Posts
Lee
Stranahan is someone I’ve come to know about in the last few days
through his work from Helsinki and on the Browder affair. I find him
far too prolific with livestreams etc. my self, but will bring what I
can.
What
he is saying right now is invaluable to understanding what is going
on in Washington and beyond.
I’m
the Reporter Mentioned in Mueller’s Indictment. Why Hasn’t He
Spoken to Me?
18
July, 2018
I
was as surprised as anyone last Friday, when just days before US
President Donald Trump’s historic meeting with Russian President
Vladimir Putin, special counsel Robert Mueller dropped an indictment
against 12 Russian nationals claiming that they were Guccifer 2.0,
the entity that took credit on June 15, 2016, for the hack of the DNC
and DCCC.
I
was even more surprised to find that I was discussed
in Mueller's indictment.
Section
43c of the indictment says,
"On or about August 22, 2016, the Conspirators, posing
as Guccifer 2.0, sent a reporter stolen documents pertaining
to the Black Lives Matter Movement. The reporter responded
by discussing when to release the documents and offering
to write an article about their release."
I
am that reporter.
Part
of the reason I was surprised is that I have never been
contacted by anyone from Mueller's investigative team.
That's one reason I personally know that this is a shoddy
investigation, but I'll come back to that in a moment.
I
went public because I have nothing to hide and nothing to be
ashamed of. In fact, the reason that Mueller's team knew about my
contacts with Guccifer 2.0 is because I posted the direct
messages we exchanged over Twitter myself a year ago.
For
the record, I didn't know who Guccifer 2.0 was at the time and I
still don't, despite Mueller's indictment. I have never believed
that Guccifer 2.0 was a Russian state actor and have seen no evidence
that persuades me otherwise.
At
the time of this contact with Guccifer 2.0, I was the lead
investigative reporter for Breitbart News; today, I co-host the
best morning news radio show in America, Fault Lines with Nixon
and Stranahan, which airs Monday through Friday, 7 a.m. to 10
a.m. Eastern Time on Radio Sputnik. Fault Lines is broadcast
on 105.5 FM and 1390 AM in Washington, DC, and around the
world on the Sputnik News website.
Of
course, just seeing both Russian-funded Sputnik and formerly Steve
Bannon-led-Breitbart News on my resume is enough to give
many in the media the flutters. Never mind that I also wrote
for years at the Huffington
Post or
did independent journalism on issues
like the Syrian war,
which I traveled to Beirut in 2013 to cover. All
of that and more gets left out of media narrative
on Russian CollusionTM!
Thus,
the New York Times only mentions my work at Breitbart and
Sputnik in their scarily titled article, Tracing
Guccifer 2.0's Many Tentacles in the 2016 Election.
And like Mueller's team, the New York Times also never bothered
to get in touch with me for their story.
A
few hours after the Mueller indictment came out, I left for my
planned trip to Helsinki to cover the Trump-Putin summit
for Sputnik.
A
couple of days later, CNN's Jake Tapper retweeted my initial
tweet about my cameo in the indictment and added the
comment "Employee for Sputnik confirms that when he was
at Breitbart he was in touch with who DOJ says was
Russian military intelligence masquerading as hacker Guccifer
2.0."
When
I saw that I was being discussed in the indictment, I
immediately mentioned it on Twitter. I also made it clear to the
media that I was available for interviews. No media outlet has
contacted me.
Reading through the new indictment now. Point c is referring to a conversation that@GUCCIFER_2 and I had via DM, But this is information that I have released publicly previously.
Reading through the new indictment now. Point c is referring to a conversation that
I
went public because I have nothing to hide and nothing to be
ashamed of. In fact, the reason that Mueller's team knew about my
contacts with Guccifer 2.0 is because I posted the direct
messages we exchanged over Twitter myself a year ago.
For
the record, I didn't know who Guccifer 2.0 was at the time and I
still don't, despite Mueller's indictment. I have never believed
that Guccifer 2.0 was a Russian state actor and have seen no evidence
that persuades me otherwise.
At
the time of this contact with Guccifer 2.0, I was the lead
investigative reporter for Breitbart News; today, I co-host the
best morning news radio show in America, Fault Lines with Nixon
and Stranahan, which airs Monday through Friday, 7 a.m. to 10
a.m. Eastern Time on Radio Sputnik. Fault Lines is broadcast
on 105.5 FM and 1390 AM in Washington, DC, and around the
world on the Sputnik News website.
Of
course, just seeing both Russian-funded Sputnik and formerly Steve
Bannon-led-Breitbart News on my resume is enough to give
many in the media the flutters. Never mind that I also wrote
for years at the Huffington
Post or
did independent journalism on issues
like the Syrian war,
which I traveled to Beirut in 2013 to cover. All
of that and more gets left out of media narrative
on Russian CollusionTM!
Thus,
the New York Times only mentions my work at Breitbart and
Sputnik in their scarily titled article, Tracing
Guccifer 2.0's Many Tentacles in the 2016 Election.
And like Mueller's team, the New York Times also never bothered
to get in touch with me for their story.
A
few hours after the Mueller indictment came out, I left for my
planned trip to Helsinki to cover the Trump-Putin summit
for Sputnik.
A
couple of days later, CNN's Jake Tapper retweeted my initial
tweet about my cameo in the indictment and added the
comment "Employee for Sputnik confirms that when he was
at Breitbart he was in touch with who DOJ says was
Russian military intelligence masquerading as hacker Guccifer
2.0."
Employee for Sputnik confirms that when he was at Breitbart he was in touch with who DOJ says was Russian military intelligence masquerading as hacker Guccifer 2.0
I've
spoken to Jake privately a number of times in the
past. He's praised my work on other stories. I'm easy to reach.
Yet despite highlighting my contact with Guccifer 2.0,
Tapper has also not reached out to interview me.
It's
almost like the media and Muller have no interest in hearing
what I have to say. No, wait — it's exactly like that,
because there's plenty that the indictment and the media leave out.
For
example, when Guccifer 2.0 contacted me on August 22, 2016,
Steve Bannon was no longer leading Breitbart News. Whoever Guccifer
2.0 is, they expressed no interest at all in the fact that
Bannon had left Breitbart to head the Trump campaign.
Furthermore,
when the indictment says I was given material on the Black Lives
Matter movement, it's not exactly accurate, something Mueller would
know if he'd ever talked to me.
In
fact, I was sent a file with a few documents, including one that
was a memo about the Black Lives Matter movement that was sent
out by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC).
That document sparked my interest because I'd been covering Black
Lives Matter for months and had been arrested
a little over a month earlier while
covering the protests over the death of Alton Sterling
in Baton Rouge. I was one of four journalists arrested.
(All charges were dropped and we reached a very small settlement
with the city.)
If
the Muller investigation was legitimately trying to get to the
truth, I'd think they would have asked me for this set of files,
since it might contain useful information for a forensic
investigation. I'd think they would also want to see my direct
messages with Guccifer 2.0 for themselves.
That
might not be possible now. You see, after Mueller's indictment
was released, the public Twitter account for Guccifer 2.0 was
removed from Twitter. I no longer have live access to my
direct messages, nor can the public see the account for themselves
live on Twitter. For anyone wanting to make up his or
her own mind about this facet of the Russiagate narrative,
including through viewing the original information
for themselves, this is an interesting development.
Luckily,
researcher Adam Carter has saved screen captures of the entire
account as well as Guccifer 2.0's Wordpress site on his
must-read sitededicated
to Guccifer 2.0.
People
disinclined to simply take Mueller at his word on his
unproven accusations will also want to read this
article by Carter
showing the contradictions between the information in the
Mueller indictment and what is available already in public
record.
Anyone
who looks at that record for themselves can see what the
media isn't telling you — that I was far from the first
journalist to talk to or interview Guccifer 2.0. It also
makes clear that I did not request info from Guccifer 2.0,
but was offered it.
However,
as I've said, I did nothing remotely wrong in talking
to Guccifer 2.0, no matter who is ultimately shown to be
behind the account. I was following a story and working a
lead. I wanted to find out who Guccifer 2.0 really was and
I still do.
Robert
Mueller's investigation has now muddied that trail, and hindered the
efforts of truth seekers everywhere.
The
author is Lee Stranahan, co-host of Fault Lines on Radio
Sputnik.
Russian Ex-Spy Attack Special Report
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