Michael Hastings Was Researching Story on Petraeus Takedown… FBI Denies Tailing reporter…

Friday, June 21, 2013 11:49

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Michael Hastings Was Researching Story on Petraeus Takedown… FBI Denies Tailing reporter…  updated

June 21, 2013

AP

 

(By Brian Bennett) – During the weeks before he was killed in a car crash in Los Angeles, reporter Michael Hastings was researching a story about a privacy lawsuit brought by Florida socialite Jill Kelley against the Department of Defense and the FBI.
Hastings, 33, was scheduled to meet with a representative of Kelley next week in Los Angeles to discuss the case, according to a person close to Kelley. Hastings wrote for Rolling Stone and the website BuzzFeed.
Kelley alleges that military officials and the FBI leaked her name to the media to discredit her after she reported receiving a stream of emails that were traced to Paula Broadwell, a biographer of former CIA director David H. Petraeus, according to a lawsuit filed in Federal District Court in Washington, D.C., on June 3.
Petraeus resigned from the CIA after publicly admitting that he and Broadwell had carried on an extramarital affair.
The story about Kelley, Broadwell and the Petraeus affair would have been consistent with topics that Hastings has focused on during his reporting career. His unvarnished 2010 Rolling Stone profile of Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top American commander in Afghanistan, led to McChrystal’s resignation. The story described the disdain McChrystal’s staff showed for President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden.
Since Hasting’s death early Tuesday, wild conspiracy theories have bloomed on the Internet implying that he was murdered by powerful forces wanting to silence him.
On Wednesday night, the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaksinserted itself into the story, publishing a message on Twitter that Hasting had contacted a lawyer for the organization hours before his car smashed into a tree on North Highland Avenue in Los Angeles.
The message read: “Michael Hastings contacted WikiLeaks lawyer Jennifer Robinson just a few hours before he died, saying that the FBI was investigating him.”
The crash is under investigation and there will be an official accident report after a toxicology test is completed in the coming weeks. Read more via the LA Times…

WASHINGTON – During the weeks before he was killed in a car crash in Los Angeles, reporter Michael Hastings was researching a story about a privacy lawsuit brought by Florida socialite Jill Kelley against the Department of Defense and the FBI.

Hastings, 33, was scheduled to meet with a representative of Kelley next week in Los Angeles to discuss the case, according to a person close to Kelley. Hastings wrote for Rolling Stone and the website BuzzFeed.
Kelley alleges that military officials and the FBI leaked her name to the media to discredit her after she reported receiving a stream of emails that were traced to Paula Broadwell, a biographer of former CIA director David H. Petraeus, according to a lawsuit filed in Federal District Court in Washington, D.C., on June 3.

• urnalist Michael Hastings dies; autopsy results will take weeks

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Petraeus resigned from the CIA after publicly admitting that he and Broadwell had carried on an extramarital affair.
PHOTOS: 2013′s memorable political moments
The story about Kelley, Broadwell and the Petraeus affair would have been consistent with topics that Hastings has focused on during his reporting career. His unvarnished 2010 Rolling Stone profile of Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top American commander in Afghanistan, led to McChrystal’s resignation. The story described the disdain McChrystal’s staff showed for President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden.
Since Hasting’s death early Tuesday, wild conspiracy theories have bloomed on the Internet implying that he was murdered by powerful forces wanting to silence him.
On Wednesday night, the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks inserted itself into the story, publishing a message on Twitter that Hasting had contacted a lawyer for the organization hours before his car smashed into a tree on North Highland Avenue in Los Angeles.
The message read: “Michael Hastings contacted WikiLeaks lawyer Jennifer Robinson just a few hours before he died, saying that the FBI was investigating him.”
The crash is under investigation and there will be an official accident report after a toxicology test is completed in the coming weeks.
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brian.bennett@latimes.com
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Email Sent by Michael Hastings Hours Before His Death Mentions ‘Big Story’ and a Need to ‘Go Off the Radar’

 

In an email sent hours before his death in a fiery single-car crash in Los Angeles Tuesday, award-winning journalist Michael Hastings reportedly wrote that he was working on a “big story” and was going to “go off the radar for a bit.”
The subject of the email was “FBI investigation re: NSA,” KTLA reports.

(KTLA)

A copy of the email, sent on Monday, was reportedly provided to KTLA by Staff Sgt. Joseph Biggs, who was a recipient of the email.
“Hey [redacted copy], the Feds are interviewing my ‘close friends and associates.’ Perhaps if authorities arrive ‘BuzzFeed GQ’, er HQ, may be wise to immediately request legal counsel before any conversations or interviews about our news-gathering practices or related journalism issues,” Hastings wrote in the email.
“Also: I’m onto a big story, and need to go off the radar for a bit,” he added. “All the best, and hope to see you all soon.” He signed the letter, “Michael.”
Roughly 15 hours, 33-year-old Hastings was dead.

FILE – This undated file photo provided by Blue Rider Press/Penguin shows award-winning journalist and war correspondent Michael Hastings. The Los Angeles County coroner’s office has confirmed that a body removed from a burned car wreck, Tuesday, June 18, 2013 in the Hancock Park area of Los Angeles is that of Hastings. Coroner’s Lt. Fred Corral says that the findings on the cause of death are deferred pending the results of toxicology tests expected in eight to 10 weeks. Credit: AP

In this June 18, 2013 photo, an LAPD officer investigates the scene of a fiery crash that killed journalist Michael Hastings, in the Hancock Park area of Los Angeles. Hastings died when his vehicle crashed into a tree and caught fire. Credit: AP

LOS ANGELES, CA – JUNE 19: Flowers are placed at a makeshift memorial at the crash site for award-winning journalist Michael Hastings on June 19, 2013 in Los Angeles, California. Credit: Getty Images

The new revelation will certainly do nothing to tone down the unfounded conspiracy theories that have been wildly spreading across the Internet. Many of the theories have implied that the journalist was murdered by powerful forces within the U.S. government.
“Hastings was researching a story about a privacy lawsuit brought by Florida [socialite] Jill Kelley against the Department of Defense and the FBI,” the LA Times reports.
He was supposed to meet with a representative of Kelley next week in L.A. to discuss the case, a source close to Kelley told the Times.
Sgt. Biggs told KTLA Hastings’ email “alarmed me very much…I just said it doesn’t seem like him. I don’t know, I just had this gut feeling and it just really bothered me.”
“I’m going to be willing to help and do whatever I can and make sure that people look into this story and make sure they find out whatever happened,” Biggs added.
WikiLeaks on Wednesday also alleged on Twitter that Hastings contacted a lawyer with the organization hours before his death.
“Michael Hastings contacted WikiLeaks lawyer Jennifer Robinson just a few hours before he died, saying that the FBI was investigating him,” the group wrote on Twitter.
The FBI denies that they were ever investigating Hastings.
Meanwhile, investigators are still look into what caused Hastings to crash on Tuesday. They are trying to find out if the car had a technical problem or if he may have had a medical condition that caused him to wreck.
Hastings wrote for BuzzFeed and Rolling Stone. He was arguably best known for his 2010 Rolling Stone profile that led to Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s resignation.