Is the Mueller report a hoax?

On May 17, 2017, Deputy General Rod Rosenstein appointed Robert Mueller III as special counsel to investigate allegations that Russians had hacked into Democratic Party websites for the purpose of influencing voters to support Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election.

It was believed in some quarters that the Russians had given Julian Assange’s Wikileaks a treasure trove of emails that had subsequently been released to the public.

On Dec. 12, 2016, six months earlier, the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), having conducted their own investigation, published their findings on Consortium News (consortiumnews.com), among other places.

VIPS found that no hacking had taken place. Well-acquainted with the inner workings of our intelligence agencies, these professionals knew that if hacking had occurred, the National Security Agency would know about it immediately. Furthermore, the NSA would know who had done the hacking and who had received the data. Plus, there would be no reason to withhold this information.

But that is not how the intelligence agencies, which are dependent on the NSA for information of this kind, responded to the allegations.

VIPS wrote the following in their December report: “The various ways in which usually anonymous spokespeople for US intelligence agencies are equivocating — saying things like ‘our best guess’ or ‘our opinion’ or ‘our estimate’ etc. — shows that the emails alleged to have been ‘hacked’ cannot be traced across the network.”

OK. No hacking. But how, then, did Wikileaks get that huge batch of emails that was embarrassing to so many? A “hack” consists of someone on the outside penetrating the cyber-security barriers of the target, such as the DNC’s website, and grabbing data. But there is another way that someone can get his or her hands on this information. That is through a “leak.”

Someone on the inside can do it by using a mechanism as simple as thumb drive, for instance. This method leaves no trace that information has been copied. Both Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning used the “leak” option.

Driven by the desire to pin this theft on the Russians, media owners paid scant attention to what the VIPS had to say about it. They turned the “our best guess” comment into confirmation. At this point, Russian hacking of the DNC and Hillary Clinton’s emails is accepted as if it was common knowledge, and is talked or written about in that way.

This brings us to Mueller and his report. It seems strange at first blush that Mueller would have accepted the hacking allegations whole hog. But there they are in a 34-page segment devoted specifically to “hackings.” Why didn’t he interview the VIPS? Or Julian Assange?

It now appears that he relied on a report by Crowdstrike, a private cyber security firm that certainly doesn’t have the vast collection of information or the technology of the NSA. But Clinton’s campaign paid CrowdStrike to discover how all that embarrassing information reached the hands of Wikileaks.

A review of Mueller’s previous assignments reveals that his mission has always been to protect the credibility of the CIA, the NSA and the FBI. In Boston’s Whitey Bulger case and the 9/11 tragedy, it was the FBI that he protected and in the BCCI corruption scandal as well as the Lockerbie bombing, it was the CIA.

This time around he gives cover to the NSA by assuring us that hackings occurred even though the NSA knows very well that they didn’t. The report is a hoax. It is similar to the fabrication in 2003 when Gen. Colin Powell went before the world at the United Nations and claimed that the U.S. had evidence that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.

Mary Wentworth lives in Amherst.

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