Guccifer 2.0 turns four years old today and the
great diversion he took part in becomes clearer by
the day, writes Ray McGovern.
By Ray McGovern
June 15, 2020 "Information
Clearing House" -
Four
years ago today, on June 15, 2016, a shadowy Internet
persona calling itself “Guccifer 2.0” appeared out of
nowhere to claim credit for hacking emails from the
Democratic National Committee on behalf of WikiLeaks
and implicate Russia by dropping “telltale” but
synthetically produced Russian “breadcrumbs” in his
metadata.
Thanks largely to the
corporate media, the highly damaging story actually
found in those DNC emails — namely, that the DNC had
stacked the cards against Bernie Sanders in the party’s
2016 primary— was successfully obscured.
The media was the message;
and the message was that Russia had used G-2.0 to hack
into the DNC, interfering in the November 2016 election
to help Donald Trump win.
Almost everybody still
“knows” that — from the man or woman in the street to
the forlorn super sleuth, Special Counsel Robert Swan
Mueller III, who actually based indictments of Russian
intelligence officers on Guccifer 2.0.
Blaming Russia was a
magnificent distraction from the start and quickly
became the vogue.
The soil had already been
cultivated for “Russiagate” by Democratic PR gems like
Donald Trump “kissing up” to former KGB officer Vladimir
Putin and their “bromance” (bromides that former
President Barack Obama is still using). Four years ago
today, “Russian meddling” was off and running — on
steroids — acquiring far more faux-reality than the
evanescent Guccifer 2.0 persona is likely to get.
Here’s how it went down:
1 — June 12: WikiLeaks
founder Julian Assange announced he had “emails related
to Hillary Clinton which are pending publication.”
2 — June 14: DNC contractor
CrowdStrike tells the media that malware has been found
on the DNC server and claims there is evidence it was
injected by Russians.
3 — June 15: Guccifer 2.0
arises from nowhere; affirms the DNC/CrowdStrike
allegations of the day before; claims responsibility for
hacking the DNC; claims to be a WikiLeaks source;
and posts a document that forensic examination shows was
deliberately tainted with “Russian fingerprints.” This
to “corroborate” claims made by CrowdStrike executives
the day before.
Adding to other signs of
fakery, there is hard evidence that G-2.0 was operating
mostly in U.S. time zones and with local settings
peculiar to a device configured for use within the U.S.,
as Tim Leonard reports
here and
here.)
Leonard is a software
developer who started to catalog and archive evidence
related to Guccifer 2.0 in 2017 and has issued detailed
reports on digital forensic discoveries made by various
independent researchers — as well as his own — over the
past three years. Leonard points out that WikiLeaks
said it did not use any of the emails G2.0 sent it,
though it later published similar emails, opening the
possibility that whoever created G2.0 knew what
WikiLeaks had and sent it duplicates with the
Russian fingerprints.
As Veteran Intelligence
Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) told President Trump in
a
memorandum of
July 24, 2017, titled “Was the ‘Russian Hack’ an Inside
Job?”:
“We do not think that the
June 12, 14, & 15 timing was pure coincidence. Rather,
it suggests the start of a pre-emptive move to associate
Russia with anything WikiLeaks might have been
ready to publish and to ‘show’ that it came from a
Russian hack.”
We added this about
Guccifer 2.0 at the time:
“The recent forensic
studies fill in a critical gap. Why the FBI neglected to
perform any independent forensics on the original
‘Guccifer 2.0’ material remains a mystery – as does the
lack of any sign that the ‘hand-picked analysts’ from
the FBI, CIA, and NSA, who wrote the misnomered
‘Intelligence Community’ Assessment dated January 6,
2017, gave any attention to forensics.”
Are You Tired Of
The Lies And
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Guccifer 2.0 Seen As
a Fraud
In our July 24, 2017
memorandum we also told President Trump that independent
cyber investigators and VIPS had determined “that the
purported ‘hack’ of the DNC by Guccifer 2.0 was not a
hack, by Russia or anyone else. Rather it originated
with a copy (onto an external storage device – a thumb
drive, for example) by an insider. Information was
leaked to implicate Russia. We do not know who
or what the murky Guccifer 2.0 is. You may wish to ask
the FBI.” [Emphasis added.].
Right. Ask the FBI. At this
stage, President Trump might have better luck asking
Attorney General William Barr, to whom the FBI is
accountable — at least in theory. As for Barr, VIPS
informed him in a June 5, 2020
memorandum that
the head of CrowdStrike had admitted under oath on
Dec. 5, 2017 that CrowdStrike has no concrete
evidence that the DNC emails published by WikiLeaks on
July 22, 2016 were hacked — by Russia or by anyone else.
[Emphasis added.] This important revelation has so far
escaped attention in the Russia-Russia-Russia
“mainstream” media (surprise, surprise, surprise!).
Back to the Birth of G-2
It boggles the mind that so
few Americans could see Russiagate for the farce it was.
Most of the blame, I suppose, rests on a thoroughly
complicit Establishment media. Recall: Assange’s
announcement on June 12, 2016 that he had Hillary
Clinton-related emails came just six weeks before the
Democratic convention. I could almost hear the cry go up
from the DNC: Houston, We Have a Problem!
Here’s how bad the problem
for the Democrats was. The DNC emails eventually
published by WikiLeaks on July 22, 2016, just
three days before the Democratic convention, had been
stolen on May 23 and 25. This would have given the DNC
time to learn that the stolen material included
documents showing how the DNC and Clinton campaign had
manipulated the primaries and created a host of other
indignities, such that Sanders’ chances of winning the
nomination amounted to those of a snowball’s chance in
the netherworld.
To say this was an
embarrassment would be the understatement of 2016. Worse
still, given the documentary nature of the emails and
WikiLeaks’ enviable track record for accuracy, there
would be no way to challenge their authenticity.
Nevertheless, with the media in full support of the DNC
and Clinton, however, it turned out to be a piece of
cake to divert attention from the content of the emails
to the “act of war” (per John McCain) that the Russian
“cyber attack” was said to represent.
The outcome speaks as much
to the lack of sophistication on the part of American TV
watchers, as it does to the sophistication of the
Democrats-media complicity and cover-up. How come so few
could figure out what was going down?
It was not hard for some
experienced observers to sniff a rat. Among the first to
speak out was fellow Consortium News
columnist Patrick Lawrence, who immediately saw through
the Magnificent Diversion. I do not know if he fancies
duck hunting, but he shot the Russiagate canard quite
dead — well before the Democratic convention was over.
In late July 2016, Lawrence
was sickened, as he watched what he immediately
recognized as a well planned, highly significant
deflection. The Clinton-friendly media was excoriating
Russia for “hacking” DNC emails and was glossing over
what the emails showed; namely, that the Clinton Dems
had pretty much stolen the nomination from Sanders.
It was already clear even
then that the Democrats, with invaluable help from
intelligence leaks and other prepping to the media, had
made good use of those six weeks between Assange’s
announcement that he had emails “related to Hillary
Clinton” and the opening of the convention.
The media was primed to
castigate the Russians for “hacking,” while taking a
prime role in the deflection. It was a liminal event of
historic significance, as we now know. The “Magnificent
Diversion” worked like a charm — and then it grew like
Topsy.
Lawrence said he had “fire
in the belly” on the morning of July 25 as the
Democratic convention began and wrote what follows
pretty much “in one long, furious exhale” within 12
hours of when the media started really pushing the “the
Russians-did-it” narrative.
Below is a slightly
shortened text of his
article:
“Now wait a minute, all
you upper-case “D” Democrats. A flood light suddenly
shines on your party apparatus, revealing its
grossly corrupt machinations to fix the primary
process and sink the Sanders campaign, and within a
day you are on about the evil Russians having hacked
into your computers to sabotage our elections …
Is this a joke? Are you
kidding? Is nothing beneath your dignity? Is this
how lowly you rate the intelligence of American
voters? …
Clowns. Subversives. Do
you know who you remind me of? I will tell you:
Nixon, in his famously red-baiting campaign — a
disgusting episode — … during his first run for
the Senate, in 1950. Your political tricks are as
transparent and anti-democratic as his, it is
perfectly fair to say.
I confess to a heated
reaction to events since last Friday [July 22] among
the Democrats, specifically in the Democratic
National Committee. I should briefly explain …
The Sanders people have
long charged that the DNC has had its fingers on the
scale, as one of them put it the other day, in favor
of Hillary Clinton’s nomination. The prints were
everywhere — many those of Debbie Wasserman Schultz,
who has repeatedly been accused of anti-Sanders
bias. Schultz, do not forget, co-chaired Clinton’s
2008 campaign against Barack Obama. That would be
enough to disqualify her as the DNC’s chair in any
society that takes ethics seriously, but it is not
enough in our great country. Chairwoman she has been
for the past five years.
Last Friday WikiLeaks
published nearly 20,000 DNC email messages providing
abundant proof that Sanders and his staff were right
all along. The worst of these, involving senior DNC
officers, proposed Nixon-esque smears having to do
with everything from ineptitude within the Sanders
campaign to Sanders as a Jew in name only and an
atheist by conviction.
Wasserman fell from
grace on Monday. Other than this, Democrats from
President Obama to Clinton and numerous others atop
the party’s power structure have had nothing to say,
as in nothing, about this unforgivable breach.They
have, rather, been full of praise for Wasserman
Schultz. Brad Marshall, the D.N.C.’s chief financial
officer, now tries to deny that his Jew-baiting
remark referred to Sanders. Good luck, Brad: Bernie
is the only Jew in the room.
The caker came on
Sunday, when Robby Mook, Clinton’s campaign manager,
appeared on ABC’s “This Week” and … CNN’s “State of
the Union” to assert that the D.N.C.’s mail was
hacked “by the Russians for the purpose of helping
Donald Trump.” He knows this — knows it in a matter
of 24 hours — because “experts” — experts he will
never name — have told him so. …
What’s disturbing to us
is that experts are telling us that Russian state
actors broke into the DNC, stole these emails, and
other experts are now saying that Russians are
releasing these emails for the purpose of helping
Donald Trump.
Is that what disturbs
you, Robby? Interesting. Unsubstantiated
hocus-pocus, not the implications of these events
for the integrity of Democratic nominations and the
American political process? The latter is the more
pressing topic, Robby. You are far too long on
anonymous experts for my taste, Robby. And what kind
of expert, now that I think of it, is able to report
to you as to the intentions of Russian hackers —
assuming for a sec that this concocted narrative has
substance?
Making lemonade out of
a lemon, the Clinton campaign now goes for a twofer.
Watch as it advances the Russians-did-it thesis on
the basis of nothing, then shoots the messenger,
then associates Trump with its own mess — and,
finally, gets to ignore the nature of its
transgression (which any paying-attention person
must consider grave).
Preposterous, readers.
Join me, please, in having absolutely none of it.
There is no “Russian actor” at the bottom of this
swamp, to put my position bluntly. You will never,
ever be offered persuasive evidence otherwise.
Reluctantly, I credit
the Clinton campaign and the DNC with reading
American paranoia well enough such that they may
make this junk stick. In a clear sign the entire
crowd-control machine is up and running, The New
York Times had a long, unprofessional piece about
Russian culprits in its Monday editions. It followed
Mook’s lead faithfully: not one properly supported
fact, not one identified “expert,” and more
conditional verbs than you’ve had hot dinners —
everything cast as “could,” “might,” “appears,”
“would,” “seems,” “may.” Nothing, once again, as to
the very serious implications of this affair for the
American political process.
Now comes the law. The
FBI just announced that it will investigate — no,
not the DNC’s fraudulent practices (which surely
breach statutes), but “those who pose a threat in
cyberspace.” … it is the invocation of the Russians
that sends me over the edge. My bones grow weary …
We must take the last
few days’ events as a signal of what Clinton’s
policy toward Russia will look like should she
prevail in November. … Turning her party’s latest
disgrace into an occasion for another round of
Russophobia is mere preface, but in it you can read
her commitment to the new crusade.
Trump, to make this
work, must be blamed for his willingness to
negotiate with Moscow. This is now among his sins.
Got that? Anyone who says he will talk to the
Russians has transgressed the American code. … Does
this not make Hillary Clinton more than a touch
Nixonian?
I am developing
nitrogen bends from watching the American political
spectacle. One can hardly tell up from down. Which
way for a breath of air?”
A year later Lawrence
interviewed several of us VIPS, including our two former
NSA technical directors and on Aug. 9, 2017 published an
article for
The Nation titled, “A New Report Raises Big
Questions About Last Year’s DNC Hack.”
Lawrence wrote, “Former NSA
experts, now members of Veteran Intelligence
Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), say it wasn’t a hack at
all, but a leak—an inside job by someone with access to
the DNC’s system.”
And so it was. But, sadly,
that cut across the grain of the acceptable Russia-gate
narrative at The Nation at the time. Its
staff, seriously struck by the HWHW (Hillary Would Have
Won) virus, rose up in rebellion. A short time later,
there was no more room at The Nation for his
independent-minded writing.
Ray
McGovern works with Tell the Word, a publishing arm of
the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city
Washington. His 27-year career as a CIA analyst included
preparing and briefing The President’s Daily Brief and
leading the Soviet Foreign Policy Branch. In retirement
he co-founded Veteran Intelligence Professionals for
Sanity. - "Source"
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