Rogue Twitter activity on Julian Assange’s account, and mysterious deleted tweets featuring his name by a US military account, have sparked fears that the WikiLeak’s founder is missing or dead.
Late Sunday night, while most people were distracted by Christmas festivities, it was discovered that the page belonging to Julian Assange, WikiLeak’s political prisoner, had been taken offline.
The disappearance of Assange’s Twitter is particularly ominous as it follows a tweet in which he referred to a video naming Seth Rich as the source for the leaked Clinton emails as “Brilliant.” What’s more, around the same time Assange posted that tweet, masked men in black broke into the WikiLeak’s office amid rising threats from US intelligence actors.
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As CIA threats against @WikiLeaks heat up, at least three masked men dressed in black have broken into @WikiLeaks chief counsel Baltasar Garzón's legal office, blinding security cameras with tape, in a "very professional" operation say police. https://t.co/ao3nD3bk2c
— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) December 19, 2017
TFTP reports: Two days later Assange’s Twitter was back up and running, however Assange has uncharacteristically made no statement of his missing account. He also now appears to be following 25 accounts in spite of only following one user, the official WikiLeaks account, before the strange disappearance.
The number of people following Assange also drastically decreased. Adding to the cryptic nature of this event, the US Navy tweeted “Julian Assange” in quotes on Christmas morning.
This morning, an inadvertent keystroke by an authorized user of the U.S. Navy Office of Information's Digitial Media Engagement Team caused the trending term "Julian Assange" to be tweeted from the Navy's official Twitter account (@USNavy). (1/2)
— U.S. Navy (@USNavy) December 25, 2017
Julian Assange vs CIA
When WikiLeaks published thousands of DNC emails shortly before the Democratic Convention, which ultimately forced the resignation of four top officials, the Clinton campaign immediately blamed the Russians and proceeded to smear WikiLeaks as a Kremlin operation.
However, during an interview last year, WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange dropped a bombshell and suggested Rich was the WikiLeaks source.
This interview then became the subject of a YouTube video put out by Jimmy Dore which prominently features a clip of Assange discussing Seth Rich’s murder in relation to the risks his sources take.
After announcing that WikiLeaks would pay $20,000 for information leading to the conviction of Rich’s murderer, Assange went on an interview with Nieuwsurr. During the interview, Assange implied that Rich was his source.
Assange: Whistleblowers go to significant efforts to get us material and often significant risks. There was a 27-year old that works for the DNC who was shot in the back… murdered.. for unknown reasons as he was walking down the street in Washington.
Host: That was just a robbery wasn’t it?
Assange: No. There’s no finding.
Host: What are you suggesting?
Assange: I am suggesting that our sources take risks and they become concerned to see things occurring like that.
Host: But was he one of your sources, then?
Assange: We don’t comment on who our sources are.
Host: But why make the suggestion?
Assange: Because we have to understand how high the stakes are in the United States and that our sources face serious risks… that’s why they come to us so we can protect their anonymity.
Host: But it’s quite something to suggest a murder… that’s basically what you’re doing.
On Dec. 19, 2017, Assange referred to the video containing the interview as “brilliant,” in a Tweet, and then the WikiLeaks office was then raided by ominously dressed men in black. Coincidence? Possibly, however, the fact that Assange’s Twitter has now vanished raises some serious concerns.
Assange clarified the details of this break-in last week when he noted that the security cameras were taped over and no money had been taken.
As El Pais reports:
As if it were impossible mission, at least three people dressed in black broke into the Madrid offices of the former judge for National Court Baltasar Garzón. The alleged thieves were “very professional,” according to police sources. The suspects blinded the security cameras with tape. No money was stole, say police sources. But it does seem that they went through documents. It has not yet been determined what is missing.
The investigation is being carried out by the police as if it were “an attempted robbery.” They are waiting for technicians to check if copies of files have been stolen from the computers.
Also, as a report out of the Gateway Pundit noted, a source who works closely with WikiLeaks told the Gateway Pundit that they were not aware of any plans for Assange to deactivate his account on his own.
Many folks feared the worst after the deletion of Assange’s Twitter account, however, it appears that sources have confirmed that Assange is indeed alive.
It should also be pointed out that the mysterious deletion of Assange’s Twitter follows CIA threats against the media organization.
“I talked about these non-state actors, and it’s not just Wikileaks. Indeed I may have overemphasized them — they are an enormous threat, we are working to take down that threat to the United States as well, to reduce the threat from all of it,” CIA Director Mike Pompeo said in October.
Could this be that move to eliminate the threat? Time will tell.
