Who Was Seth Rich?

[Wombaticus Rex]

LMFAO we're really saying this is a "white supremacist hand symbol" now?



Yeah....okay.

[mentalgongfu2]

LMFAO we're really saying this is a "white supremacist hand symbol" now?

Don't tell Patrick McGoohan

[Elvis]

I've been meaning to make some responses to mentalgongfu2's long reply—thanks, mgf2—but will start with a little preface.

It dawned on me that both sides of this controversy—those "on the left" who are so anxious to show Russian responsibility, and those "on the right" who are are so anxious to disprove it—are looking at it from a public relations standpoint. No one is looking at it from a logical perspective.

Both sides have their pants down and are scrambling to cover their asses. It comes down to PR.

On the Internet I see people cherry-picking facts, and even making up additional 'facts' (people want a strong narrative, might need to flesh it out). The best are written out in turgid prose with smug certainty and clever epithets. The warm applause from "your side" alone must make it feel worth the effort. A careful reader might not be fooled.

That reminds me, I haven't heard a peep about this since I posted it:

I keep hearing from Jerky that Julian Assange has indicated that he has knowledge of the killer's (or killers') identity. This sounds like another straw man; can anyone show where Assange made such an indication? Thanks in advance.

I'm in no hurry of course. But that did seem like a key point in Jerky's polemic.

By the way, Jerky still has not corrected his article. He claims his error concerning "the Podesta emails" was made in haste, but it's a major mistake and it still stands.

The confusion between Podesta's emails and the DNC's emails, when not just carelessly repeated, seems to be a convenient source of fact-twisting for all PR sides of this.

This is a public relations battle. I'm not very interested in it. I object to it. Honesty and logic play no role in it. That's why I appreciate mentalgongfu2's highly rational skepticism.

Elvis, thank you for responding, albeit several weeks and a few PM's after you indicated said response was imminent

Again I apologize, but I think it was only about 15 days.

So let's begin, keeping in mind I am coming from a skeptical viewpoint - that is, I have no particular leaning either direction

And I'm roughly 30% skeptical. I have plenty of doubt. My OP title is a question. I don't understand the absolute certainty so many people claim about this, except when it's used as a public relations ploy.

I must ask, if Rich is the leaker, given Rich has no obvious need for protection given he is no longer alive, why would Assange not merely say so, to clear the air and make a definitive statement, rather than merely a "strong indication". You say it is obvious Assange would not do so, but I'm not clear why the one person likely to know, who is demonstrably still alive (while the leaker may or may not be), would not just come out and say so. If Rich was the leaker, why would Assange merely hint at it rather than reveal it outright? Who does he have left to protect in this instance? Does Assange believe in protecting sources such that he would not even reveal a deceased one, to which no more harm can come, for the sake of protecting a standard of secrecy? I will oblige that he may well have such a standard. I don't know enough about his standards to say, but if source protection is such a concern, I wonder why he would so strongly imply anything about a source's identity to begin with.

I think Assange simply wants to follow his stated policy, i.e. Wikileaks does not divulge the identities of its sources, and that he went as far as felt comfortable going, merely implying that Rich was the leaker. Assange may have been blowing smoke. I doubt it, but of course I don't know.

Regarding Craig Murray. I have but a passing familiarity. I of course looked the name up in connection with Rich when I saw it in your post. Among the articles I discount based on the particular publication promoting them, such as WND, were a few I will not write off so quickly. We can leave for another time or place how much stock to put in the reputation of any particular source, given I did note that each should be evaluated on its merits without your specific objection when we agreed upon our vague but useful definition of evidence. A Counterpunch article bylined from Mike Whitney (relying on reporting from Robert Parry at Consortium News, and quoting much of the same) relates that the DNC leak at issue came "from a 'disgruntled Democrat upset with the DNC's sandbagging of the Sanders campaign and that the Podesta leak came from the U.S. intelligence community..."
It goes on to describe a meeting Murray is alleged to have had on behalf of Wikileaks with "one of the sources (or a representative)" in a wooded area near American University on Sept. 25. Murray apparently does not specify whether he was meeting with a source related to the DNC leak or the Podesta leak. The article, which is mainly framed as a takedown of the Russian hack narrative (and fair enough on that, considering the popular narrative of Russian hacking is full of holes), goes on to ask the same sort of unanswered questions I have posed above, but in this case regarding the Russia narrative rather than the Rich-as-leaker-narrative.

I'm not intimately familiar with Murray's claims and activities, but I get a clear sense of him signaling Rich as the DNC leaker. By offering the $20K reward, Assange further hints that Rich's murder was connected with the leak; I think he's either just making that assumption or he just wants to know.

It should be remembered that these people—Assange, Murray, leakers and who knows who else—are playing a dangerous game. Assange himself is at no small risk of someday getting shot (fate forbid it). The dishonest rhetoric waged against him, first by one party then the next, certainly doesn't help.

criticism of The Guardian for failing to point out that troubling aspects of the claim (fact?) from "law enforcement" that the FBI has not looked at Rich's laptop while investigating his murder. I find it hard to believe law enforcement would not do so. And it is not clear whether "law enforcement," presumably D.C. police, are saying they themselves haven't looked at it, or just that the FBI hasn't.

Good point. A few years ago my neighbor across the hall committed suicide. The first thing the police did was look through this computer. It took them about three minutes to get his Internet passwords from the providers. Just sayin'.

1) why would the DNC want to publicize that fact? 2) what could a D.C. police department actually do about it? Whereas, Assange could presumably lay many questions to rest.

1) I think by the time the DNC found out about the leaks, so had the rest of the world. I imagine the DNC had other reasons for shunning LE involvement—if that's what they did, I don't know. (Anyone?)

2) As I understand it, most big-city police departments have some kind of computer forensics specialists. If they bothered, they might have called in another party to help. As for Assange, unless circumstances force his hand—say an innocent party gets charged with the leak—I think we've heard all we're gonna hear about it from him.

The reports of Rich's "talkative" state en route to the hospital are certainly intriguing. What was he talking about, and why aren't there records of it? I don't know if D.C. police wear body cameras or if any were even in the ambulance as he was transported. I doubt paramedics there wear body cameras. The "talkative" state is also in question for me, given he was in critical condition (Priority 1, according to reports). A brief search for reliable sources on these questions yields for me nothing beyond the expected conspiracy nuts (i.e. doctor with tangential connection to Podesta/Clintons might have been Rich's attending doctor because he works at a hospital Rich might have been taken to) and the expected conspiracy debunkers (no need to cite, as they just say X is BS).

The whole non-forthcoming of information in these areas suggests something funny going on. Who knows. Has anyone—the clown car of selfless lawyers, crack private investigators and former homocide detectives, or anyone?—submitted an FOIA request for any body camera or other recordings? Or for any other evidence?

Write your own circus metaphors in the comments below! ☟︎

I agree the MSM outright dismissing the possibility of Rich as leaker and foul play in his death, beyond attempted robbery, is ludicrous. It is unfortunate, to say the least.The possibility should be considered dutifully, as I am attempting to do by engaging with you here and digging into things I would otherwise not be aware of. The outright dismissal by many news outlets is in poor form, and I would, and do, expect better from some of the pilers-on than to dismiss it as mere "conspiracy" simply because it fits with a narrative that places guilt on the Democratic party. I would, however, differ with you perhaps only in that I am more likely to believe the dismissal by historically-venerable news organizations is, rather than a conspiracy of its own, a result of both general laziness and a disinclination to consider reports from sources promoting the original 1 and 2 theories that range from questionable (still worth a look), to plain unreliable playgrounds of ideological fantasy/assumptions (damaging to one's intellect).

I find this above to be a very sensible view

To that point, while MSM opposition is notable, I don't think it meets our definition of evidence. And whatever the reviews of Stone's "JFK" upon release, you would be hard pressed to find anyone in my cohort who would echo those thoughts. While government involvement in 911 is still taboo among some of my peers, nearly everyone in my circles accepts the official story of Kennedy's assassination is bogus and the CIA was likely involved. You could be laughed out of a room for suggesting it was indeed Oswald alone with his magic rifle.

But if you work for the New York Times, or Salon etc., and suggest otherwise, you'd be out of a job.

But back to Rich. I think the most important point you failed to mention is that of his surviving family, specifically his parents, as it seems he was not married and did not father children.
His parents, the only immediate surviving relatives of which I am aware, have repeatedly, adamantly and publicly denied a political motive behind his death and pleaded for an end to the speculation of political involvement.
Now, I have heard the argument that his parents are big Democrat supporters, thus they wouldn't want to besmirch his name, or theirs,by acknowledging he might have been the leaker.
I call bullshit on that.
No parent, except the most degenerate opportunist imaginable, would put a political party above finding the truth about the murder of their own child. I think this can be accepted as a general truism, but there are countless individual stories to back it up, including a few involving people I have met myself in real life. I have no reason to believe Seth Rich's parents are degenerate opportunists, nor that they remain in a state of denial over the cause of his murder. Perhaps they have been hoodwinked by the D.C. police, but I highly doubt it, given the massive attention focused on their son's death and their constant requests to put an end to the speculation and the opportunism of those who feed on the conspiracy theory (yes, I hate that phrase, but I find it appropriate here and lack a better substitute).

On this point we may disagree, but I'll take your remarks into consideration; I'm not a parent so don't really have that perspective.

So here we are. While I am not convinced Seth Rich is the leaker, you have at least given me some new things to ponder. And for that I thank you. Neither am I convinced he was not the leaker, but I do lean toward the belief that even if he was, it was not the cause of his death, based on all I have said above. I doubt I have convinced you of anything either, but hopefully you at least have some food for thought as well.

Thanks, and again, I'm not convinced of anything pertaining to the open questions. I'm persuaded by the available facts that Seth Rich was probably the leaker, but I just don't know for sure—and neither do the self-satisfied pundits spreading PR.

[seemslikeadream]

Interesting that he is proposing Assange as an expert on what Russian intelligence might or might not have done.

Trump pardon for Assange in exchange for ‘proof’ Russia didn’t meddle in election
Tom Boggioni
01 SEP 2017 AT 11:27 ET


ACalifornia Republican lawmaker is urging President Donald Trump to issue a pardon for Julian Assange with the promise that the Wikileaks founder would provide the embattled president with proof that Russia didn’t meddle in the 2016 election.

According to The Hill, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), who recently met up with Assange in London where he is holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy, is leading a push for Trump to pardon the Wikileaks founder — much to the dismay of intelligence officials.

No charges have been filed against Assange over the theft of thousands of U.S. intelligence documents, however it is believed that the Justice Department is considering them.

What makes talk of a pardon more troubling is Rohrabacher’s assertion that the Wikileaks founder would provide “firsthand” evidence he showed the lawmaker during the meeting that he claims proves there was no collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia before the 2016 election

“It would send a terrible message to the intelligence community,” explained former CIA and NSA senior counsel Robert Deitz, “What moral are people supposed to draw from that? Why on earth would you believe Julian Assange before the intelligence community?”

Rohrabacher is currently in the process of seeking an audience with Trump in order to make his case, where he is expected to push for the preemptive pardon from a president who recently pardoned Sheriff Joe Arpaio after a federal judge ordered him to jail for criminal contempt of court.

Intelligence officials worry Trump might jump at the deal in the belief that it will exonerate him despite the dubious — and self-serving — nature of Assange’s evidence.

“He’d show that he’d do anything to skate out of the not just allegation, but clear fact of Russia’s involvement [in the election]. That would be appalling,” said Glenn Carle, a 23-year veteran of the CIA.

According to Politico, Rohrabacher was dubbed “Putin’s favorite Congressman” for his pro-Russia views, including his opposition to the Magnitsky anti-corruption law.
http://www.rawstory.com/2017/09/putins- ... -election/

Democrats Launch ‘Rohrabacher Conspiracy’ Site
Hopes to connect the dots between ‘Putin’s congressman’ and several figures in Russia investigation

Posted Aug 23, 2017 10:02 AM
Eric Garcia
@EricMGarcia
Collins Defends Himself Against Ethics Claims Dent Calls Would-Be Primary Challenger ‘a Phony’ Intel Committee Might Want to Hear From Rohrabacher on Russia


“The Rohrabacher Conspiracy” ties California Republican Rep. Dana Rohrabacher to various figures in the Russia investigation. (therohrabacherconspiracy.com)

Democrats are targeting Republican Rep. Dana Rohrabacher with a new website intended to point out connections between the California congressman and figures in the investigation into Russian meddling in last year’s election.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee launched its “The Rohrabacher Conspiracy” on Wednesday. It shows a bulletin board that links Rohrabacher to various individuals, including Natalia Veselnitskaya, the Russian lawyer who met with President Donald Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr., and Paul Manafort, the former Trump campaign chairman who is under investigation for his ties to Russia.

The site also hits Rohrabacher for his ties to alt-right and white supremacist Charles C. Johnson.

Johnson was the person who arranged Rohrabacher's meeting with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. Rohrabacher at the time claimed Assange denied Russia was involved in the hacking of the Democratic National Committee.

The website also ties Rohrabacher to Paul Behrends, who was fired after his ties to Russian to lobbyists and Veselnitskaya were revealed in the media.

And it highlights how Rohrabacher and Russian President Vladimir Putin once got into a drunken arm-wrestling match at Kelly’s Irish Times, a Washington, D.C., pub.

Rohrabacher has been called “Putin’s favorite congressman” for his defenses of Putin and the Russian government.

Democrats are making a play for Rohrabacher’s 48th District seat, which despite voting for Rohrabacher, also broke for Hillary Clinton, according to the Daily Kos.

So far the two Democratic front-runners in their primary are Harley Rouda and researcher Hans Keirstead.

Want insight more often? Get Roll Call in your inbox

Kyle Quinn Quesada, Keirstad’s campaign manager, said the website was “another indicator that national Democrats are taking Dr. Hans Keirstead’s race against Rep. Rohrabacher seriously."

“Orange County voters connect with Hans Keirstead on his values and experience. It’s clear that Dr. Keirstead is the strongest choice to replace Rep. Rohrabacher in 2018.”

Rouda said in a statement, “We don’t know all the facts on Dana Rohrabacher’s ties with Russia, which is why I’ve sent a letter to the FBI calling on them to investigate. It’s clear we’re on to something — even Julian Assange is threatening me.

“The reality is, regardless of what Rohrabacher’s reasons are for his actions, the question remains: How does anything he’s doing for Russia help the people of the 48th?”
https://www.rollcall.com/news/politics/ ... estigation

Click on an individual name and you are told why that person is part of the conspiracy.
http://therohrabacherconspiracy.com

[liminalOyster]

LMFAO we're really saying this is a "white supremacist hand symbol" now?



Yeah....okay.

[Elvis]

Trump's troubles are tangential to the questions about Seth Rich, but it did occur to me that one good thing Trump could do is pardon Assange. I doubt Assange would violate his principle of not disclosing sources, but even if he did, that wouldn't get Trump off the hook for much of anything.


This quote caused me to burst out laughing:

“It would send a terrible message to the intelligence community,” explained former CIA and NSA senior counsel Robert Deitz, “What moral are people supposed to draw from that? Why on earth would you believe Julian Assange before the intelligence community?”

um...because the intel community are professional liars with a long record of deceit? and Assange has no history of telling lies, but rather exposes the lies of the intelligence community?

[seemslikeadream]

no more amusing than

Assange as an expert on what Russian intelligence might or might not have done

because as we all know Putin does not lie...nor the FSB


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcy8uLjRHPM

[Elvis]

I agree, it's a complete joke that Assange could somehow show "proof" that Russia didn't try to interfere in the U.S. election. This is public relations hyperbole.

It's like Wombaticus wrote in another thread—the story comes first, supporting details are fitted in later as needed. (Slender, wavy-haired, omniscient etc.)

mentalgongfu2 wrote:

But back to Rich.

[seemslikeadream]

I agree Rohrabacher and Assange should stay out of it

[Cordelia]

The whole non-forthcoming of information in these areas suggests something funny going on. Who knows. Has anyone—the clown car of selfless lawyers, crack private investigators and former homocide detectives, or anyone?—submitted an FOIA request for any body camera or other recordings? Or for any other evidence?

Jack Burkman’s group, along w/Judicial Watch have filed FOIA requests, as addressed somewhere up-thread.

Judicial Watch is now leaning towards his murder likely being a random street crime..This youtube interview about their FOIA requests was published last week:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BENKvVwESvY

Obtaining an FOIA from D.C. Gov’t is notoriously slow. And since this is still an open investigation, such requests are legally denied, as stated in the DC code referenced in this person's accounting of her request re: the Rich case. (Looks to me like everybody and their grandmothers may be applying. )

https://steemit.com/sethrich/@sheilaali ... -rich-case

[Elvis]

Jack Burkman’s group, along w/Judicial Watch have filed FOIA requests, as addressed somewhere up-thread.

Judicial Watch is now leaning towards his murder likely being a random street crime..This youtube interview about their FOIA requests was published last week:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BENKvVwESvY

Obtaining an FOIA from D.C. Gov’t is notoriously slow. And since this is still an open investigation, such requests are legally denied, as stated in the DC code referenced in this person's accounting of her request re: the Rich case. (Looks to me like everybody and their grandmothers may be applying. )

https://steemit.com/sethrich/@sheilaali ... -rich-case

Okay, thanks! Yeah I guess I forgot about those, figuring nothing would come of it. I'm glad someone's on that, because I'm not doing it, heh.


Later I'll be amending a remark or two I made earlier, in light of this New Yorker story just out:
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017 ... -a-country

(No pay wall, they must want people to read this one.)

[Morty]

From 2nd paragraph of section "II."

But what if, in the interest of source protection, he [Assange] was advancing a falsehood that was more significant than the reference set itself? Arguably, his election publications only underscored what was known about the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton. His denials, meanwhile, potentially obfuscated an act of information warfare between two nuclear-armed powers.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017 ... -a-country

Arguable, if it was already known that the DNC fixes its primaries, and that SS Clinton routinely mishandled top secret information. Can't even win a court case against the DNC after it admits to fixing its primaries. This quoted passage alone throws the whole New Yorker piece under doubt. And that court decision threw the entire US political/legal system under yet more doubt, if that's possible.

[Elvis]

From 2nd paragraph of section "II."

But what if, in the interest of source protection, he [Assange] was advancing a falsehood that was more significant than the reference set itself? Arguably, his election publications only underscored what was known about the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton. His denials, meanwhile, potentially obfuscated an act of information warfare between two nuclear-armed powers.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017 ... -a-country

Arguable, if it was already known that the DNC fixes its primaries, and that SS Clinton routinely mishandled top secret information. Can't even win a court case against the DNC after it admits to fixing its primaries. This quoted passage alone throws the whole New Yorker piece under doubt. And that court decision threw the entire US political/legal system under yet more doubt, if that's possible.

Agreed, Morty! The slant is evident—"Arguably only underscored" is bullshit. Make the DNC blameless, blame anyone else for the DNC's problems, especially hammer on Russia blame however inconclusively. This is why I dropped The New Yorker. all that said, there are things to be gleaned from the article.

[Morty]

LINK

05 September 2017

The So-called Russian Hack of the DNC Does Not Make Sense by Publius Tacitus

Notwithstanding the conventional wisdom that Russia hacked into the DNC computers, downloaded emails and a passed the stolen missives to Julian Assange's crew at Wikileaks, a careful examination of the timeline of events from 2016 shows that this story is simply not plausible.

Let me take you through the known facts:

1. 29 April 2016, when the DNC became aware its servers had been penetrated (https://medium.com/homefront-rising/dum ... fa522ff44f). Note. They apparently did not know who was doing it.

2, 6 May 2016 when CrowdStrike first detected what it assessed to be a Russian presence inside the DNC server. Follow me here. One week after realizing there had been a penetration, the DNC learns, courtesy of the computer security firm it hired, that the Russians are doing it. Okay. Does CrowdStrike shut down the penetration. Nope. The hacking apparently continues unabated.

3. 25 May 2016. The messages published on Wikileaks from the DNC show that 26 May 2016 was the last date that emails were sent and received at the DNC. There are no emails in the public domain after that date. In other words, if the DNC emails were taken via a hacking operation, we can conclude from the fact that the last messages posted to Wikileaks show a date time group of 25 May 2016. Wikileaks has not reported nor posted any emails from the DNC after the 25th of May. I think it is reasonable to assume that was the day the dirty deed was done.

4. 12 June 2016, CrowdStrike purged the DNC server of all malware. Are you kidding me? 45 days after the DNC discovers that its serve has been penetrated the decision to purge the DNC server is finally made. What in the hell were they waiting for? But this also tells us that 18 days after the last email "taken" from the DNC, no additional emails were taken by this nasty malware.
Here is what does not make sense to me. If the DNC emails were truly hacked and the malware was still in place on 11 June 2016 (it was not purged until the 12th) then why are there no emails from the DNC after 26 May 2016?

5. 14 June 2016 Washington Post publishes article alleging Russia was behind the "hacking."

6. On June 15, 2016 a blog post to a Wordpress site authored by an individual using the moniker Guccifer 2.0 claimed credit for breaching the Democratic National Committee. Scott Ritter has provided an excellent analysis of Guccifer's role:

Almost immediately after the one-two punch of the Washington Post article/CrowdStrike technical report went public, however, something totally unexpected happened — someone came forward and took full responsibility for the DNC cyber attack. Moreover, this entity — operating under the persona Guccifer 2.0 (ostensibly named after the original Guccifer, a Romanian hacker who stole the emails of a number of high-profile celebrities and who was arrested in 2014 and sentenced to 4 ½ years of prison in May 2016) — did something no state actor has ever done before, publishing documents stolen from the DNC server as proof of his claims.

"Hi. This is Guccifer 2.0 and this is me who hacked Democratic National Committee."

With that simple email, sent to the on-line news magazine, The Smoking Gun, Guccifer 2.0 stole the limelight away from Alperovitch. Over the course of the next few days, through a series of emails, online posts and interviews, Guccifer 2.0 openly mocked CrowdStrike and its Russian attribution. Guccifer 2.0 released a number of documents, including a massive 200-plus-missive containing opposition research on Donald Trump.

Guccifer 2.0 also directly contradicted the efforts on the part of the DNC to minimize the extent of the hacking, releasing the very donor lists the DNC specifically stated had not been stolen. More chilling, Guccifer 2.0 claimed to be in possession of “about 100 Gb of data” which had been passed on to the online publisher, Wikileaks, who “will publish them soon.”

7. Seth Rich died on 10 July 2016. I introduce Seth Rich at this point because he represents an alternative hypothesis. Rich, who reportedly was a Bernie Sanders supporter, was in a position at the DNC that gave him access to the emails in question and the opportunity to download the emails and take them from the DNC headquarters. Worth noting that Julian Assange offered $20,000 for information leading to the arrest of Rich's killer or killers.

8. 22 July 2016. Wikileaks published the DNC emails starting on 22 July 2016.

Bill Binney, a former senior official at NSA, insists that if such a hack and electronic transfer over the internet had occurred then the NSA has in it possession the intelligence data to prove that such activity had occurred.

Notwithstanding the claim by CrowdStrike not a single piece of evidence has been provided to the public to support the conclusion that the emails were hacked and physically transferred to a server under the control of a Russian intelligence operative.

Please do not try to post a comment stating that the "Intelligence Community" concluded as well that Russia was responsible. That claim is totally without one shred of actual forensic evidence. Also, Julian Assange insists that the emails did not come from a Russian source.

[Harvey]

um...because the intel community are professional liars with a long record of deceit? and Assange has no history of telling lies, but rather exposes the lies of the intelligence community?

Indeed. It's a matter of public record that nothing Assange/Wikileaks has published has been credibly challenged. SLAD?