An elusive hacker using the moniker Guccifer was creditedearlier this week with infiltrating the email account of journalistSidney Blumenthal and uncovering a collection of highly sensitive memosallegedly sent to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Nowfor the second time in only a week, the person known only by athree-syllable screen name has provided yet another compilation ofcorrespondence that highlights America’s foreign diplomacy in waysthat are rarely made public this side of WikiLeaks.The first collection of correspondence, published by RT earlier this week, is believed tocontain classified emails regarding last year’s terrorist attack inBenghazi, Libya and shined a significant light on an event that,although culminating in the death of four Americans, remainsrelatively obscured from major discourse six months later. In theemails obtained by RT on Friday, though, Guccifer relays memosalleged to have been sent from Blumenthal to Sec. Clinton that diveinto matters regarding the January 2013 Algerian hostage crisisthat left three Americans dead, as well as info about the innerworkings of Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi’s office.Blumenthal, 64, has neither confirmed nor denied theauthenticity of the emails, and his son, journalist Max Blumenthal,told RT that his father would not comment on the leak. AOL,however, has admitted that the former White House aide’s accountwas indeed compromised. As with the correspondence detailing theBenghazi attack, though, the latest intelligence leaked to RT couldprove to be quite substantial if and when their authenticity can beverified. And given Blumenthal’s relationship with Washington’selite — he served as an aid during the administration of thesecretary’s husband, former-US President Bill Clinton — thelikelihood that the emails prove to be legitimate is not all thatunlikely.The four emails received by RT on Friday are all believed to besent from Blumenthal to Clinton from his since-compromised AOLaccount and include correspondence dated December 8, 2012, January18, 2013 and March 3, 2013. A fourth email, undated, discusses theJune 2012 election of Egypt’s Pres. Morsi and is annotated asoriginating “from an extremely sensitive source” and shouldbe “handled with care.”Cooperation in EgyptIn the undated email, senior intelligence sources explain howthe newly elected Egyptian leader plans to interact with the WhiteHouse during his administration and details other strategiesconsidered during the first days of Pres. Morsi’s term. Althoughthe Egyptian election went to Morsi, a member of the MuslimBrotherhood, the emails suggest that his office intended to workwith the state’s military, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces(SCAF), which governed the country from former-President HosniMubarak’s departure in Feb 2011 up until Morsi was elected thatJune. In particular, Morsi’s officials agreed that cooperation withSCAF leaders, Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, would beimperative during the early days of the then-infant presidency.“The SCAF officers reiteratedtheir previous position that Tantawi and the SCAF do not want torule the country, but they will not tolerate any move that limitseither their budget or their position of respect insociety,” the email reads in part. Later on, the sourceclaims that both the Muslim Brotherhood and SCAF leadership agree“that their first order ofbusiness together in the new Egyptian political situation will bedeveloping a coherent police towards Israel,” which would bedone by“maintaining the PeaceTreaty with Israel while limiting joint activity and cooperation onsensitive security matters.” To do as much, the source saysEgypt desired more solid ties with the US and other allied nations.Elsewhere, though, the source says that a relationship with theWest could mean connecting Egypt’s economy more seriously withthose in the West.Both Morsi and Muslim Brotherhood colleague MohammedBadie “are firmly committed to adual Islamic/Western banking system and good relations with Westernfirms,” another section of the email reads. “[Pres. Morsi] regularly states that the Westhas dealt with Saudi Arabia for many years, and the system heanticipates for Egypt will be far less restrictive than the one putin place by the Saudi rules. Badie also believes the fact thatMorsi was educated in the United States and has many good contactsin that country.”The fall of Morsi and help fromAmericaIn the second memo, dated Dec. 8, 2012, secret intelligentsources say that Morsi was already confident with his party’simpact on Egypt’s government, even if public opinion was stillsplit. “Morsi added that althoughthe ongoing demonstrations against his declaration of emergencypowers will continue, and, if anything, become more violent, hefirmly believes that at least 60 percent of Egyptian voterscontinue to support his efforts to eliminate the last vestiges ofthe regime of former president Hosni Mubarak,” it reads.“According to a sensitivesource, Badie and the leadership of the [Muslim Brotherhood]believe they are on the verge of reaching the goal of their 85 yearcampaign to gain control of the Egyptian government,” thememo goes on to state. In a separate email dated March 13 of thisyear, though, Pres. Morsi’s time in office is reflected as one thatcontinues to be marred with not just disapproval but demands forAmerican aid.As early as three weeks ago, Badie told sources that“while ongoing unrest in thecountry is worrisome,” a Morsi presidency would be likelyfor another year. In order to counter the stagnant level of unrest,the source said Morsi was working to develop policies that wouldallow for a $4.8 billion loan package from the InternationalMonetary Fund, which Badie predicted will lead to the US lendinganother $1 billion.“[Badie] added that [Morsi]interpreted [US Secretary of State John Kerry’s] statementsfollowing his recent visit to Cairo as indications that the USgovernment recognizes that the Morsi regime is working in goodfaith to reach an agreement with the IMF, and that this courseoffers the best chance for stability in Egypt. According to thissource, Morsi recognizes that the US expects him to take steps tostrengthen the economy and build political unity. He wasparticularly pleased to learn that the US will released $190million of the initial $450 million portion of the US pledge. Badieadded that Morsi felt that he and his team had convinced the USdelegation that these funds were needed to allow planned reforms togo forward, and that the various opposition leaders do not offercredible alternative solutions.”Algeria’s arrangement withterroristsBut perhaps the most significant of the leaked memos is one fromJanuary 18 of this year, roughly two days after al-Qaeda linkedterrorists operating under the since-slain Mokhtar Belmokhtar tookover 800 people hostage at a gas facility near In Amenas, Algeria.By the time the stand-off ended on January 19, 39 foreign hostageswere killed, including three Americans. But according to“a very sensitive source,”an informal relationship between the Algerian government and knownmilitants was expected to have thwarted such a situation.The source, speaking privately, claims that Algerian PresidentAbdelaziz Bouteflika “was surprised and disoriented with theattacks” because his government “reached a highly secret understanding withBelmokhtar” a year earlier. “Under the agreement Belmokhtar concentratedhis operations in Mali, and occasionally, with the encourage of theAlgerian Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure, attackMoroccan interests in Western Sahara, where the Algerians haveterritorial claims. The Algerian security officials fear thatJanuary 17 attacks might mark a resumption of the 20 year civil warand resolved to deal with the situation with extremeforce.”“According to these sources, thefate of the hostages is a secondary consideration in thisdecision.”From an unknown senderAs with memos obtained by Guccifer and provided to the mediaearlier, the hacker apparently attempts to cover his tracks bycloning the original documents and saving the text in an alternateformat. Once again with these emails, Guccifer appears to havecopied the text of the original memos, and then placed them in atext file — after changing the font to Comic Sans — where the finalimage was saved as a picture file.Since that breach, Guccifer has published at least eightincredibly sensitive emails, including the trove from earlier thisweek that linked the Algerian hostage crisis to the death of USAmbassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans in Benghazi lastSeptember. In those emails, intelligence sources said that al-Qaedain the Islamic Maghreb funded Mokhtar Belmokhtar, and that withthat money Islamic militants likely afforded both the Benghazi andAlgerian incidents.But perhaps as an attempt to back-up his alleged hack, Gucciferhas also this time included a series of other documents — namelyscreenshots from within Blumenthal’s inbox and an image of US Gen.Colin Powell and other men posing for a photograph.The screenshots supplied to RT, included correspondenceinvolving Blumenthal, Sec. Clinton, a former CIA agent and anattorney and journalist. Attempts to have those sources verify theemails have gone unanswered as well.Guccifer has previously been credited with hacking Gen. Powell’sFacebook and the email account of former President George W. Bush’ssister, in turn leaking a number of oil paintings purported to havebeen done by the president. The Secret Service has since claimed tobe investigatingthe breach. … Read More
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