Epstein Secrets

also finance and release Mediastan. This sponsorship suggests that the Russian government saw potential value in the document-gathering activities of WikiLeaks. Snowden telephoned Assange at his refuge at the Ecuador embassy on June 10, 2013. According to Assange, Snowden needed help for his exit plan. He w

| | Epst_9780451494566_2p_all_r1.z.indd 98 @ 9/29/16 5:51 Pa | | HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_019586 CHAPTER 11 Enter Assange Thanks to Russia (and thanks to WikiLeaks), Snowden remains free. —JULIAN ASSANGE, Newsweek, 2015 ULIAN ASSANGE had made a brilliant career of trafficking in state, military, and corporate

am headed by Richard “Rick” Ledgett, who was then director of the NSA’s Threat Opera- tions Center at the NSA’s headquarters in Fort Meade, Maryland. Ledgett was the logical choice to head the damage assessment inves- tigation because the center’s regional branch in Hawaii was under his command. Ledgett fl

n camera in his Hong Kong interview in June 2013 that NSA investi- gators would have “a heart attack” when they discovered the extent of the breach. Ledgett, the NSA official who had conducted the damage assess- ment, while not having a heart attack, confirmed that Snowden had taken a massive number of do

nly one door”: Gotta, e-mail exchange with author. 250 “A special operation”: Gridasov, Yavlyansky, and Gorkovskaya, “Secret Services in Moscow with WikiLeaks Conducted Operation Snowden.” 251 “If they [the U.S. government]”: Vanden Heuvel and Cohen, “Snowden Speaks.” 251 Overa hundred reporters: Irina Ga

es to Russia.” 41 Physical Phatness: Lindsay Mills’s Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com /lindsay.mills.90/about. 42. the first known document: Ledgett revealed this in an interview with Vanity Fair. Burrough, Ellison, and Andrews, “Snowden Saga.” 42 “He stole the [NSA] test”: Snowden’s obtaining th

“I, Spy.” “was moving copies of that data”: Burrough, Ellison, and Andrews, “Snowden Saga.” 45 he later pointed out: Bamford, “Edward Snowden.” 45 Ledgett subsequently reported: Burrough, Ellison, and Andrews, “Snowden Saga.” 45 This theft was made: Michael Hayden, interview with author. 46 “Icrossed

Instead of asking them to “throw off their chains,” as Marx did, he asked them to send clas- sified documents about secret government activity to the WikiLeaks site. Snowden, as a “sys admin,” was aware he had the power to do so. He recalled in Moscow in 2014, “I actually recommended they [the NSA] move to t

ell was transferring files held at Fort Meade to backup computers in Hawaii. He “was moving copies of that data there for them,” said Deputy Director Ledgett, “which was perfect cover for stealing the [NSA] data” through the fall and winter of 2012. The security mea- sures at the Hawaii base presented no o

ir IP addresses. Since Wikileaks did not know the identity of their sources, they could not be legally compelled to reveal them. "Tor's importance to WikiLeaks cannot be overstated," Assange said in an interview with Ro/ling Stone in 2010. Indeed without the anonymity provided by its TOR software, Wikileaks

position since the top- secret unit was responsible for discovering and countering the threats posed by Chinese, Russian and other adversary nations. Ledgett was also the logical choice to head the damage assessment investigation since the Center’s regional branch in Hawaii was from where highly-sensitive

it from Hong Kong. He placed a call to Julian Assange. HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_020256 105 CHAPTER THIRTEEN Enter Assange “Thanks to Russia (and thanks to WikiLeaks), Snowden remains free.” — Julian Assange Born on July 3, 1971 in Queensland, Australia, Julian Assange had made a brilliant career of trafficking i

se “bread crumbs” were missed by the NSA according to its statement. It is within the realm of possibility that the NSA Damage Assessment team under Ledgett falsified its finding to inflate the number of documents that Snowden stole. NSA executives also might have lied to Congress to the same end. But why