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Is Matt DeHart Being Prosecuted Because FBI Investigated CIA for the Anthrax Leak?

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Buzzfeed today revealed a key detail behind in the Matthew DeHart case: the content of the file which DeHart believes explains the government’s pursuit of him.  In addition to details of CIA’s role in drone-targeting and some ag company’s role in killing 13,000 people, DeHart claims a document dropped onto his Tor server included details of FBI’s investigation into CIA’s possible role in the anthrax attack.

According to Matt, he was sitting at his computer at home in September 2009 when he received an urgent message from a friend. A suspicious unencrypted folder of files had just been uploaded anonymously to the Shell. When Matt opened the folder, he was startled to find documents detailing the CIA’s role in assigning strike targets for drones at the 181st.

Matt says he thought of his fellow airmen, some of whom knew about the Shell. “I’m not going to say who I think it was, but there was a lot of dissatisfaction in my unit about cooperating with the CIA,” he says. Intelligence analysts with the proper clearance (such as Manning and others) had access to a deep trove of sensitive data on the Secret Internet Protocol Router Network, or SIPRNet, the classified computer network used by both the Defense and State departments.

As Matt read through the file, he says, he discovered even more incendiary material among the 300-odd pages of slides, documents, and handwritten notes. One folder contained what appeared to be internal documents from an agrochemical company expressing culpability for more than 13,000 deaths related to genetically modified organisms. There was also what appeared to be internal documents from the FBI, field notes on the bureau’s investigation into the worst biological attack in U.S. history: the anthrax-laced letters that killed five Americans and sickened 17 others shortly after Sept. 11.

Though the attacks were officially blamed on a government scientist who committed suicide after he was identified as a suspect, Matt says the documents on the Shell tell a far different story. It had already been revealed that the U.S. Army produced the Ames strain of anthrax — the same strain used in the Amerithrax attacks — at the Dugway Proving Ground in Utah. But the report built the case that the CIA was behind the attacks as part of an operation to fuel public terror and build support for the Iraq War.

Despite his intelligence training, Matt was no expert in government files, but this one, he insists, featured all the hallmarks of a legitimate document: the ponderous length, the bureaucratic nomenclature, the monotonous accumulation of detail. If it wasn’t the real thing, Matt thought, it was a remarkably sophisticated hoax. (The FBI declined requests for comment.)

Afraid of the repercussions of having seen the folder of files, Matt panicked, he claims, and deleted it from the server. But he says he kept screenshots of the dozen or so pages of the document that specifically related to the FBI investigation and the agrochemical matter, along with chat logs and passwords for the Shell, on two IronKey thumb drives, which he hid inside his gun case for safekeeping.

Is it possible DOJ would really go after DeHart for having seen and retaining part of that FBI file?

For what it’s worth, I think Bruce Ivins could not have been the sole culprit and it’s unlikely he was the culprit at all. I believe the possibility that a CIA-related entity, especially a contractor or an alumni, had a role in the anthrax attack to be possible. In my opinion, Batelle Labs in Ohio are the most likely source of the anthrax, not least because they’re close enough to New Jersey to have launched the attacks, but because — in addition to dismissing potential matches to the actual anthrax through a bunch of smoke (only looking for lone wolves) and mirrors (ignoring four of the potentially responsive samples) — Batelle did have a responsive sample of the anthrax. Though as a recently GAO report made clear, FBI didn’t even sample all the labs that had potentially responsive samples, so perhaps one of those labs should be considered a more likely source. Batelle does work for the CIA and just about everyone else, so if Batelle were involved, CIA involvement couldn’t be ruled out.

So I think it quite possible that FBI was investigating CIA or someone related to CIA in the attack. It’s quite possible, too, that someone might want to leak that information, as it has been clear for years that at least some in FBI were not really all that interested in solving the crime. Even the timing would make sense, coming as it would have in the wake of the FBI’s use of the Ivins suicide to stop looking for a culprit and even as the Obama Administration was beginning to hint it wasn’t all that interested in reviewing FBI’s investigation.

But there’s something odd about how this was allegedly leaked.

According to Buzzfeed, the anthrax investigation came in one unencrypted folder with the ag document and a document on drone targeting the source of which he thinks he knows (it would like have been a former colleague from the ANG).

How would it ever be possible that the same person would have access to all three of those things? While it’s possible the ag admission ended up in the government, even a DOJ investigation into such an admission would be in a different place than the FBI anthrax investigation, and both should be inaccessible to the ANG people working on SIPRNet.

That is, this feels like the Laptop of Death, which included all the documents you’d want to argue that Iran had an active and advanced nuclear weapons program, but which almost certainly would never all end up on the same laptop at the same time.

And, given DeHart’s belief reported elsewhere this was destined for WikiLeaks, I can’t help but remember the Defense Intelligence Agency report which noted that WikiLeaks might be susceptible to disinformation (not to mention the HB Gary plot to discredit WikiLeaks, but that came later).

This raises the possibility that the Wikileaks.org Web site could be used to post fabricated information; to post misinformation, disinformation, and propaganda; or to conduct perception management and influence operations designed to convey a negative message to those who view or retrieve information from the Web site

That is, given how unlikely it would be to find these juicy subjects all together in one folder, I do wonder whether they’re all authentic (though DeHart would presumably be able to assess the authenticity of the drone targeting documents).

And DeHart no longer has the documents in question — Canada hasn’t given them back.

Paul told the agents that his family had evidence to back up their account: court documents, medical records, and affidavits — along with the leaked FBI document Matt had found that exposed an explosive secret. It was all on two encrypted thumb drives, which Matt later pulled off a lanyard around his neck and handed to the guards.

[snip]

If Matt is, in fact, wrongly accused, answers could be on the thumb drives taken by the Canada Border Services Agency, which have yet to be returned to the DeHarts. But without access to the leaked files Matt claims to have seen, there is no way to verify whether he was actually in possession of them, and, if he was, whether they’re authentic.

Though at least one person (a friend in London? Any association with WikiLeaks?) may have a copy.

Inside a hotel room in Monterrey, Mexico, Matt says he copied the Shell files onto a handful of thumb drives. He mailed one to a friend outside London, and several others to locations he refuses to disclose. He also says he sent one to himself in care of his grandmother, which he later retrieved for himself. When the subject of the drives comes up, Matt acts circumspect because, he says, he knows that our communications are being monitored.

There’s definitely something funky about this story. Importantly, it’s not just DeHart and his family that are acting like something’s funky — the government is too.

But that doesn’t necessarily mean the FBI thinks CIA did the anthrax attack.

CBP Repeats the Snowden Asylum “Mistake” with Matthew DeHart

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One of the favorite tactics of Edward Snowden’s critics is to call him a “fugitive” in Russia, emphasizing that he is avoiding US legal prosecution by hiding in an abusive country. As Glenn Greenwald noted yesterday, such digs ignore that Snowden has asylum, which is well-recognized especially in the case of espionage claims, as Snowden has been charged with.

CNN’s “expert” is apparently unaware that the DOJ very frequently — almost always, in fact — negotiates with people charged with very serious felonies over plea agreements. He’s also apparently unaware of this thing called “asylum,” which the U.S. routinely grants to people charged by other countries with crimes on the ground that they’d be persecuted with imprisonment if they returned home.

That background is instructive given the public report Customs and Border Patrol released the other day on arresting Matthew DeHart, who has been charged with kiddie porn but is actually wanted at least in part (even according to the judge in the kiddie porn case) because of his ties to Anonymous and maybe because of the document that reportedly describes something for which the FBI investigated the CIA which DeHart had on two thumb drives.

With the assistance of law enforcement partners, U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers at Peace Bridge Port of Entry arrested a traveler wanted under an indictment relating to production and transportation of child pornography.

On March 1, CBP officers arrested Matthew DeHart, a 30-year-old male, a U.S. citizen in the custody of the Canadian Border Services Agency, after DeHart attempted to enter Canada.  DeHart was wanted on a felony warrant from April 2013, for failure to appear at a court hearing on his indictment for production and transportation of child pornography.

“We work very closely with our Canadian counterparts,” said Rose Hilmey, CBP director of field operations for the Buffalo Field Office. “They were able to identify this person as wanted by American law enforcement, and returned him to the custody of CBP officers to face charges.”

DeHart was taken into FBI custody after a warrant and extradition were confirmed.

As Adrian Humphreys (the reporter who did the series on DeHart) noted, that characterization is wrong. DeHart was not extradited, but instead denied refugee status for torture. As the Courage Foundation (which is now supporting DeHart’s case) elaborated, the distinction in DeHart’s case is critical. Had the US asked Canada to extradite DeHart for espionage, it might have changed his status for asylum considerations in Canada.

Extradition is a process that would have been instigated by US authorities, whereas in Matt’s case he was deported at the behest of the Canadian authorities after he failed in his bid for refugee status and protection under the UN Convention on Torture.

This is significant, because if the US authorities had instigation extradition proceedings against Matt, they would have been forced to show their hand and file all charges before extradition was considered by the Canadian government. However, since Matt was deported, it leaves the door open for more charges to be filed. This is of concern to Matt and his legal team, since although Matt currently faces child pornography charges in the US — charges Matt vehemently denies — during extensive FBI interrogation sessions Matt endured, all the questions the agents asked were about Matt’s work with Anonymous, his connection to WikiLeaks, his former colleagues in the military, and issues related to national security. Because Matt was deported rather than extradited, it is still possible therefore that espionage charges could be filed.

There are two scenarios here. First, that the government’s concerns really are — which would be totally understandable — that a former drone operator with ties to Anonymous sought to defect to Russia and Venezuela and therefore presents a huge espionage concern. Even given what DeHart, by his own admission, admitted to (he claims, under torture), then the government could easily charge him with security related charges.

But they haven’t. Maybe they will — maybe that’s imminent. But they haven’t in several years during which they could have.

Alternately, they want DeHart because of those two thumb drives, which would represent an interest for the nation’s spooks, but for which DeHart would not be the guilty party.

The more they pull shit like this, the more it suggests this case is about the latter issue, the data that DeHart had on two thumb drives.

Matt DeHart Denied Asylum in Canada

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“It was an FBI investigation into the [Central Intelligence Agency’s] practices.”

Matt DeHart claims that all his troubles stem from a file uploaded, twice, to a Tor server he ran out of a closet in his parent’s home. An FBI investigation into something the CIA might have done.

After having seen that file in 2009, according to an important National Post series published last year (one, two, three, four, five) the government started coming after him. But not for his ties to Anonymous, Tor, and (DeHart thinks) WikiLeaks. But for kiddy porn. When the FBI came to search his parents house on a kiddy porn warrant, they seized every computer storage device they could find, but they didn’t find the two USB drives DeHart had hidden in his father’s locked gun case.

“But the only thing of value that would be interesting to the government, other than the server, were two IronKey [USB] thumb drives,” Matt said. Whenever he left his home he would take them with him, stuffed in his wallet; whenever he was at home he would tuck them behind the padding of his dad’s gun case that was kept locked and bolted to a wall. Apparently not knowing that, an officer asked the agent if they should force the gun case open. The agent said that wasn’t necessary and everyone left.

DeHart got buggy after this search, in ways that raise questions about his subsequent claims. Fearing the government would come after him, he went to the Russian and Venezuelan embassy and attempted to defect to both, with no luck. Instead, he went to Canada to go to school, to try to put his online activism behind him. But when he came back to the US to get a student visa on August 6, 2010 (not long after Chelsea Manning was detained), he was detained and denied his request to call his attorney. DeHart claims he was forcibly drugged and then asked questions that had nothing to do with kiddie porn, and everything to do with espionage. During this, the FBI presented him with a complaint accusing him of soliciting kiddie porn.

That evening, an agent showed him a criminal complaint — drafted only that afternoon — accusing him of soliciting the production of child pornography in 2008, according to both Matt and FBI records.

“I looked the guy in the eye and said, ‘I didn’t do that,’ and he said, ‘I know,’ ” Matt claimed.

In response, according to government documents, DeHart confessed to being part of a spy ring dating back to his service (before he was honorably discharged for depression) as a drone pilot. But DeHart said he did so because of the treatment used against him.

The FBI document recounts Matt’s new story, that when he was in the Air National Guard he met airmen interested in selling military secrets. One had remote access to a U.S. Department of Defense portal and another had a relative working with Air Force Special Operations, and Matt agreed to be their salesman.

That was what sparked his embassy visit, the document says, and Evgeny, the Russian, had told Matt he would have to contact the Russians from outside the United States if he wanted to close a deal.

“That is the reason DeHart moved to Canada,” the FBI’s summary says. Evgeny supposedly set up a Russian contact for Matt in Canada. “He was told he would be paid approximately $100,000 per month if the intelligence he gave was good” and was directed to send a secure data archive to a Russian contact in Canada. “He was supposed to meet his new contact in the Russian embassy in Ottawa on Saturday, Aug. 21, and they would give him a list of what they needed.”

By the end of that day’s questioning, Matt offered to co-operate with the FBI in a sting operation against the Russians and the airmen, the summary says.

Matt says the FBI account of his interrogation is “laughably inaccurate.” He has never been to Ottawa, is not a spy nor even a would-be spy, he said.

“I would have told them anything” because of the torture, he said. “Information that is derived from torture, to use it against somebody, is ridiculous. It’s garbage. I already said it’s not true.”

As this was happening, the FBI got DeHart to sign over access to all his online accounts associated with Anonymous, which they used to infiltrate the group.

One other thing happened while Matt was in custody, something both Matt and the FBI agree on: He relinquished control of his online accounts to the FBI.

After DeHart’s delayed presentment, the judge found the charges against him — kiddie porn, not espionage — were odd.

The court docket listed his arrest as taking place two days after it really had. After struggling to confirm the proper date — Aug. 6 — the judge wondered why Matt had not been brought to court before now. She also asked why the government had pulled out such seemingly stale pornography allegations — two years old — but was now arguing Matt posed a serious danger to the community. She even noted Matt’s computers had not even been analyzed for evidence of porn seven months after they had been seized.

Then DeHart was sent back to TN to stand accused on the kiddy porn charges. There was a lot screwy with the government claims on that charge (see this installment for details). Significantly, the judge in the case (after having read sealed documents on the national security investigation) agreed with DeHart that this was primarily about the espionage investigation and the kiddy porn charge was weak.

“The other investigation, the national security investigation, the court has learned much more about,” Judge Trauger said in her ruling.

“I can easily understand why this defendant was much more focused on that [national security] investigation, much more afraid of that investigation, which was propelling his actions at that time. He thought that the search for child pornography was really a ruse to try to get the proof about his extracurricular national security issues. I found him very credible on that issue.”

Judge Trauger also questioned the strength of the government’s porn evidence.

“Obviously, child pornography charges are serious offences,” she said. “I have learned several aspects of this case which, in the court’s mind, indicate the weight of the evidence is not as firm as I thought it was.”

That’s when, on April 3, 2013, the entire DeHart family fled to Canada and filed for asylum. For much of the time since, DeHart has been held in strict prison conditions, punctuated by bouts of mental health problems.

The entire story is bizarre. But one thing is clear: two US judges have been very skeptical this is all about kiddie porn.

To which a Canadian panel of immigration judges has now joined. They found there was “no credible or trustworthy evidence” DeHart solicited child pornography. Nevertheless, they rejected his asylum bid, meaning he will probably be shipped back here for — who knows what.

The IRB ruled that the United States “has a fair and independent judicial process” available to him where he can continue to fight his criminal charges and press his civil rights complaint.

[snip]

“The panel acknowledges that this particular claim is by no means a simple one,” wrote IRB adjudicator Patrick Roche.

“The principal claimant is alleging that he is being persecuted by the government of the United States, or agents of that government, for his perceived political beliefs as a hacker and whistleblower involved in leaking sensitive government information,” wrote Mr. Roche. “He alleges that he has been falsely accused of crimes in order to keep him incarcerated and he alleges that he had been drugged and subjected to interrogations without his constitutional rights.”

I admit there are crazy aspects of this story — particularly Matt DeHart’s attempt to defect to Russia out of what he claims is fear.

But as this drama moves back to the US, remember that, at least according to him, it comes down to the file that he presumably kept on those two USB drives, records of an FBI investigation into CIA acts.