Guest post by Steve Cunningham
At the Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on March 30, during testimony from experts, Kevin Mandia, Chief Executive Officer of the security echnology company FireEye, said the following in response to Senator Lankford asking if there is any connection between Guccifer 2 and the alleged Russian breach of the DNC server:
“We cannot connect all the dots from the breach, at least with the observables available to my company and our investigators. We can’t go from breach, and leaked data, to suddenly Guccifer 2.0, we just don’t have the means to do that.”
The Intelligence Committee will continue holding hearings over the next few weeks regarding alleged “Russian interference” in the election. However, Wikileaks has released new information regarding Guccifer 2.0 that the Committee hasn’t reviewed yet, with the tweet, “Direct Messages from U.S. alleged Russian spy @GUCCIFER_2 to actress-model @robbin_young (according to the latter) g-2.space/sr/dms.html” In the private messages to Robbin Young, Guccifer 2.0 states that Seth Rich leaked the DNC data to him, which is in contradiction to Guccifer 2.0’s previous claims of hacking the DNC directly.
The Wikileaks direct messages release have echoed in social media, with news sites pointing to Guccifer 2.0 claiming Seth Rich was his whistleblower. Guccifer 2.0 stated to Robbin Young that “His name is Seth, he is my whistleblower” and that “I’d like to find a journalist who can do an investigation and teel [sic] the real story of his life and death.” The new articles have generated thousands of views and shares on the matter. It is unclear how the Intelligence Committee will address the matter.
Wikileaks also tweeted, “Adam Carter (@with_integrity) has a useful collection of @Guccifer_2 primary source statements and timeline: http://g-2.space/” According to Carter: “Some are saying the DMs prove Seth was the leaker. To be clear, it may seem that way but they don’t prove that.” Carter continues: “By 25th of August 2016, It was already thought by many that Seth was the leaker. What the DMs do show, though, is that Guccifer 2.0 (an entity that had already purposefully generated narratives linking itself to Russian hackers and considered it a successful effort at the time) was trying to attribute itself to Seth Rich.”
Fox News’ Fox and Friends reported on this story on April 10, stating: “Well a bizarre new twist in the murder mystery of DNC staffer Seth Rich. Could a former Playboy model be the key to cracking this case? 1980s Centerfold Robbin Young releasing a twitter conversation that she claimed she had with Guccifer 2.0, the hacker who exposed Hillary Clinton’s private email server. In the exchange, published by Wikileaks, Guccifer identifies Rich as the source of the DNC email leaks last summer, although it’s not clear if the messages are in fact authentic. Now Rich was murdered last July in Washington D.C. Police still have no suspects.” It is unclear if Robbin Young will be called to testify before the Intelligence Committee.
