UPDATE: The recent release of transcripts from congressional testimony revealed some startling information. CrowdStrike, the tech company tasked by the DNC and Hillary Clinton’s lawfirm Perkins Coie to determine how a treasure trove of John Podesta and DNC emails ended up snatched from DNC computers, made a shocking confession: They actually have zero proof Russians actually extracted the emails. You read that right. 

The president of CrowdStrikes Services Shawn Henry testified, under oath: “We did not have concrete evidence that data was exfiltrated from the DNC, but we have indicators that it was exfiltrated. There are times when we can see data exfiltrated, and we can say conclusively. But in this case it appears it was set up to be exfiltrated, but we just don’t have the evidence that says it actually left.” (emphasis ours.)

This is further proof that the meme “Russia hacked the DNC” — like so many stories sold by Obama’s officials and the media and held as gospel — is likely fiction. And remember, “Russia hacked the DNC” is foundational to the counter-terrorism investigation against the Trump campaign. George Papadapolous telling an Aussie diplomat he had heard Russia had dirt on Hillary supposedly indicated the Trump campaign knew what Russia had been up to, thus giving the FBI an excuse to launch a counter-terrorism probe. Also, it was the allegation that Roger Stone had pre-knowledge Russia had the emails that sent a SWAT Team charging into his house with CNN in tow. The foundation, it appears, is made of fairy dust.

This new revelation is a good time to bring back a story we published last year when the Mueller Report came out and slyly hid the lack of proof behind “Russia hacked the DNC” meme. It’s worth a second look. 

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The hyenas, their throats sore from a week of screaming “racist,” have taken a lozenge. Then restarted the chant of “Obstruction! Collusion!” On Wednesday, Robert Mueller is being dragged up to Congress to give Democrats the chance to breath life into the dead bones of the Russia hoax.

Yet, Mueller will also have to face questions from Republicans. Sooooo many questions. The Daily Caller‘s Chuck Ross has laid out 27 the former Special Counsel should be asked. The Federalist has 21. I have my own.

But I’ll start with one: Did you blow the big one?

Even Its Central Claim is Not Supported

Did you know Mueller does not even back up a central claim of his report? A claim repeated so often the past couple years that it is taken as gospel? The claim that “Russia hacked the DNC computers.”

Mueller’s narrative goes like this: The Russians military GRU unit hacked the DNC computers via fake hacker personas “DC Leaks” and “Guccifer 2.0.” GRU got the emails to Wikileaks. And Wikileaks published them. Mueller just couldn’t find evidence that Trump or his team knew about it or were involved in Russia’s interference in our election.

Certainly, if Mueller’s report did anything, it proved the Russians hacked the DNC computers. Right? After all, the ever-trusty James Clapper told us 17 intelligence agencies verified it. (Actually, he later admitted it was just four hand-picked agents, including Peter Strzok, but who’s counting?) So Mueller must have confirmed it. Well … according to liberal journalist Aaron Mate, Mueller did no such thing.

Mate has written a must-read, detailed analysis of the Mueller Report. His conclusion? Mueller doesn’t back up his claim of the DNC being hacked by Russia. In fact, Mueller uses hedges like GRU officers “appear to have stolen thousands of emails and attachments… .” We spent tens of millions and three years of investigations to hear the word “appear”?!

As Mike Huckabee noted, Mate also cites a report in the New Yorker by Raffi Khatchadourian. The documents released directly by Guccifer 2.0 were “nowhere near the quality” of the material published by WikiLeaks. Also, they contained “easily discoverable Russian metadata.” In other words, there were Russian footprints all over it. Even though, as an intelligence source tells The Stream, the Russians have long been masters at covering their tracks. It’s almost as if someone wanted us to think the Russians did it. Hold that thought.

Mueller also does not state with any certainty how the Russian hacks got to WikiLeaks. In the report’s own words, “The Office cannot rule out that stolen documents were transferred to WikiLeaks through intermediaries who visited during the summer of 2016.” Willie Wonka couldn’t come up with a fudge that impressive. Former FBI Special Agent Coleen Rowley tells Mate, “It’s certainly curious as to why this discrepancy exists between the language of Mueller’s [earlier Russian] indictment and the extra wiggle room inserted into his report a year later.”

Most amazing thing of all: According to Robert Mueller, Julian Assange is a time traveler.

Julian Assange, Time Traveler

As Mate puts it, according to Mueller “WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange announced the publication of the emails not only before he received the documents, but before he even communicated with the source that provided them.” Assange told an interviewer on June 12, 2016, “We have upcoming leaks in relation to Hillary Clinton, which is great.” Yet, it was two days later when @DCLeaks, citing the comment reached out to WikiLeaks and said, “We are ready to support you. We have some sensitive information too, in particular, her financial documents.”

The WikiLeaks release of DNC and John Podesta emails is pivotal to the Russia interference story. Naturally, you’d want to talk to Julian Assange, right? Wrong. Mueller’s team interviewed 500 witness across the globe. Yet they didn’t speak with the WikiLeaks founder. Why not, Mr. Mueller? Afraid the answers might not go your way?

They Didn’t Even Verify the Hack Happened

The FBI and DHS did not examine the DNC computers. The DNC refused to let them. Sure, the DNC could have had plenty to hide and would resist the eyes of the law peaking into their business. But why didn’t Comey’s FBI push the issue? We keep being told Russian interference was a threat to our very democracy, and yet the FBI was okay with being denied access to the crime scene?

They hit Roger Stone’s house with enough firepower to take down a small country, yet were too meek to insist on a peek at the DNC computers? Sure.

We were told the FBI was given a duplicate data base from a progressive tech firm brought in by the DNC called CrowdStrike, And from this, the FBI made its determination the Russians did it. Ah. Except the FBI now admits even that is not true. Roger Stone’s lawyers went to court to get the unredacted CrowdStrike report sent to the FBI/DOJ. The DOJ admitted it never got such a report. (Thank you, Sundance at TheConservativeTreeHouse.com.)

 

As Sundance says, “The FBI and DOJ were only allowed to see a ‘draft’ report prepared by Crowdstrike, and that report was redacted … and that redacted draft is the ‘lost version of the report produced’; meaning, there are no unredacted & final versions.”

And on this flimsy foundation all claims about Russia hacking the DNC rests. Every assumption, conclusion and innuendo by DOJ, FBI, John Brennan, James Clapper, the mainstream media, congressional Democrats … and one Robert Mueller. All accusations based on the word of a “hired contractor for the Democrat party.” And not contractor hired by just anybody.

CrowdStrike

Who paid for CrowdStrike to do the work? The law firm Perkins Coie. The same law firm hired by Hillary to create the Steele Dossier.

You read that right. The very same people who told you Trump had colluded with Russia in the 2016 election are the same people telling you Russia hacked the DNC. And they are given credibility why?

Take it one a step further: Perkins Coie was Hillary’s firm. And as former DNC head Donna Brazile said in her book, by spring of 2016, Hillary’s campaign was making all the decisions for the DNC. So it’s logical to conclude the decision to keep the FBI/DHS from the DNC computers came from Hillary’s camp. The same woman who deleted and destroyed at least 30,000 emails to keep them from investigators. And we don’t consider any conclusions by Hillary-controlled functionaries garbage … why?

Trusting a Clinton-funded tech firm with investigating the DNC emails is like trusting Clinton-pal Jeffrey Epstein with your teenage daughter. Yet Mueller swallowed its story … every single word of it.

So Who Lifted the Emails?

Julian Assange himself says the DNC emails came from inside the DNC. Assange associate and former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig Murray also said they came from inside the DNC. Murray claims they were handed to him in a DC park. Again, Mueller didn’t bother to interview Assange. And despite all the resources and intelligence capabilities of the US at his disposal, Mueller can’t even tell you how the Russians got the emails to WikiLeaks.

Is there technical evidence that puts Mueller’s claim in doubt? The Nation — not exactly Fox News — reported in 2017 on former NSA experts who laid out forensic evidence demolishing the Russian hack story. They say the evidence points towards a local download. For that matter, “NSA’s known programs are fully capable of capturing all electronic transfers of data.” In other words, if someone hacked the DNC and grabbed a bunch of emails NSA could flag it as easy as a cop nabbing a speeder.

The analysts even wrote President Obama Obama, “We strongly suggest that you ask NSA for any evidence it may have indicating that the results of Russian hacking were given to WikiLeaks. If NSA cannot produce such evidence — and quickly — this would probably mean it does not have any.”

As shown, Mueller has offered no such evidence.

So right now your choices are:

1. An insider downloading emails onto a drive and handing it over to a WikiLeaks middle man.
2. Careless, but technology-defying Russians hacking the system and Julian Assange traveling back in time to retrieve the data.

Option 1 is what WikiLeaks itself says what happened.

Option 2 is what the Hillary and DNC funded people behind the Russia Collusion hoax say happened — and Mueller’s team of anti-Trump activists accepted as gospel but did not prove.

The Final Wrinkle

Now let’s and another new wrinkle lost in the week’s hubbub. Not just a wrinkle, but a trigger for the Left.

Businessman Ed Butowsky claimed in a lawsuit filed last week that Julian Assange admitted he got the emails from Seth Rich. Assange supposedly laid the bombshell on Fox News analyst Ellen Ratner during a meeting at the Ecuadorian embassy. He allegedly wanted Ratner to pass the information onto Rich’s family. Ratner’s no random media figure. She’s the sister of Assange’s late lawyer, Michael Ratner. Who better to trust with the message?

Assange insinuated shortly after Rich’s 2016 murder that the young DNC staffer had been the whistle blower. Even offered a reward for the capture of his murderer. Of course, Assange’s claim has been dismissed as a deflection away from Russia. In fact, the first major journalist to trumpet the Trump-Russia Collusion hoax has just published an article arguing Russia was behind all the Seth Rich conspiracy talk. (Unconvincingly, one might add.)

And though there’s video of Ratner discussing her Assange meeting — and how Assange told her the emails came from inside the DNC — Ratner has not confirmed that Assange named Rich as the whistleblower. For that matter, Assange could be using Rich to draw attention away from the real DNC leaker.

The point? Robert Mueller did not even ask.

Which means when he sits there Wednesday attempting to defend a report so completely flawed, an investigation so clearly corrupt, attempting to perpetuate the sabotaging of the president, the first question must be, “What the heck were you doing for two years?”

Because it certainly wasn’t looking for the truth.

 

Al Perrotta is the Managing Editor of The Stream and co-author, with @JZmirak, of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Immigration. You can follow him at @StreamingAl. And if you aren’t already, please follow The Stream at @Streamdotorg.