The more people who have to be involved in a conspiracy, the less likely it is that it actually happened, as a rule. If you see someone spinning a narrative around hundreds or thousands of participants, it's pretty likely that it's not real, an attempt to fit a narrative to a crude set of disconnected events. But once in a while, there's a real, genuine conspiracy, and the effort to sell Seth Rich as the leaker to WikiLeaks is one such case. And it's actually a pretty tidy little package, and the number of people involved is fairly small, but given the placement of these people, it's also fairly important, and reflects on each of their various organizations.
This post is an attempt to boil down and explain the conspiracy, and the essential actors, backed by actual evidence.
1. Guccifer 2.0 - A Russian GRU officer, located in Moscow. There were a lot of questions raised about his original claims to be a lone-wolf Romanian hacker, but the definitive thing that we know about him is that he once connected to social media without activating his VPN, thus leaving a log file on an undisclosed social media site's servers showing his real IP address, and this, his location. This bit of information is game over for the narrative that he is anyone but a Russian GRU officer. The only challenge that could be raised would be to somehow assert that the FBI fabricated this information and leaked it to the Daily Beast. Apparently, the FBI not only knows this, but they know the actual identity of the culprit.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/exclu...evealed-he-was-a-russian-intelligence-officer
2. Julian Assange - Assange has not revealed anything about their source, per their usual. This is a defensible position journalisticly, but it also helps to avoid immediately confirming who the real actors are in what turns out to be a disinformation campaign. The fact that Assange would assent to be used to launder information in this way should tell you something about his actual motivations and loyalty. No organization interested in transparency or journalism would allow such fictions to be drawn and perpetuated from their products.
3. Sean Hannity - Sean Hannity has been particularly vociferous about pushing the fabricated narrative that Seth Rich was the true leaker of DNC emails. This is blatantly false, it is the subject to two separate lawsuits against Fox News, and there was never any evidence to support it besides coincidental timing and the willingness of some to believe the worst of Hillary Clinton. But what makes it especially egregious is the knowledge that Hannity is directly in contact with Julian Assange (https://www.thedailybeast.com/julia...d-news-on-democrat-investigating-trump-russia). So, while it may be that Assange wouldn't reveal his source to Hannity, presumably, Hannity could have at least asked him "Hey, am I on the right track with this?" The fact that this was not done, and the fact that Assange didn't see the need to correct the error, is, at best, highly suspicious given how strongly he was pushing this narrative, as is the fact that Fox News seems to have tolerated it for a long time without doing anything to curtail it. In fact, when they were finally forced to retract it (http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/05/23/statement-on-coverage-seth-rich-murder-investigation.html), their retraction seems to have been very quiet. Even now, you can find other media outlets reporting on their retraction, but it's quite a bit harder to find their very terse statement on the subject, and you will likely only find it by clicking through a link from another media outlet. Would a real news outlet push a false story so persistently?
4. Roger Stone - Trump adviser who admitted to direct contact with Guccifer 2.0, and had advanced knowledge of the DNC hacks. He has claimed emphatically that Guccifer 2.0 is a lone hacker and not a Russian (http://www.breitbart.com/2016-presi...y-dnc-hack-solved-so-now-stop-blaming-russia/), despite all evidence to the contrary. Either he got duped, or he's a liar, and it's interesting how, in his Breitbart article, he didn't mention being in direct contact with Guccifer, but instead engaged in conspiracy-mongering about the media trying to hide things. https://www.justsecurity.org/45435/timeline-roger-stone-russias-guccifer-2-0-wikileaks/
5. Donald Trump - Somehow he had advanced knowledge of the leaks, whether he got that from Stone or some other conduit. It's hard to think of any explanation for how this could have happened other than by his involvement in the plans for this whole campaign.
So, that's it, those are the essential elements of the conspiracy. The GRU steals the "dirt" on Hillary Clinton, Stone coordinates, Assange holds it and distributes it, Trump uses it, and Hannity provides cover by pushing a false story about how it all happened. There may be other participants, but these five people, spanning from the Trump campaign, including the candidate himself, to Russian intelligence, to Fox News, are key. There may be more to it, but there's at least some evidence for each of the elements. Is there maybe another reason Trump would have advanced knowledge of the leaks? Maybe. But what we know is at least highly suggestive, and it's difficult to imagine what innocent answer could be given. And none of the others appear to be innocent.
That's not the entire Trump campaign engagement with Russia. It doesn't even touch on Don Jr.'s attempts to get dirt about Clinton from the Russian government, for instance. That's just the necessary players in the effort to manufacture a cover for the email leaks using Seth Rich.
This post is an attempt to boil down and explain the conspiracy, and the essential actors, backed by actual evidence.
1. Guccifer 2.0 - A Russian GRU officer, located in Moscow. There were a lot of questions raised about his original claims to be a lone-wolf Romanian hacker, but the definitive thing that we know about him is that he once connected to social media without activating his VPN, thus leaving a log file on an undisclosed social media site's servers showing his real IP address, and this, his location. This bit of information is game over for the narrative that he is anyone but a Russian GRU officer. The only challenge that could be raised would be to somehow assert that the FBI fabricated this information and leaked it to the Daily Beast. Apparently, the FBI not only knows this, but they know the actual identity of the culprit.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/exclu...evealed-he-was-a-russian-intelligence-officer
2. Julian Assange - Assange has not revealed anything about their source, per their usual. This is a defensible position journalisticly, but it also helps to avoid immediately confirming who the real actors are in what turns out to be a disinformation campaign. The fact that Assange would assent to be used to launder information in this way should tell you something about his actual motivations and loyalty. No organization interested in transparency or journalism would allow such fictions to be drawn and perpetuated from their products.
3. Sean Hannity - Sean Hannity has been particularly vociferous about pushing the fabricated narrative that Seth Rich was the true leaker of DNC emails. This is blatantly false, it is the subject to two separate lawsuits against Fox News, and there was never any evidence to support it besides coincidental timing and the willingness of some to believe the worst of Hillary Clinton. But what makes it especially egregious is the knowledge that Hannity is directly in contact with Julian Assange (https://www.thedailybeast.com/julia...d-news-on-democrat-investigating-trump-russia). So, while it may be that Assange wouldn't reveal his source to Hannity, presumably, Hannity could have at least asked him "Hey, am I on the right track with this?" The fact that this was not done, and the fact that Assange didn't see the need to correct the error, is, at best, highly suspicious given how strongly he was pushing this narrative, as is the fact that Fox News seems to have tolerated it for a long time without doing anything to curtail it. In fact, when they were finally forced to retract it (http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/05/23/statement-on-coverage-seth-rich-murder-investigation.html), their retraction seems to have been very quiet. Even now, you can find other media outlets reporting on their retraction, but it's quite a bit harder to find their very terse statement on the subject, and you will likely only find it by clicking through a link from another media outlet. Would a real news outlet push a false story so persistently?
4. Roger Stone - Trump adviser who admitted to direct contact with Guccifer 2.0, and had advanced knowledge of the DNC hacks. He has claimed emphatically that Guccifer 2.0 is a lone hacker and not a Russian (http://www.breitbart.com/2016-presi...y-dnc-hack-solved-so-now-stop-blaming-russia/), despite all evidence to the contrary. Either he got duped, or he's a liar, and it's interesting how, in his Breitbart article, he didn't mention being in direct contact with Guccifer, but instead engaged in conspiracy-mongering about the media trying to hide things. https://www.justsecurity.org/45435/timeline-roger-stone-russias-guccifer-2-0-wikileaks/
5. Donald Trump - Somehow he had advanced knowledge of the leaks, whether he got that from Stone or some other conduit. It's hard to think of any explanation for how this could have happened other than by his involvement in the plans for this whole campaign.
So, that's it, those are the essential elements of the conspiracy. The GRU steals the "dirt" on Hillary Clinton, Stone coordinates, Assange holds it and distributes it, Trump uses it, and Hannity provides cover by pushing a false story about how it all happened. There may be other participants, but these five people, spanning from the Trump campaign, including the candidate himself, to Russian intelligence, to Fox News, are key. There may be more to it, but there's at least some evidence for each of the elements. Is there maybe another reason Trump would have advanced knowledge of the leaks? Maybe. But what we know is at least highly suggestive, and it's difficult to imagine what innocent answer could be given. And none of the others appear to be innocent.
That's not the entire Trump campaign engagement with Russia. It doesn't even touch on Don Jr.'s attempts to get dirt about Clinton from the Russian government, for instance. That's just the necessary players in the effort to manufacture a cover for the email leaks using Seth Rich.
