Julian Assange has the evidence but will he reveal it? Theres an exciting new development in the Russia-gate investigation, one that has the potential to blast apart what is arguably the biggest hoax in the history of American politics.
Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-California) has met with Julian Assange the first US congressman to do so and returned with some spectacular news:. The Hill reports:
Julian Assange told a U.S. congressman on Tuesday he can prove the leaked Democratic Party documents he published during last years election did not come from Russia and promised additional helpful information about the leaks in the near future.
Assange has maintained all along that the Russians had nothing to do with procuring the DNC/Podesta emails, despite the intelligence communitys assertions offered without evidence that Vladimir Putin personally approved the alleged hack. Yet credible challenges to this view have emerged in recent days, including from a group of former intelligence officials, that throw considerable doubt on the idea that there was even a hack to begin with. Pressed for more detail on the source of the documents, says The Hill,
Rohrabacher said he had information to share privately with President Trump. Julian also indicated that he is open to further discussions regarding specific information about the DNC email incident that is currently unknown to the public, he said.
What this looks like is an attempt by Assange to negotiate with the US government over his current status as a political prisoner: he has been confined to the Ecuadorian embassy in London for many years. Hanging over him is the threat of arrest should he leave and his rendition to the United States to face charges. Could he be making a bid for freedom, offering to provide evidence of how he got his hands on the DNC/Podesta emails in exchange for a pardon?
Rohrabacher, who has a history as a libertarian fellow traveler, has been the target of a smear campaign due to his unwillingness to go along with the Russophobic hysteria thats all the rage in Washington, D.C. these days. Politico attacked him in a piece calling him Putins favorite congressman, and news accounts of this meeting with Assange invariably mention his pro-Russian views as if a desire to get along with Russia is in itself somehow subversive.
Its a brave stance to take when even the ostensibly libertarian and anti- interventionist Cato Institute has jumped on the hate-on-Russia bandwagon. Cato cut their ties to former Czech Republic president Vaclav Klaus because he refused to accept the War Partys line on the US-sponsored Ukrainian coup that overthrew the countrys democratically elected chief of state. But it gets worse. Heres Cato senior fellow Andrei Illarionov saying we are already at war with Russia:
First of all, it is necessary to understand that this is a war. This is not a joke, this is not an accident, this is not a mistake, this is not a bad dream. It will not go away by itself. This is a war. As in any war, you either win or lose. And it is up to you what choice you will make.
And its not just a cold war: the conflict must, says Illarionov, contain a military element:
First, in purely military area, it is quite clear that victory in this war cannot be achieved without serious adjustments made to the existing military doctrine. Certainly, soft power is wonderful, but by itself it does not deter the use of force.
While the rest of the country is going about its business with nary a thought about Russia, in Washington the craziness is pandemic. Which is why Democratic National Committee spokeswoman Adrienne Watson felt safe vomiting up the usual bile in response to Rohrabachers initiative: Well take the word of the US intelligence community over Julian Assange and Putins favorite Congressman.
The power of groupthink inside the Washington Beltway has energized both the neo-cold warrior hysterics epitomized by the imposition of yet more sanctions and the Russia-gate hoax to the point where it is unthinkable for anyone to challenge either. Yet Rohrabacher, whom I dont always agree with, has the balls to stand up to both, and for that he should be supported.
Assange has stubbornly resisted revealing anything about the provenance of the DNC/Podesta emails, allowing the CIA/NSA to claim that it was the Russians who hacked the election, and also giving them a free hand to smear WikiLeaks as an instrument of the Kremlin. This meeting with Rohrabacher, and the promise of revelations to come, indicate that he is reconsidering his stance and that we are on the verge of seeing Russia- gate definitively debunked.
We here at Antiwar.com have challenged the mainstream medias wholesale swallowing of the governments line from the very beginning. Thats because there hasnt been one iota of solid proof for blaming the Russians, or even for the assertion that the DNC was hacked. We dont accept government pronouncements at face value: indeed, we dont accept the conventional wisdom at face value, either. We always ask the question: Wheres the evidence?
Our credo gave us an advantage during the run up to the Iraq war, when the pressure to conform to what everybody knows was at its height. We said there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and provided a platform for the very few who warned that the invasion would be a disaster.
We were smeared as traitors for it, but were vindicated in the end. Its the same story with the whole panoply of interventions undertaken by the War Party in recent years: Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, etc. While the Washington know-it-alls were telling us to just trust them and all would be well, Antiwar.com told the bitter truth to the American people that our leaders were leading under over a cliff. And now that were at the bottom of it, were faced with yet more lies coming from the same sources and their lapdog media. The Russia-gate hoax is just the latest example and it wont be the last.
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We keep track of their lies for you and systemically debunk them. But we cant continue to do it without your support your financial support. The War Party never lacks for resources: the arms dealers, the neoconservative foundations, the political Establishment theyre all flush with ready cash. We, on the other hand, just have you, our readers and supporters.
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