Singer, civil rights leader and devoted activist Harry Belafonte has died at 96. Belafonte was a “real one,” as evidenced by a 2005 event where he spoke eloquently about his friendship with Martin Luther King jr. and the fear that Democrats would coopt the language of the civil rights movement while abandoning the cause itself — and who was right there wint him on stage but Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

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

-------------------

Last week we learned a new fact about the DNC email leak in 2016 and of the events that likely led to the killing of Seth Rich.

A quite aggressive Wikipedia page discusses the Murder of Seth Rich:

The 27-year-old Rich was an employee of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), and his murder spawned several right-wing conspiracy theories, including the false claim, contradicted by the law enforcement branches that investigated the murder, that Rich had been involved with the leaked DNC emails in 2016. It was also contradicted by the July 2018 indictment of 12 Russian military intelligence agents for hacking the e-mail accounts and networks of Democratic Party officials and by the U.S. intelligence community's conclusion the leaked DNC emails were part of Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections. Fact-checking websites like PolitiFact, Snopes, and FactCheck.org stated that the theories were false and unfounded. The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and The Washington Post wrote that the promotion of these conspiracy theories was an example of fake news.

Well, that is not what really had happened.

Yes, Seth Rich worked as IT administrator for the Democratic National Committee. He was a fan of Bernie Sanders. During the 2016 primaries DNC functionaries did their best to work against Bernie Sanders and for Hillary Clinton. To make that public Seth Rich collected an archive of all DNC emails, copied it onto an USB stick and looked for someone who would publish them.

UPDATE 20:00 UTC

The former British ambassador Craig Murray said that he was given the USB stick by an intermediary of a disgusted Democratic whistleblower and brought it from Washington DC to Wikileaks which eventually published the emails. The data involved were not only from the DNC but also from Clinton's campaign chair John Podesta:

“Neither of the leaks came from the Russians. The source had legal access to the information. The documents came from inside leaks, not hacks…leakers were motivated by disgust at the corruption of the Clinton Foundation and the tilting of the primary election playing field against Bernie Sanders.”

/End Update/

Craig Murray did not mention Seth Rich. Up to last week we did not know if Seth Rich really made contact with Wikileaks.

But we did know that the DNC was never 'hacked' by anything Russia. The date/timestamps of the leaked files were consistent with local copying and inconsistent with an internet transfer. The company Crowdstrike which was hired to protect the DNC's networks and which did an investigation into the case never observed an actual 'Russian' hack or any data exfiltration from the DNC network. As ITwire wrote in May 2020:

The transcript was from an interview conducted with CrowdStrike's president of services and chief security officer Shawn Henry by the US House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence in December 2017, but only released to the US Special Counsel Robert Mueller who conducted a two-year inquiry into alleged Russian collusion in the 2016 presidential poll.

While the exfiltration of emails from the DNC server has been accepted as a proven fact, Henry's answers to queries from committee members make it clear that this was definitely not the case.

In one typical exchange, Henry was asked, "What about the emails that everyone is so, you know, knowledgeable of? Were there also indicators that they were prepared but not evidence that they actually were exfiltrated?" To this Henry responded, "There's not evidence that they were actually exfiltrated. There's circumstantial evidence - but no evidence that they were actually exfiltrated."

PolitiFact, Snopes and FactCheck.org are, unsurprisingly, wrong with their assertions.

But how did the emails find their way to Julian Assange at Wikileaks. Assange has never explained that. But Wikileaks set out a $20,000 reward for finding the killer of Seth Rich. That made it obvious that there was a connection between them but no one gave further explanations of it.

It took until last week for the world to learn more about what really happened. On April 21 some rather pungent NAFO activist, Pekka Kallionniemi, launched a Twitter thread with an attack on a person well known in IT circles:

In today's #vatniksoup, I'll introduce a German-Finnish entrepreneur, conspiracy theorist and propagandist, Kim Dotcom. He's best-known for his illegal online activities and projects, for his hate towards the US, and for his unwavering support for Putin's imperialism.
1/18 
[...]
In 2017, Dotcom claimed that he worked with Seth Rich, a US citizen and employee on the Democratic National Committee who was murdered during a suspected robbery.His death spawned..
10/18 
[...]
..several conspiracy theories stating that he was a whistleblower who had leaked documents damning Hillary Clinton and her campaign manager, John Podesta. The hack-and-leak operation was actually conducted by Russian intelligence service GRU's hacker group called Fancy Bear.
11/18

Who is Kim Dotcom you might ask:

In May 2017 the Washington Post wrote:

Over seven frenzied days, Dotcom had become a leading purveyor of the theory that Rich, a staffer at the Democratic National Committee who was shot dead near his home in Northeast Washington last summer, had supplied DNC documents to WikiLeaks and was killed as a result. Multiple security analysts and an FBI investigation have tied the release to hackers with ties to Russia. D.C. police have said repeatedly that they think Rich was slain in a random robbery attempt.

According to experts and Rich’s family, the emailed invitation from [email protected] appeared to be an attempt to gain access to Rich’s email. Joel Rich, who monitors his late son’s Gmail account when new emails come in, did not click the link. Dotcom had not worked at Mega itself for years, but he was promising on Twitter to prove that the younger Rich had been in contact with WikiLeaks — and Fox News host Sean Hannity was telling his 2.37 million Twitter followers to be ready for a ­revelation.

Hannity had invited Dotcom to appear on his show for what he said on Twitter would be a “#GameChanger” interview. The implication: that Dotcom would finally offer evidence of his claim that Rich had sent internal DNC documents to WikiLeaks before his death.

All that began to unravel Tuesday afternoon when Fox News retracted a story that had claimed the same Rich-WikiLeaks connection, telling readers that the article was “not initially subjected to the high degree of editorial scrutiny we require for all our reporting.” Fox News did not respond to a request for comment, but Dotcom wrote on his website that he would not speak further about his allegations.

Since then little on the issue was heard from Kim Dotcom. There was no explanation why he was involved in the Seth Rich issue in the first place.

But after Pekka Kallionniemi's attack was widely retweeted Kim Dotcom contested it:

NAFO bullying exposed

I’m responding to an attempted character assassination by NAFO troll @P_Kallioniemi who prides himself with having attacked over 150 “pro-Russian actors and propagandists.”

His problem is that he picked the wrong guy for his cyber bullying.

Who is Pekka? A research fellow at Tampere University in Finland and a self-proclaimed disinformation expert. Ironic because most of the claims in his attack against me are false. I’m tagging the Dean of Tampere University @SaariJuho to make him aware of Pekka’s NAFO bullying.

First of all I’m in good company because some of the people Pekka has bullied on Twitter are @ggreenwald, @mtaibbi, @rustyrockets & @jimmy_dore. None are “Russian propagandists” or “grifters looking to make some easy money” as Pekka claims. They are truth-tellers, like myself.

False claim 1: Kim was deported from Thailand to Germany.<

Truth: I was never deported from Thailand. I left voluntarily. 
[...]
False claim 6: Dotcom claimed that he worked with Seth Rich.

Truth: Seth Rich contacted me and offered information about the DNC. I rejected receiving the data personally and forwarded him to someone close to Wikileaks. That’s how Wikileaks got the DNC and Hillary Clinton leaks.

False claim 7: The (DNC) hack and leak operation was conducted by Russian intelligence.

Truth: A forensic analysis of the leaked DNC data by former US intelligence officials proved that it wasn’t remotely transferred. The meta data shows that the files were transferred locally.

The bold part is significant as it is first time that we learn:

• That there was a direct connection between Seth Rich and Wikileaks.
• Why Kim Dotcom had involved himself in the Seth Rich case after Rich had been killed.

You may say that the first claim is not new because many had presumed that. But no one involved had ever actually publicly made the claim. Dotcom's assertion of this connection through him is new.

After contacting Kim Dotcom Seth Rich was pointed to someone else near to Wikileaks. Eventually Wikileaks asked Craig Murray to fly to DC and to bring the files to Wikileaks. The  Clinton server emails were published by Wikileaks in March 2016. The DNC emails were published in June and July 2016. The Podesta emails were published in October 2016.

I hope that Kim Dotcom will one day write down the complete sequence of events that are related to Seth Rich and the publishing of the Clinton, Podesta and DNC leaks by Wikileaks.

Posted by b on April 24, 2023 at 17:51 UTC | Permalink

READ MORE:

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2023/04/why-kim-dotcom-connects-the-dnc-email-leak-to-the-murder-of-seth-rich.html

WE KNOW THAT THE UKRAINE CONFLICT WAS STARTERD BY THE AMERICAN EMPIRE...

READ FROM TOP.

FREE JULIAN ASSANGE NOW....

THE DIRTIEST WORD IN THE NEWS MEDIA HAS BEEN:

"UNPROVOKED"....

FREE JULIAN ASSANGE NOW....

Age isn’t just a number in 2024 — it’s also proving to be a major campaign weapon wielded by Republicans trying to recapture the White House.

The main target is President Biden, who at 80 years old is the oldest president in history running for reelection. But he’s not the only Democrat drawing attacks.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), 89, has been absent due to illnesses, prompting calls by younger Democrats to step down, while giving GOP candidate Nikki Haley, 51, an opportunity to buttress her campaign call for political mental competency tests.

The attacks illustrate how the GOP sees age as a way to defeat Biden in 2024, even as its party is led by a 76-year-old in former President Trump and an 81-year-old in Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.).

Haley’s call for mandatory mental competency tests for politicians older than 75 was seen as a clear jab at Trump and Biden. The former South Carolina governor has specifically called on politicians to take the Montreal Cognitive Assessment, which is defined as “a brief, 30-question test that helps health care professionals detect cognitive impairments very early on.” 

On Monday, Haley called on Feinstein to resign in a Fox News op-ed as her team also released a video on the issue. 

“What’s incredible is how the Washington establishment continues to cover for those who likely lack the mental acuity to do their job,” Haley wrote in the op-ed. 

Haley last week said that Biden would not make it to 86 years old — his age at the end of a second full term. It’s a way of telling voters that if they vote for Biden, they’re really casting a vote for Vice President Kamala Harris, 58.

READ MORE:

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/3982184-gop-uses-age-as-a-weapon-against-democrats/

BEING AN OLD KOOK MYSELF, AND A PART-TIME DRUNK, I CAN SEE WHY PEOPLE (MANY) WOULD SAY THAT JOE BIDEN IS TOO OLD (I THINK HE'S TOO SENILE WHEN HE USED TO BE SNEAKY AND CORRUPT BEFORE) AND THAT KAMALA SLURS HER WORDS IN A POSSIBLE DRUNKEN STATE (SEE ahahahaha....) ...

READ FROM TOP.

FREE JULIAN ASSANGE NOW....

15 February 2026 

by Larry C. Johnson

[NOTE TO READERS: The following is a chapter from a book I’m writing about Russiagate [LARRY JOHNSON]. I am publishing the chapter here in order to get your reaction. I look forward to your comments.]

On July 10, 2016, Seth Rich, a 27-year-old data analyst for the Democratic National Committee, was shot twice in the back while walking home in the Bloomingdale neighborhood of Washington, D.C. He died at the hospital shortly afterward. D.C. police classified the killing as a botched robbery, though Rich’s wallet, phone, and watch were not taken. The murder remains unsolved.

Ten days later, on July 22, 2016, WikiLeaks published nearly 20,000 DNC emails that would rock the Democratic Party and reshape the presidential campaign. The timing raised questions that investigators seemed determined not to ask. Could Seth Rich, who had access to DNC data systems, have been the source of the WikiLeaks material?

For me and others questioning the Russian hacking narrative, the Seth Rich case represented a critical alternative explanation for how DNC emails reached WikiLeaks. Yet any mention of Rich as a possible source was quickly branded as conspiracy theory, and those who raised questions about his death were accused of exploiting a family tragedy for political purposes.

Seth Rich worked as the Voter Expansion Data Director for the DNC. His position gave him access to the DNC’s voter database and email systems. He was by all accounts skilled with data and technology, enthusiastic about his work, and committed to Democratic politics.

On the night of July 10, Rich had been at Lou’s City Bar, a local establishment he frequented. He left around 1:30 AM and was walking the short distance to his apartment when he was shot. The shooting occurred around 4:20 AM on a quiet residential street. There were no witnesses who came forward, and no surveillance footage of the actual shooting.

D.C. police found no signs of a struggle. Rich’s hands were not injured. His wallet with credit cards and cash was still in his pocket, as were his phone and watch. Nothing appeared to have been taken. Yet police maintained the robbery theory, suggesting that perhaps the shooter was scared off before completing the theft.

WikiLeaks published the first batch of DNC emails on July 22, 2016, just 12 days after Rich’s death. The timing was significant. The emails were released just before the Democratic National Convention, when their impact would be maximum. They revealed favoritism toward Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders, leading to the resignation of DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder, has consistently refused to reveal his sources. This is standard practice for WikiLeaks, which promises source protection. However, Assange has made comments that many interpreted as hints about Rich being the source.

In a Dutch television interview in August 2016, Assange discussed the risks that WikiLeaks sources face. When asked about the DNC emails, he brought up Seth Rich unprompted: We have to understand how high the stakes are in the United States. Our sources take risks, and they are—they become concerned to see things occurring like that.

When the interviewer asked if he was suggesting Rich was a source, Assange replied: We don’t comment on who our sources are… We have to understand how high the stakes are in the United States.

WikiLeaks also announced a $20,000 reward for information leading to conviction in the Seth Rich murder. This was unusual; WikiLeaks does not typically offer rewards for solving crimes. The move was widely interpreted as a signal about Rich’s significance to WikiLeaks.

One of the most significant pieces of evidence suggesting Seth Rich as the source came from veteran investigative journalist Seymour Hersh. In an audio recording that later surfaced, Hersh described what an FBI source had told him about the investigation.

According to Hersh’s source, the FBI had examined Seth Rich’s laptop and found evidence that he had contacted WikiLeaks. The source allegedly told Hersh that Rich had offered to provide DNC emails to WikiLeaks in exchange for money. Hersh described seeing an FBI report that detailed these communications.

Hersh’s account, if accurate, would have been explosive. It would have confirmed that the DNC emails came from an insider, not from Russian hackers. It would have provided a direct alternative to the Russian interference narrative.

However, Hersh did not publish this information in his official reporting. When the audio recording surfaced, he distanced himself from it, saying it was just him thinking out loud based on what a source had told him, not something he had verified to his journalistic standards.

For me, Hersh’s reluctance to publish was itself revealing. Hersh was one of America’s most respected investigative journalists, known for breaking major stories even when they were politically sensitive. The fact that he had this information but chose not to publish suggested the political sensitivity of the Seth Rich story.

The technical analysis conducted by VIPS, which we discussed in the previous chapter, takes on additional significance when considered alongside the Seth Rich possibility. The transfer speeds indicated in the metadata were consistent with someone copying files to a USB drive while physically present at DNC headquarters.

Seth Rich worked at DNC headquarters. He had access to the systems. He had the technical knowledge to locate and copy email files. The timeline fits: the metadata shows files being copied in late May 2016, weeks before Rich’s death and before the WikiLeaks release.

This scenario would explain why the FBI never found NSA intercepts showing data being transmitted to Russia—because there were no such transmissions. The data never left the building via the internet. It left on a physical drive, carried out by an insider.

Any discussion of Seth Rich as a possible WikiLeaks source was quickly and forcefully dismissed as conspiracy theory. News organizations that had previously aired questions about the case abruptly shut down coverage. Fox News retracted a story about Rich. NPR ran multiple pieces debunking the theory.

The Rich family, understandably grieving and wanting the focus to remain on finding their son’s killer rather than on political speculation, publicly asked that people stop theorizing about connections to WikiLeaks. This request was entirely reasonable and sympathetic.

However, I noted that the forceful suppression of any inquiry into the WikiLeaks connection seemed to go beyond respecting the family’s wishes. There appeared to be a coordinated effort to ensure that this alternative explanation was not seriously investigated or discussed.

Part of this was doubtless genuine concern about conspiracy theories and respect for a grieving family. But I suspected that part of it was also political—a recognition that if Seth Rich was the source, the entire Russian hacking narrative would collapse.

The FBI’s handling of the Seth Rich case raised additional questions. If the FBI had examined Rich’s laptop and found evidence of WikiLeaks communications, as Hersh’s source claimed, why was this never made public? Why was it not included in the Mueller Report or mentioned in congressional testimonies?

The FBI initially denied having any files related to Seth Rich. However, in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, the FBI later acknowledged that it did have files related to Rich—but claimed they were exempt from disclosure for various reasons including privacy and ongoing investigation.

This contradiction was significant. If the FBI truly had no involvement in the case, as initially claimed, there would be no files. The existence of FBI files suggested that the Bureau had indeed examined evidence related to Rich, contrary to public statements.

Moreover, if there was evidence linking Rich to WikiLeaks, the FBI had an obligation to investigate this lead in the DNC email leak. The fact that this was never publicly pursued suggested either that the evidence didn’t exist or that it was being suppressed because it undermined the Russian hacking narrative.

The actual murder investigation by D.C. police has produced no arrests or public leads. For a case that occurred in a populated neighborhood in the nation’s capital, with what should have been security cameras in the area, the lack of progress has been striking.

Some have speculated that Rich’s murder was related to his possible role in leaking DNC emails—either as retaliation or to prevent him from revealing what he had done. Others maintain it was simply a tragic random crime. Without solving the murder, we cannot know.

What is clear is that the murder investigation proceeded entirely separately from any inquiry into the DNC email leak. If D.C. police or the FBI ever seriously investigated whether there was a connection between Rich’s death and the WikiLeaks releases, no evidence of such investigation has become public.

Julian Assange’s situation complicates efforts to learn the truth about WikiLeaks’ sources. Assange spent years confined to the Ecuadorian embassy in London, then was arrested and has been fighting extradition to the United States. He faces charges related to his WikiLeaks activities.

As I noted, Assange knows who provided the DNC emails to WikiLeaks. His testimony could definitively answer whether it was Russian hackers, Seth Rich, or someone else entirely. Yet Assange has been kept effectively incommunicado, unable to fully participate in the public debate about Russian interference.

I argued that this was deliberate. Assange’s testimony would be dangerous to the Russiagate narrative if he confirmed an insider source. Better to keep him isolated and unable to speak freely than to risk him demolishing the foundation of years of investigation and political conflict.

The threat of his prosecution also served to intimidate others who might consider revealing inconvenient truths. If the U.S. government would pursue Assange so relentlessly, others with knowledge of what really happened might think twice before coming forward.

Understanding why the Seth Rich alternative was so forcefully dismissed requires understanding the political stakes. If the DNC emails came from an insider leak rather than a Russian hack, several key elements of the Russiagate narrative would collapse.

There would be no Russian theft of emails. No coordination between Russian intelligence and WikiLeaks. No cyber attack as part of Russian election interference. The entire structure of alleged collusion would lack its foundation.

Moreover, it would raise uncomfortable questions about the DNC’s own security and internal politics. If an insider was motivated to leak emails showing favoritism toward Clinton, what did that say about the DNC’s conduct? The narrative would shift from external attack to internal whistleblowing.

For those who had invested political capital in the Russia narrative—which by summer 2016 included much of the Democratic Party leadership, the Clinton campaign, and sympathetic media—the Seth Rich theory was an existential threat. It had to be discredited completely, not examined seriously.

I was careful to distinguish between what could be proven and what was plausible speculation. We cannot definitively prove that Seth Rich was WikiLeaks’ source without testimony from Assange or someone else with direct knowledge. We cannot prove that his murder was connected to any leak rather than being a random crime.

What we can say is that Rich had access, means, and potentially motive to leak DNC emails. That the technical evidence suggests an insider leak rather than a remote hack. That there are credible reports from well-sourced journalists suggesting FBI evidence of a WikiLeaks connection. That WikiLeaks itself has hinted at Rich as a source.

We can also say that these leads were never seriously investigated by authorities who were instead pursuing the Russian hacking theory. That evidence potentially exculpating Russia was ignored or suppressed. That a plausible alternative explanation was dismissed as conspiracy theory without proper examination.

Whether or not Seth Rich was the source, I argued that the way his possible role was handled reveals a troubling dynamic: inconvenient facts were suppressed to maintain a preferred narrative.

This pattern appeared throughout Russiagate. Evidence that undermined the collusion narrative was dismissed, ignored, or classified. Evidence that supported it was embraced uncritically. The goal seemed to be building a case rather than following the evidence.

The Seth Rich case exemplified this dynamic. There was enough evidence to warrant serious investigation of whether he was the source. Instead, any mention of the possibility was treated as illegitimate. The result was that an important alternative theory was never properly examined.

If the DNC emails came from Seth Rich or another insider rather than from Russian hackers, the implications extend far beyond that single event. It would mean that the foundational claim of the entire Russiagate investigation—that Russia stole and released DNC emails—was false.

The Intelligence Community Assessment would have been wrong on a central point. The Mueller investigation would have been based on a false premise. Years of political conflict and damaged relations with Russia would have been built on a misunderstanding or deliberate deception about how DNC emails reached WikiLeaks.

This is why I insisted on pressing the question. It was not about exploiting a murder victim or promoting conspiracy theories. It was about insisting that alternative explanations be seriously examined rather than dismissed out of hand for political convenience.

https://sonar21.com/the-seth-rich-question/

WE ARE HAPPY TO KNOW:

The International Unity Club, which hosted my November visit to Russia, has created a YouTube channel. Here is the interview that Pepe Escobar, Danny Haiphong and me did with General Apti Alaudinov:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WiehIVfFA1o&t=86s

READ FROM TOP.

YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT — SINCE 2005.

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.