration project started in 2010, described by government
> officials as a "next-generation capture/kill list."
> Brennan also served under the George W. Bush administration, first as
> chief-of-staff to CIA Director George Tenet, then as deputy executive
> director of the CIA.
> Of the "Disposition Matrix" run by the executive branch National
> Counterterrorism Center (NCTC,) and heavily shaped by Brennan in his role
> as
> Obama National Security Advisor, Glenn Greenwald for the UK Guardianwrote:
> What has been created here - permanently institutionalized - is a highly
> secretive executive branch agency that simultaneously engages in two
> functions: (1) it collects and analyzes massive amounts of surveillance
> data
> about all Americans without any judicial review let alone search warrants,
> and (2) creates and implements a "matrix" that determines the "disposition"
> of suspects, up to and including execution, without a whiff of due process
> or oversight.
> Before his Senate confirmation vote for CIA Director, Kentucky Senator Rand
> Paulmounted a filibuster against Brennan's confirmation, saying:
> "No one politician should be allowed to judge the guilt, to charge an
> individual, to judge the guilt of an individual and to execute an
> individual. It goes against everything that we fundamentally believe in our
> country."
> Brennan was eventually confirmed by a vote of 63-34.
> RT interview of San Diego 6 reporter Kim Dvorak and Hastings friend Sgt.
> Joe
> Biggs
>
>
>
> Similar concerns moved Oregon Senator Ron Wydento write a letter to Brennan
> asking him to clarify if he believed the extrajudicial assassination
> system,
> deemed unconstitutional by civil libertarians, applied to American citizens
> on American soil. Brennan wrote back that he believed it did not. This did
> not assuage the concerns of many on this issue, however, since the Obama
> administration gave a different answer when US Attorney General Eric
> Holderrefused to rule out the assassination of American citizens within the
> United States.
> Brennan has become controversial on other issues. Right-leaning sources
> accuse Brennanof being behind the US policy of running arms to Al
> Qaeda-linked Syrian rebels.
> In an unusual public comment on the case, former Bush national
> counter-terrorism czar Richard Clarke told the Huffington Post:
> it's relatively easy to hack your way into the control system of a car, and
> to do such things as cause acceleration when the driver doesn't want
> acceleration, to throw on the brakes when the driver doesn't want the
> brakes
> on...
> After denying he was a "conspiracy guy," the former top US
> counter-terrorism
> official went on to say:
> ...in the case of Michael Hastings, what evidence is available publicly is
> consistent with a car cyber attack.
> Typical high-speed cras
>
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