In the heat of New Zealand’s general election campaign in 2014, Kim Dotcom was scapegoated by mainstream media – obscuring Edward Snowden’s phenomenal revelations about New Zealand’s involvement in US mass surveillance, which were conveniently downplayed if not outright lost in all the furore.
The smear campaign worked so well that the lies about Dotcom’s actions surrounding Moment of Truth are being resold up to this very day – this time not just to pull the wool over the eyes of New Zealanders, but to actively deceive the entire world.
CNN is reporting that the family of the murdered DNC employee, Seth Rich, who internet entrepreneur Kim Dotcom has offered to testify leaked the DNC emails to WikiLeaks, has sent a letter to Sean Hannity’s producer at Fox News.
Hannity had famously invited Dotcom to discuss his revelations on Hannity’s show.
The letter from the Rich family to the Hannity producers is emotional and heart wrenching but is laced with demonstrable falsehoods.
How do I know this? Not by internet sleuthing. Not by hearsay. But because I am a journalist from New Zealand who was personally present before, during and after the events that are being incorrectly referenced by them.
The Letter
Screenshots of the letter appear below. Each demonstrable falsehood is sequentially numbered and addressed beneath.
Falsehood #1: “[Kim Dotcom] has been caught using fabricated email evidence to forward his own agenda and confuse people.”
Kim Dotcom didn’t use the email. It was leaked to the New Zealand Herald by an unknown source, prior. The Herald broke the story before the Moment of Truth event, claiming that Kim Dotcom would use the email at the event. He did not.
Falsehood #2: “In March, Kim Dotcom circulated a letter purporting to show a conspiracy against him.”
The email was not from March. The scandal surrounding the email happened nearly three years ago. Specifically, immediately prior to the September 15th, 2014 ‘Moment of Truth’ event. An event which was not about the email at all – but about mass surveillance. Edward Snowden, Glenn Greenwald, Julian Assange, Robert Amsterdam and Kim Dotcom, all appeared at the event.
Falsehood #3: “New Zealand law enforcement officials investigated the letter thoroughly and discovered without a shadow of a doubt that the letter was a forgery.”
According to the newspaper that published the leaked email, the “thorough internal investigation” by Warner Bros. occurred within a two-hour period: “The review would have taken place in just over two hours between the Herald asking questions of the studio and the response.”
In March 2017, New Zealand’s Serious Fraud Office said that they had concluded an investigation into the email that Dotcom didn’t use. I can find no direct link to that statement on their official website. Therefore all we know is what the NZ Herald said about it:“The SFO confirms that it carried out an investigation into this matter. As a result of that investigation, the SFO is satisfied that the email was a forgery.”
But no one seems to have any idea how the SFO went about establishing this as there are no further details about the specific investigation. The only statement that can be found is what an ex-employee of the SFO thinks might have been done:
Ironically, the allegedly standard method of gaining server access is precisely what the DNC did not allow the FBI to do in the #DNCLeaks case.
Falsehood #4: “[Dotcom’s] rush to judgment and willingness to push [the email in question] without first authenticating it shows he is all too willing to make outsized, harmful and misleading claims…”
If this statement were true, Dotcom would have gone ahead with presenting the email at the Moment of Truth event. But he simply did not.
So What About The Email?
The contents of the “forged” email made the following claims:
1. That the Warner execs had “a really good meeting with the Prime Minister.”
Prime Minister Key constantly boasted of successful outcomes at his meetings with American political and business leaders. The Leader of the Opposition publicly called for the “minutes, notes, briefings and emails” relating to the meeting to be released. As far as I can tell, they never were.
2. That the Prime Minister was “a fan” and “we’re getting what we came for.”
The long history of the Prime Minister’s willingness to accommodate Hollywood was a source of dissent in New Zealand. His government had changed labour laws to accomodate Warner’s demands, initially resulting in a boycott by the New Zealand ‘sister organisation’ of the Screen Actor’s Guild, the seriousness of which was deemed ‘ire in the Shire’, and uproar in Parliament. Business leaders lauded Prime Minister Key for giving Warner tax breaks, rebates and even government contributions to marketing costs for the movies.
3. That the Prime Minister told them “in private that they are granting Dotcom residency despite pushback from officials about his criminal past.”
Key claims not to have been aware of this, although the Campbell Live investigation seemed to indicate otherwise. But it has been proven that one of his Cabinet Ministers was briefed about it and lied about it.
4. That New Zealand’s Attorney General would “do everything in his power to assist us with our case. VIP treatment and then a one-way ticket to Virginia.”
The New Zealand government has done literally everything in its power and also things outside of its power in order to target Kim Dotcom on behalf of the US government.
Their shadiness is boundless. From illegal spying, retroactive law changes to indemnify themselves from the illegal spying and enable them to do it to other residents and citizens, to missing extradition documents, to invalid search warrants, to illegally shipping hard drives offshore, the list of shady government activities surrounding this case just goes on and on.
That, in the wake of all of this, Kim Dotcom could be accused of paranoia or conspiracy-theorising, is not only laughable but risible.
5. That “The DOJ is against the Hong Kong option. No confidence in the Chinese.”
This just comes down to common sense. Would the Department of Justice rather have New Zealand, which is essentially a vassal state, and at that time was run by an ex-Federal Reserve Bank of New York (yes, New York) investment banker – Prime Minister John Key – or would they rather raid Dotcom in Hong Kong and hope the Chinese were OK with it?
What Does This Mean?
It means either that the email was real and there has been a colossal cover-up, or that someone(s) forged an email and filled it with things that were already known and thus easily believable, hoping to bait Kim Dotcom into releasing/promoting it, so that they could then reveal the fraud.
Either way, the target is Kim Dotcom.
Other Issues With The Rich Family Letter To Hannity
The “vast conspiracy” that the Rich family would understandably rather not believe exists, is of a size almost beyond imagining to the average citizen. This infographic maps only a small part of the players proved by world-renowned investigative journalist Nicky Hager to be involved in the New Zealand end of it – a political smear network which included a Knight of the Realm, PR consultants, lawyers, bloggers, at least four mainstream media reporters, government authorities including the then Minister of Justice and Police, businessmen and political pollsters. Not to mention, the scandal-plagued now ex-Prime Minister of New Zealand, John Key.
The Web Gets Bigger
Zoom out to the political players in the United States of America who kicked it all off with the original FBI raid on Kim Dotcom and it’s even bigger. Chris Dodd. Eric Holder. Joe Biden. And even Obama himself.
The above video paints a damning picture and that is not some random blogger delivering it. It is arguably one of the most beloved mainstream TV hosts in New Zealand media history. Whose top-rating show, coincidentally, was placed ‘under review’ in the wake of his extensive coverage on these issues, ultimately leading to “the last beacon of investigative hope” walking. A journalistic tragedy which resulted in massive public outcry along with petitions, protests and upset colleagues.
Not to mention the political figures involved in the 7-year-long persecution of WikiLeaks and its journalists and staff. Start naming that list of US bureaucrats and you have most of the US government, across multiple administrations.
What does this have to do with Seth Rich? Well if he did indeed leak the DNC emails to WikiLeaks, then that is the cabal he found himself up against. Especially if that connection was, as suggested, facilitated through Dotcom.
What Snowden Really Revealed At The Moment Of Truth In 2014
1. Multiple NSA bases on New Zealand soil that no one had any knowledge existed. We had assumed the Takapuna Southern Cross landing site, smack in the heart of the North Shore of New Zealand’s largest city, belonged to us. It doesn’t. Snowden also revealed a facility in Whangarei in Northland. This is a huge deal for a Commonwealth country that believed itself independent and sovereign.
2. That for Snowden, “sitting at [his] desk in Hawaii”, spying on New Zealanders (or not) was a matter of checking or unchecking a tick box.
3. Snowden said: “I could be looking at a system in Japan, I could be looking at a system in Germany, I could be looking at a system in New Zealand and what was incredible about it was the fact that I could see records of the communications from people around the world, comprehensively… a federated search system, the NSA, along with the Five Eyes alliance, which includes New Zealand as a significant part of it.”
4. Snowden said that this is all enabled by a vast sensor network. He clearly stated: “I know that there’s mass surveillance happening in New Zealand because.. one of those sensor networks is in New Zealand. So when John Key or anyone in the New Zealand government says that there is no mass surveillance in New Zealand… it’s collecting the communications of every man, woman and child in the country of New Zealand..”
5. When asked explicitly by Glenn Greenwald whether the GCSB, New Zealand’s spy agency, was a willing partner in this collection on New Zealand citizens, Snowden said: “yes, absolutely, there is no question about it… and specifically yes, the GCSB not only uses XKeyScore, they’ve contributed to its development…”
But what was national news the next day? The Warner email.
At the Moment of Truth press conference immediately after the event, I filmed the New Zealand mainstream media completely ignoring Glenn Greenwald’s Snowden reporting while he sat right in front of them ready to be asked questions about it, while they instead hammered him and Kim Dotcom about the Warner email.
It was a total set up. A farce.
Why They Smeared Kim In 2014
It is important to remember the timing. Snowden has done dozens of such events now, but back in 2014, it was a relatively new thing to have him appear on a big screen revealing secrets of the spy agencies in person. It was in fact, a really, really big deal.
The smear was also engineered to quell dissent. The pre-Snowden 2012 revelations that the GCSB had been illegally spying on Kim Dotcom expanded to the realisation that actually at least 88+ New Zealand citizens had been illegally spied on. This outraged the public. A nationwide movement against the corruption of our spy agencies and massive protests swept the country.
I know this, because just as with all the 2014 Internet Party events, I had covered all the 2013 GCSB movement Auckland events. And this is what they looked like.
That dissent spread nationwide. The government’s ability to pass its band-aid legislation to cover up the illegal spying looked in jeopardy.
Ultimately, the response of the powers that be was to promise that the 2014 general election would be our chance to right any wrongs, and then to smear Kim Dotcom on a daily basis all the way through it.
Why Are They Recycling The 2014 Smear In 2017?
Simple. Because it worked in 2014. And while completely debunked in alternate media, by citizen journalists and those who were witness to it, the New Zealand public at large are yet to discover how badly they were duped. That is one of many injustices that is going to be righted in New Zealand this year, regardless of the outcome of the Seth Rich case, or of what happens to me.
But Why Didn’t Kim Dotcom Answer The Rich Family Email?
Remember – in the Rich’s letter to Hannity they stated:
“Earlier this week, I was approached by someone claiming to be Kim Dotcom via email. In my reply to this person who claimed to be Mr. Dotcom, we asked to have a discussion with him about the evidence, either in person or through legal intermediaries in order to collect the evidence and verify it with law enforcement before he publicly goes on TV making claims that haven’t been substantiated. There has been no response to that email.”
I wanted to know why Kim didn’t answer them. So I asked him.
His exact and total response to me:
“They replied to a message I sent to them two days ago. They asked for my lawyers to get in touch with their lawyers. I have forwarded the email to my lawyers and asked them to get in touch with the family to arrange for a conference call with the Rich family lawyers.” — Kim Dotcom
Well.
The Rich Family
I feel terrible for what the Rich family are being put through. Those aren’t just words to me. They may well have joined the ranks of a multitude of other grief-stricken families of political targets, of journalists, activists and hacktivists whose families I know personally.
It is abundantly obvious that people close to the Rich family are lying to them for reasons of political expediency and that is simply not OK.
The truth is the truth and I take the Rich family at face value when they say that they want to know it. Families usually do. The problem is, the truth is scary as hell. It also comes with grave implications.
If the choice is take on the political establishment, the media and a vast network of corrupt elites, or blame Kim Dotcom, then it is extremely tempting to take the latter option. All too easy, in fact.
Blaming Dotcom means staying on the good side of those who wield huge powers.
Taking on the establishment means inevitably becoming one of their targets, perhaps even more so than, knowingly or unknowingly, they already have.
No one envies the Rich family their situation. Everyone would forgive them for wanting nothing more to do with it. Many other families of targets have felt exactly the same way, or still do.
But there are many people who will rise to protect the Rich family, should they decide to start loudly asking the hardest of questions.
Foremost, I believe, the American people.
Written by Suzie Dawson
Twitter: @Suzi3D
Official Website: Suzi3d.com
Additional recommended background reading by the same author:
FVEY vs. Kim Dotcom
The Desecration of New Zealand
Just As Intended: The U.S. Election Is Tearing Us To Shreds
Journalists who write truth pay a high price to do so. If you respect and value this work, please consider supporting the Courage Foundation via credit card or Bitcoin donation at this link. They are at-risk journalists themselves who despite their own targeting, spend their time and resources on advocating for and protecting other whistleblowers around the world and they deserve your assistance. You can also donate directly to the Rich family’s attempt to find justice for Seth Rich at this link. Thank you!
[Update/January 2018] This post is now available at my Steemit blog